Giving Thanks
[An opportunity to give thanks and reflect on what makes all of this great beer possible.]
Buddhist, thinker, and activist Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote, “The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud.” He was referring to the grand inter-connectedness of the universe, describing how a sheet of paper is made up of many non-paper elements, because paper depends on rain falling on trees, trees that are harvested by loggers, to be made into paper by workers at a paper mill, which is printed on by bookmakers. Similarly, the craft beer we enjoy so much is made up of many non-beer elements. Rain falls on barley and hops, which are harvested, processed, transported and eventually used for brewing the beer you’re drinking right now. Along the way, much land and many lives made that beer possible.
This time of year, it’s common to pause, give thanks for the great bounty we enjoy, and relish in rare quiet moments with friends and loved ones. Often, in giving thanks, we show our appreciation for the things we are fortunate to have, but often neglect to consider what was required for us to have them. Stopping for a moment to consider the lives, miles, and acres behind each and every beer we drink can make us more mindful, appreciative, and worldly beer drinkers, as opposed to sometimes needy, zealous, and consumptive hobbyists we …
Drinking Ithaca Excelsior! Alphalpha last night brought this idea to mind. The ingredients and their origins were right there, blazed across the front of the bottle for me to ponder and mull, while I savored the supple beverage. Many beers neglect to give reference to where their ingredients come from, or how they’re harvested. This can be due to the fact that it’s not relevant, the brewer isn’t doing anything special, or because you don’t want to know (i.e. macro swill). In the case of Alphalpha, the origin of the beer’s ingredients really brought the story of the beer to life, because instead of just listing barley, honey, hops, water, and yeast, the brewer’s gave provenance to each element. The label reads: “A Hoppy Upstate Ale brewed with Barley Malt, New York State Grown Cascade Hops, Local Alfalfa Honey, Pure Cayuga Lake Water and American Yeast.” The only ingredient they neglected to finger the locale of was the barley, because as I note in my last post, it probably came from Idaho and was malted in Wisconsin. Consider, for a moment, the non-beer elements of the other four ingredients.
Hops are largely grown in the Pacific Northwest and Europe, so it’s notable to see a local hop used as the primary hop in a beer from New York. In the nascent days of pre-prohibition American brewing, upstate New York was a hop-growing hot bed, before disease impacted harvest and prohibition affected demand. Bringing this idea forward in time, it’s possible to mentally place yourself in one of upstate New York’s current hop fields, amongst the Finger Lakes, between land dotted with vineyards and farms. The hop contract may have been specifically sought out by the brewer, hoping to establish a source of local hops and playing to the locally-conscious, crunchy Ithaca crowd.
The use of honey in beer can be traced back to the early history of modern beer brewing, when everything was local, including the malted barley. Here, honey is used to, again, impart a sense of local community. Bees found pollen in fields of Alfalfa, which in turn will be grazed upon by cows or sheep, either as pasture or hay, and those livestock will eventually harvested, either as milk or meat. Many people are involved in this chain, from the farmer who planted the alfalfa, to the ranchers who fed their animals alfalfa, to the beekeepers who tended the hives, harvested, and processed the honey. The essential connection is that all of them relied on the land, over which flows rainwater, eventually bound for Cayuga Lake.
Water is the largest component of beer. Wisely and proudly, Ithaca highlights “Pure Cayuga Lake water” on their label. The Finger Lakes of New York are quite deep, very clear, clean lakes, originally formed as the result of the last glacial period. The quality of water in the Finger Lakes is a matter of pride in that region. Keeping the nearby land healthy is necessary to keep the lakes healthy, so that they can continue to provide high quality drinking (brewing) water.
American yeast is the broadest of the ingredients listed with appellation. However, it’s probably the most historic one. This is American beer, not Belgian, not German, not British. It may be harder to imagine a chain of lives impacting yeast, but within those little organisms lies the essential history of brewing culture. Yeasts need to be cultivated, kept, used and reused. In some way, every batch of yeast used has descended from a yeast who has been involved in every past batch of beer ever made that used that strain of yeast. Continuing to use that particular strain of yeast is an act of keeping the brewing tradition alive.
The number of connections that these five simple ingredients have with the rest of our planet is infinite. And while it’s possible to get caught up in the mind-boggling number of possibilities, the simple point is that every beer is interconnected and dependent on a long series of other people and places. This year, I’m going to try and go beyond thankfulness for what I have. I’m going to try and be thankful for how I have what I have, to be thankful for healthy water, healthy land, my livelihood, and the livelihoods of others. In this way, it may be possible to appreciate a special occasion beer that much more.
