A Saint Patrick's Day Miracle

I had written the beer - an Irish red ale I brewed for no reason other than dad told me to - off as yet another near-accomplishment. It tasted fine; grainy up front, a little chocolate, and then the slightest Fuggles underpinnings. But for the past month it had failed to carbonate. Every time a cap gave way to the leverage of my utensil drawer handle, only the faintest of hisses could be heard. Poured perpendicular to the glass, only intermittent and soapy bubbles floated like toad spit on top.

It's a process I am woefully under-read in, natural carbonation (also known as bottle conditioning.) I understand the theory: whatever yeast is still in suspension after the bulk of fermentation is complete begins to metabolize newly introduced sugars under pressure in a capped bottle. The two by-products of this second fermentation are alcohol and carbon dioxide. Now that the CO2 has no place to go (earlier, during the real fermentation, an airlock allows gas to escape but not enter) it stays put, carbonating the beer and creating the bubbles responsible for the prickly feeling on your tongue.

But while I understand what is happening (in those batches that do manage to gas up), I rarely am able to cause carbonation with any degree of consistency. I've used carb-tabs, little pills dropped into individual bottles, but those tend not to disintegrate and then re-integrate with the beer, and instead sits like an impregnable fortress of sucrose at the bottom of the bottle. I've tried priming sugar (sold in baggies and resembling extremely cut dope) which is boiled in water and added to the bottling bucket before racking (brewspeak for transferring) in hopes of a uniform dilution and therefore carbonation. This never happens. Most of the time, three-fourths of the bottles will pour like I've described above, two will sport a nice head with tight bubbles, and the rest are gushers (which, as the name implies, causes me to rush for the sink lest I spend even more money renting a carpet vacuum.)

These beers had done nothing but fail me. I didn't feel confident to give them to any real beer-drinking friends, as the shortcomings of a poorly-carbonated beer are a considerable cause for embarrassment, but most of my non beer-drinking friends (you caught me) wouldn't be drinking them anyway. However, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I had not only an Irish beer, but an Irish beer I had made.

I took the 22 oz bottle out the the fridge, made an about-face towards the counter, and placed the neck at a forty-five under the drawer handle.

Psst.

A haze floated out of the bottle, drifting in whatever draft the kitchen had picked up. I didn't allow myself to believe that I might have a beverage passable for beer. I poured it directly to the floor of the glass, not redirecting it to the wall in an attempt to quell a carbonation that I dared not trust was there.

It foamed. I enjoyed.

Relax. Don't Worry. Have A Chicha.

Mi hermano poco y yo caminamos en un cabana-

Lo siento.

My little brother and I walk into a hut, dried earth bricks ascending from a packed earth floor. Purple plastic bags shaped like a flower hangs above the doorway, the universal sign in rural Peru for "welcome Gilliam boys, you've found us." We take a seat at the sole table, and a stout elderly woman in the Andean garb walks out of the adjacent room to greet us gringos.

"Dos chichas, por favor" my little brother Lee says. He's been studying Spanish in Cusco since January, and this is easily the least impressive thing he's said so far (the most impressive was, upon arriving in Cusco, watching him talk a cabbie down from 14 sols to 4 for a ride into the city ["CATORCE? No, vivo en Cusco, cuatro.])

The woman smiles and shuffles into a corner where two 30-gallon earthenware pots sit, one covered with a towel, the other un-lidded. She doubles the towel over itself, unveiling what is undoubtedly to my homebrewer's brain a krausen, the foamy cap that tells a brewer that fermentation is taking place. She takes a ladle (brushed aluminum, a stark juxtaposition to the very homely surroundings) and spoons out two huge glasses. Seriously, something like thirty ounces (I wonder how many milliliters that is?)

For two sols apiece (about seventy cents) Lee and I cup massive glasses (really, these put the Taphouse to shame) of a lukewarm drink resembling a yeast starter. It kind of looks like a beer; it has a substantial head on it, although not from carbonation, but rather the yeast still metabolizing whatever had been mashed (my guess is corn or maybe chocle, which is a massive corn.) It takes a moment for both of us to summon the courage to taste this, and I take the quiet before the storm to sniff.

Tangy. Yeasty. Not at all like any beer I've ever wanted to try. I feel around with my olfactory, trying to push past the deep sour edge to find anything floral, grainy, or bitter. No such luck.

Oh god, this beer is horrid. I want desperately to enjoy this, but as it explodes down my gullet in a mushroom cloud of tepid greenness, I can't help but wonder if this was a good idea. I have to channel Mr. Papazian (there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens that can survive in beer, there are no known pathogens...) to calm myself.

Lee is watching me. I hold a thumb up, trying to hide the grimace peeking around my fist, and gulp a bit before telling him "try some, it's good." He does not seem convinced, but pinches his nose and takes a sip.

"Pah-guh-pih-suh-pap" come the noises that are the Gilliam signal for "this is something foul." We giggle. I tell him not to pinch his nose, that he needs to really appreciate it. He does not take another sip.

I begin to gulp the starter (which is beginning to settle out, though the krausen is still bubbling) in a manner that would make a frat boy proud, although I can't imagine any polo shirts leaning against dried mud bricks. I feel smug satisfaction at my ability, my experience.