Ale - the lowdown

[Guest guest]

Three mentions of heather ale - and after three... something has to happen!

So here's the lowdown on heather ale, as far as I can remember after

drinking the stuff. Yes, this ale is alive and kicking. It's brewed by

Bruce (really, that's his name - two ish hero's for the price

of one)at the Thistle Brewery in Alloa and sold under the name of " Fraoch "

ale or " Leann Fraoich " as it's more properly called is unusual in

that heather tips are used instead of hops. I have it on good authority

that hops don't grow in Scotland. So you use what you've got, right?

Anyway, it seems that heather ale has a long history, for archaeologists

discovered a neolithic shard on the Isle of Rum containing traces of a

fermented brew made with heather flowers, and dated it to 2000 BCE. Be that

as it may heather ale has become associated with the Picts.

In the Pictlands lived a folk who's own name for themselves is unknown. The

Greeks called them Priteni and the Irish called them Cruthni - both mean

the people of the designs. They must also have been the people of the brew

as heather ale is attributed to them.

According to legend a Scots (the Scots came originally as invaders from

Ireland) king, after killing all the Picts in battle, wanted the recipe for

the famous heather ale. He found two survivors by a cliff, a Pictish chief

and his son, and began to torture them to gain the secret recipe, the Pict

agreed to tell if they would kill his son quickly. After the boy's body was

thrown from the cliff, the Pictish chief faced the King and said:

" But now in vain is the torture,

fire shall never avail,

here dies in my bosom

the secret of the heather ale "

Then he threw himself at the King and they both fell from the cliff. The

moral of the story presumably being that tyrants should stay away from

Picts and precipices.

Another tale about heather ale tells the origin of Whiskey - The raiding

party of a Highland clan had come home from a successful cattle raid on a

cold autumn night. As they sat around the hearth telling of the skirmish

they warmed their heather ale over the fire. The steam from the hot ale

cooled against the stone roof and dripped into a drinking cup. One of the

clansmen, surprised to find his glass full when he thought it empty drank

the contents. The drink put such a wonderful fire into his cold bones he

proclaimed he'd just drunk " Uisge-beatha " - the water of life. The

Sassanach called it whiskey, since they didn't have the Gaelic, which

wasn't so bad compared to some of the other things they did to it - like

putting ice in it.

It seems that heather ale remained a popular brew throughout the middle

ages since the after the union of parliament a law was passed prevented

brewers using any ingredients other than hops and malt. Possibly this was

in same the same line of legislation which outlawed the wearing of the Kilt

and speaking Gaelic though presumably it was also a protectionist move to

benefit the hop growers in the south of England. So eventually heather ale

only survived in the more remote parts of the highlands ands islands where

the illicit distillation of whiskey also flourished along with the

language. Though I suspect the only Gaelic visiting excise men heard was

" Pog mo thon! " (kiss my arse!).

So what does it taste like I hear you murmur impatiently - well those of

you with a well developed sensation function anyway. Well as our local ale

expert Alice said " delicious " . Strangely enough it's not flowery, more

spicy and malty. One of the things I like about it is that it's not gassy

like most of the beers brewed here on the Continent.

Should you wish to try it yourself I believe it's fairly widely available,

at least in USA.

See ya, hic

Mac