The Poet, New Holland Brewing Company

Today’s beer has in a roundabout way gotten me thinking about heaven.  It’s called The Poet and its label is a raven in the night.  A pretty clear allusion to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem named after the bird.  From my reading of it, the crux of the work comes in two stanzas near the end.

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -

Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -

On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -

Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

In the first stanza the narrator learns that his ceaseless mourning has deprived him of the promise of heaven.  Worse yet, in the second stanza he learns that he’s also lost heaven for his beloved Lenore as well.  If heaven had never existed, the raven would have said “no,” but it pretty consistently sticks to “nevermore,” pinning the blame on the bereaved lover.  It’s all kinda giving me second thoughts about drinking New Holland’s Poet, but it is an oatmeal stout.  Also beer.

Bubbly bubbly head.

The second thing I noticed about the label was that the moon is upside down!  The basalt lava plains mostly occupy the northern hemisphere of the near side, duh!  I’ll just focus on the glass.  This looks pretty darn good.  The aroma hits me with lots of milk chocolate.  The crystal malt brings the sweet feeling of smugly enjoying esoteric poetry.  It ties a rope around your waste and keeps you from losing yourself in the deep, dark abyss of the chocolate malt.  Each sip is a tightly controlled descent into the enveloping unknown while always tethered to safety.  Subsequent visits to the aroma as the beer scurries down the glass reveal the hop notes hidden in the 37 IBUs.  This is squarely a tasty beverage.  Even the tactile senses of the mouth get to revel in it’s velvety smooth texture.  No banishment from celestial existence here!

Poe was not at all the only poet to muse over the concept of heaven.  I recently encountered End of the West where Michael Dickman describes a quasi “What Dreams May Come” image where heaven is whatever you want.  The last page of his Wang Wei: Bamboo Grove reads,

You know

how we are going

to disappear

into the dirt forever

Or burn

into the sky

into oceans

Well, I love this about us

and I want to be able to do it

all by myself

It won’t be scary

or cold

Not like what they told us at all

If the are spiders

and there will be

spiders

they will not kill us

in our

New Cities

In the next poem, End of the West, he goes on to describe four of these “New Cities.”  Each one a personal heaven for a loved one and one for himself.  We all get a heaven that we construct through our experiences and desires.  Or maybe it’s even closer than that.  In a more straightforward way, Helen Lowrie Marshall wrote,

Heaven’s not a fenced-off place

In some far distant sky,

Nor is Eternity consigned

To some sweet by-and-by.

Heaven lies in every

Ordinary, common day.

We make our own Eternal life

Each step along our way.

Eternal time is measured

By a common hourglass.

We glimpse a bit of Heaven

As hours and minutes pass.

We only need the eyes to see.

The heart to count its worth,

To make our own Eternity

A Heaven here on Earth!

Three different poems from three very different directions that all have one thing in common.  They all paint an intrinsic link between the here and now and heaven.  Whether it’s Poe’s heaven that can be brought in and out of existence by our commitment to living, Dickman’s heaven that is formed by our life before death or Marshall’s heaven that is this present life, the onus is on us.  Heaven will not just come scoop us up one day.  We have to take charge of it.  Man!  I should start wearing floaties before reading poetry because it is getting deep!  Beer is such a small thing, insignificant when compared to the fundamental workings of the universe.  But I for one think it’s not a terrible place to start.  Even if it doesn’t know what direction the moon goes.  Cheers!

Dragon's Milk, New Holland Brewing Company

Today’s beer comes from New Holland Brewing Company, which is based in Holland Michigan.  This city has another, more hidden claim to fame in that all those WWJD bracelets you saw in the 90s got their start here.  I want to point out that “Holland,” even though many people treat it as a synonym of “The Netherlands,” is actually only one region in that country.  Using those terms interchangeably is kind of like calling Massachusetts “Boston” or Iceland “Reykjavik.”  Anyway, the brewery this city in Michigan houses brews a stout called Dragon’s Milk.

Wow, that's dark!

That, is a dark beer.  It doesn’t produce a huge head, but what head it does have is thick and creamy.  You smell a lot of charred malt, but not in an overly harsh way.  It entices you with the promise of being a stout that won’t hurt you.  This promise is tested when you sip.  The first word that comes to mind is “bam,” with all the imagery of Emeril Lagasse throwing a handful of garlic into a flaming pan attached.  The dark, roasty flavors make themselves known along side a prominent 10% ABV.  But that’s not the whole story.  The assault doesn’t continue after that initial burst.  It’s like someone who comes off as crass and ill mannered but turns out to be a nice guy with lots of interesting things to say.  This anti-judgement lesson goes even further when you take into account my second pour.

Hmm...  Something's different...

After warming up a bit, a much larger head was drawn from the bottle, leading to a denser smellscape.  Not necessarily more aromas, but it’s a lot easier to smell them.  Back to that taste, though.  Even though the alcohol and sharp char hit you pretty hard, they get out of the way and let you enjoy your beer, resulting in an overall experience that is not harsh at all.  I’ve mentioned before that most stouts either lean more towards dark chocolate or black coffee.  Dragon’s Milk sidesteps these two by putting the emphasis on malts that taste dark themselves rather than like other dark things.  The clone recipe that’s been floating around for several years now includes crystal malts at 80 and 120 lovibond.  To put that in perspective for non brewers, the first chart on this web page categorizes anything greater than 25L in the “start of full black” segment.  That’s even before you add in the chocolate malt, which clocks in around 350L!

Overall, Dragon’s Milk is a fantastic beer.  It illustrates quite clearly the paradox between the burnt flavors and unfermentable sugars of the darker malts.  (Although that clone recipe does include flaked oats and wheat malt that could be adding some enticement...)  Last week I spent some time musing on beers possibly representing a certain political personality and that was a lot of fun.  Dragon’s Milk brings a certain person to my mind and that would be Mitch Mahoney.  Yes, the scary comfort counselor who escorts the eliminated contestants from the 25th annual Putnam County spelling bee stage.  He may be an ex-convict clocking community service hours, but his heart is in the right place as he tries to help the kids deal with their loss.  Dragon’s Milk may not be a wheat beer, but it strives to comfort you with smooth encouragement even though it comes from a rough style.  That makes it all the more touching.