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Mashing in Masham (A Tour of Theakston Brewery)

October 15, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Against a backdrop of rows of ivy-covered cottages, tiny winding Yorkshire roads lined by impossibly close hedges, and the idyllic contrast of bleach white cricket uniforms on verdant green, that unmistakable pungent waft of yeast lets you know there’s a brewery nearby. You can see it from the road, but unmarked and austere it looks like any old industrial remnant in a small English town; one square, stone smokestack rising up like a Gulliver among Lilliputians.

You have to search a bit. First for a place to park in the crowded but lively square of Masham town, second for a sign that actually points you in the direction of the brewery. Down a side road, past some private residences. Through a stone alley with a slowly rusting black iron gate. Under a long pergola shaded in fragrance by thousands of budding, nascent hops. Finally to a little patio that welcomes you, cheerfully, to the “Black Bull in Paradise.”

Tucked back in a cozy alcove of the town like a beery nest for migratory drinkers, there’s an old cooper’s house grinning the same stone and wood smile (plus some minor dental work) it has had on its face since 1827. To the right, a darkened doorway leads into a room with a low ceiling, exposed beams, and a rough stone floor. To the left there’s an impromptu beer garden, framed neatly by a rainbow menagerie of empty casks (not kegs!), all awaiting their filled fate.

A brief stroll through a surprisingly stocked gift shop and past two green-clad employees, will drop you into the quaintest of pubs, half ripped from a Tolkien novel, half planted firmly in reality, all the English whimsy a beer-minded American could dream of. This is no modern, urban American tap house; only 6 pulls line the bar with perfect parallel panache, each connected to a classic beer engine, with nary of molecule of carbon dioxide to be found in the entire building. You overhear a patron mention malt between sips of his Black Bull Bitter; a cheery woman at the end of the bar waxes brewlific about the
protein of two-row barley, and how to combat inevitable haze. Her vocabulary has all the hallmarks of a brewer, so you gently inject yourself into the conversation. Lynne. She’s not a brewer, but your tour guide.

Lynne leads the small group, six plus your party of five, back under the hoppy pergola, down a different side alley, past freshly painted red windows and doors. As she walks she talks, giving a brief history of the nearly two hundred year old brewery, describing the founding, sale, merger, and eventually reacquisition of the facilities to bring it back “under old management” in 2003. It’s impossible to ignore the stark difference of the building – and its history – when compared to the contemporary breweries you’re used to, State-side.

Her green shirt like a green light to explore the premises, Lynne leads you up some worn stairs to a room piled high and wide with bags of Simpsons Malt. A large pulley-powered conveyor lifts the fifty pound sacks to the top floor of the building; the first in many steps to use gravity (not pneumatics) to move and brew beer in the classic tower-style brewery. Several winding red staircases later and you’re at the very top, in a room that smells like Sunday morning; toasted bread and sweet cereal. The mill cracks the grain at the apex so that it can be easily passed into the lauter tun, one room away and about 5 feet down. Before leaving, Lynne describes all the ingredients – from the pale and crystal to the Bramling Cross plugs. Each in the group takes turn cracking the malt between their teeth. Some smile at the surprise sweetness, others cringe after crunching too hard on some astringent roasted barley.

You stop at the sadly empty lauteur tun. It’s a behemoth, ringed by cast iron, topped with a braced and riveted wooden lid. Lynne explains that it’s almost original, and the cast iron bowl only had to be replaced once in 187 years of brewing. The wooden top, subject to hours and days and years of hot mashing, hasn’t managed the same longevity. Across the open room but one platform down, between two catwalks, the copper kettle gapes its maw at you, like it’s yawning out of boredom from not having any wort to boil. When you look back again, it’s physically unchanged, but this time it looks like it’s laughing, grinning, very pleased with itself that it gets to make beer soon, and you don’t.

Without much else to show, Lynne’s green shirt descends again, this time pointing out the tubes and valves that carry the wort from the kettle onwards, to the “basement” of the brewery. This basement turns out to actually be on the ground floor (but still lower than the kettle) where like massive pans of rising bread, the beer ferments in open top containers. You resist the urge to dive into the feet-deep krausen froth, but flash Lynne a cheeky smile. She laughs, like she can read your mind. As she moves the tour forward, you sneak into a side room to admire the neatly lined up samples of various beers; quality assurance turned art, accidentally.

Finally gravity’s natural decline brings you to the logistical heart of the brewery, where some more familiar processes and equipment greet you with shining brilliance. But while the stage may look the same, the actors play different roles; where an American brewery worker protects and primes kegs with shields of C02, these casks are filled with fresh, uncarbonated beer, giving them a shelf life of a few weeks, not a few months. The casks look fatter, jollier than their American counter parts, with a round hole that must be plugged and hammered to keep the beer inside from the harsh oxygen outside. The full casks travel down a conveyor to awaiting trucks, who, if everything goes to pubby plan, will return, empty, to the brewery in fewer than thirty days.

Back in the Black Bull, Lynne lets you sample the products of the mashing Masham marvel you just toured, pulling third pints into branded glasses, letting the creamy head settle, then explaining the recipe behind each. A pale, subtly citrus wheat beer plays guest this month, mainly in celebration of the large bicycle ride that passes through Yorkshire each summer. A roasted barley number called “Smooth Dark – Extra Cool” is not very cold compared to American beer, but that hardly matters as your head swims in the delicate balance of coffee, chocolate, and sweet grain. The rest of the line up echoes English brewing tradition; heavy malt melodies with very, very subtle hop accompaniment, smooth, low alcohol, all approachable, none too challenging for even a novice palate. You try to pick a favorite, but can’t really, because they’re all so exotic when put head-to-head against the 7% ABV, aggressively hopped IPAs of home. Each is very good, and you half-plan how to get a cask past those pesky TSA agents on your trip home.

Noting your fascination and legitimate interest, Lynne lets you pull some pints. She invites you back behind the bar, something you’ve never done before (especially not in a brewery taproom in England), and gives you a quick tutorial on the “two hard pulls” needed to first set the head, then finish filling the glass. The engines feel substantial and heavy, even sticky, and each satisfying pull connects the muscles in your arm to the beer itself, makes you feel like you earned that beer, didn’t just have some forced gas rush through a line and dump it into the glass for you.

You don’t really want to leave. There’s something in the whimsy, in the deliberate, old-fashioned methods that speak to you, remind you that every pint you sip carries with it ancient tradition. You thank Lynne, who oddly thanks you back, and make your way for the door. Before you leave, you grab two souvenirs – a pair of half-pint glasses with the Theakston logo printed on the side. The rules of the airline may not allow you to check a full cask of beer, but you’re pretty sure they’ll be OK with you carrying your memories on, 10 ounces at a time.

See below for a full gallery of the brewery tour.

A Year Without

August 12, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

At this point in my life, given my hobbies and my heritage, I shouldn’t be surprised that a few barstools, beer taps, and feet of lacquered wood can stir my emotions to boil. But as I sipped on a pint of Boddingtons on the same stool that my dad might have sat on decades earlier, all the sediment on the bottom of my soul roiled into a turbid mess of love and sadness. That pint was like any of the other hundred pints I’ve had – twenty ounces of cask-pumped bitter – but it was somehow different, too, like a golden, cascading, liquid echo of every pint my dad had ever had; all the laughter he’d sent into the rafters; all the life he’d lived in Cheshire, in England; all of him that is now in me.

Today marks one year that I’ve been without my dad.

Fifteen odd miles south of Manchester, after a brief jaunt on the M56 and a serene wind through the arbor tunnels of Castle Mill and Mobberly roads, I found myself outside a cottage, all white and black, a pub-turned-piano playing its history across the countryside. The inn, like many others in small English towns, juts perilously into the edge of a sharp turn, like a hitchhiker sticking his thumb out a little too far to attract the attention of passing cars. A faux-gazebo has been tacked onto the front of the building and the main sign has been updated with more contemporary font and filigree, but it looks almost exactly as it did thirty years ago, when my dad used to come here for a pint of bitter, a game of darts, a bit of nightly spoil to counter the daily toil.

We’d arrived midday on a Tuesday, as the pub was changing staff due to a pending sale. The kitchen was closed and it seemed all the locals knew no lunch was to be had at the Chapel House that day, leaving the entire building to us and a flustered barkeep who didn’t know where the previous owners had stored the pint glasses. What would have normally been a bustling bar stood empty, a graven memorial instead of a monument to conviviality.

We have a societal obsession with anniversaries, as if the tangible measurement of one full orbit gives us power, validation, reassurance that we’re alive. A birthday isn’t just a time to remember your origins, but a time to celebrate your victory over another cycle. Many people said to me, and I even said to myself at times, “it hasn’t even been a year” like a roll-over of the calendar would somehow temper my feelings, reset the pain, wipe everything clean by cosmic, solar virtue.

So here’s a year – fully, finally – and nothing feels any different.

I’d never been inside until now, but I felt I knew this place from stories and family legends. Rarely named directly, the Chapel House Inn was the cradle of my dad’s rambunctious zeal, the place he came to life with his companions, became the overflowing fount of energy and fearlessness that I’d known him for my entire life. My dad’s essence had merged with the building, with the bar, with local lore. Stepping through that door, into the tiny front room of the pub, into a past that was mine in name only, felt like ghost-wrapped nostalgia, a physical body possessing a lingering spirit, not the usual other way around.

We rendezvoused with Rhona, the widow of my dad’s best friend and fellow Chapel House haunter. She still lived in Knutsford and knew the history well; seemed to know more about my dad and his adventures as a thirty-something than even me or my sister or my mom. She’d lost her husband, Ken, three years prior, and I wondered why my dad never mentioned the loss of so dear a friend, even one separated by years and careers and continents. She even brought a pile of 3×6 pictures of the six of us – toddler versions of me and my sister with four grinning young adults – little reminders that when Rhona knew my dad, he was almost exactly the same age I am now.

A year, when mourning, is an arbitrary designation that’s supposed to make people feel better after a loss, a token that proves you made it, didn’t collapse, didn’t give in to all the suffering and stress. One year, in theory, marks the last “hard” milestone, claims that nothing from here out is new and if you made it this far, you can make it indefinitely.

I longed for some meaning that I hadn’t found in the rest of his memory, hoped that being there, where I’d never been but my dad had, would stir in me some epiphany, some extra understanding of who he was, and why, beyond the obvious, his loss took so much from me. I wanted his favorite pub to bring equal parts resurrection and closure. I wanted to walk in and see him there, smirking and joking, here, not gone, alive, not dead, my father, not a ghost.

And in some ways, I did. Time, when forced into years, seems linear, unbreakable, unrelentingly progressive. The way we approach life makes it seem like what has been taken away can never be given back, if only because so many years separate then from now. But if you take a moment to let your memories swirl and blend with the memories long-stored in a special place, let all the prosaic blandness of an empty bar whir to life with all you know, and remember, and love about a person, you can, if only briefly, meld the present with the past, be here and there simultaneously, see the one you love raise a glass from across the bar, and wink.

It’s been a year without, but only in a physical sense. This year has been filled with more of my dad than any year in recent history. His memory permeates my every day; his influence guides my every decision. We say “without” after a loss because that’s what makes rational sense. Emotionally, the first year after you lose someone, when you’re forced to face and digest the echo of their life, would be more aptly named a year “within.”

We didn’t stay long, just a few minutes to breathe in the family history and relatively unchanged charm. The soul-sore part of me wanted to relish that pint for hours, sit and try to commune with my father using the built-in Ouija board of musty chair cushions and sagging wood, but it didn’t feel right. My dad was a creature of habit, but never one to dwell. A pint of bitter, a pinch of time, and a punch of emotion was all he would have wanted. And all I could have needed.

Today marks one year that I’ve been without my dad, if I really believe he ever left me.

To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die

Landing Gear Retracted

July 25, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

This time tomorrow, my feet will be dancing on English soil. I haven’t been back home home since 2006; mere excitement can’t capture my emotions right now, as I visualize pints of mild resting dutifully on welcoming wooden bars. Unfortunately, between getting ready for the trip, regular work, a side project, and other sundry adult-type responsibilities I won’t bore you with, I’ve found very little time to cobble my thoughts into any kind of narrative you’d want to read. So instead, here are a bunch of pictures (from the 2014 Philly Beer Week) to substitute for real content while I’m on vacation.

(I’ve got about 10 posts in draft, and another 10 ideas based on my England trip, so please excuse this slight delay in our regularly scheduled program)

The Session #79: A Patriotic Expat

September 6, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Here’s my entry for the seventy-ninth iteration of “The Session,” this one hosted by Ding of Ding’s Beer Blog. The topic: USA versus Old World Beer Culture -aka- What the hell has America done to beer?

The first noises I ever made echoed down the hallways of the maternity ward in Wythenshawe hospital, just outside of Manchester, England. The stay in my birth country was short though, as my father’s career packed us up and flung us far, like some kind of vocational catapult. We landed first in Dallas, Texas, but after a brief stint with lax open-container laws and seemingly mandatory shotgun purchases, we moved to establish deeper familiar roots on the Maryland side of Washington, DC.

This put me in an odd position as a child. My parents were decidedly from England, accents and charms and all, and I was not.

By day I was exposed to the US via my peers: immersed in boy-band pop-culture, linguistic idioms, and all the ingrained bravado that America seems to unabashedly instill in its youth. I pledged allegiance to flags that were not mine, I wrote essays about fathers who founded a country I was not a citizen of, and listened to teachers disparage the beautiful red coats of my people, all because of some minor disagreement over taxes.

By night I used words like “knackered” to express how trying my day had been, ate digestive biscuits and drank concentrated Ribena, and memorized lines from Faulty Towers and Blackadder, laughing maniacally at jokes that many of my friends claimed “were not funny.” I played football (the kind where you use a round ball and your feet) and my first tastes of brew were Boddingtons and Bass, not Budweiser and Billy Beer.

I became a hybrid. British by nature, American by nurture. I have no accent, but do pronounce things oddly. I appreciate the opportunity that the US represents but also pine for the pomp and erudition that can only come a country who, for a while there, refused to let the sun set. I retained the British sense of humor, but adopted the American “#@%& yea!” approach to taking on the world. It offers me unique perspective. I can experience the best of both cultures by adoring the tradition while embracing the progress.

I’d like to think that the cultural syncretism that made me who I am is reflective of the state of American craft beer (we can all agree to leave the macro mess to the Nascar legions). There is a growing part of the populace who actively wants to enjoy good beer, and they are raging against the longstanding influence of piss-water-pale-lager. Their tongues and hearts are in the right place, and they’re doing things the only way they know how: the way of the USA.

It’s impossible to ignore the much older, much more practiced pedigree of the Brits and the Germans and the Belgians, and their influence on even the basics of our brewing processes. No American brewery would be producing beer as we know it if not for our European buddies. Hell, none of the styles found in the States are unwaveringly “American,” but are instead domestic recreations of beers born oceans and centuries away. People can tack “American” in front of “wheat beer” all they want, but that doesn’t make the origins any less German. We can say that America has adopted the IPA as its craft beer mascot, but its history can never be extricated from English brewing lore.

But that’s not new. America loves to adopt things from other countries, and has never just co-opted an idea and let it be. One need only look at what we’ve done to Italian and Chinese food, or all the crap we add to make “coffee” to see how we arrived at “Imperial” versions of everything.

America always goes big: cars, homes, portions, debt. Why would beer be an exception? The American people don’t just want a pale ale – a nod to the perfunctory perfection of our island-dwelling forefathers – they want a triple-hopped, dry-hopped, back-hopped tongue destroyer, so bitter and spilling with lupulin you can almost see it wafting off the head in cartoon-like waves. Americans don’t want to appreciate a product that was refined over generations of beer-making, they want up-in-your-shit flavor, complexity, and ABV. They want beer drinking to be an exercise in pushing the proverbial envelope. It’s the American dream to live extreme.

And I’ll be the first to say that it isn’t a bad thing. This country was founded on breaking tradition, on escaping overbearing ornately fashioned rules, and that sentiment echoes noisily in almost every corner of the culture, no matter how niche. It is a land where people have the freedom to do what they want, succeed or fail, tradition respectfully acknowledged or wantonly cast aside. If American beer was more English, adhered more to the rules of another country just because, it wouldn’t be American. It doesn’t mean either culture (or product) is better or worse. They are just different, and built on a different set of principles. To try and claim one is superior is to ignore (whether willfully or ignorantly) the social, economic, and artistic minutiae of the other. Preference, even from an established expert, is not enough to prove objective superiority of one style over another.

America has done to beer what America has done to the world: moved it forward, for good and bad. This beer culture evolved from the old world culture, but it’s important to remember that evolution does not always equate with improvement. Evolution is adaptation, changing to best suit the environment, morphing to fit a set of ever-changing subjective rules in order to survive. I was raised on and will always love good English beer (or at least what my dad drank and was imported in the 90s) but I’m also not afraid to say that many American beers are just flat out enjoyable. They both have a place in my fridge, for totally different reasons.

For every Honey Boo Boo, there is a Patrick Stewart. For every Spice Girl, there is a Foo Fighter. For every Bud Light Lime there is a Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout. For every Carling lager, there is a Pliny the Younger.

Just be glad we live in a world where we’re drowning in options and can indulge the eccentricities of our palates almost infinitely. It sure as hell beats the opposite, regardless of what country you live in.

How to Brew a Boddingtons Clone

August 26, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

When looking for a new recipe, the adventurous homebrewer is faced with a breadth of choices so vast that it can be debilitating.

You can, without too much exaggeration, brew almost anything you can think of. Want something spicy? Try a Jalapeño/Haberno recipe. Feeling a bit light, perhaps craving some fruit in your malt? Try a watermelon wheat, or a strawberry blonde, or blueberry lager. You can even start messing with the types of sugars or yeasts you base the beer on and journey deep into the weird world of sweet potato, pizza, creme brulee, or even beard (yes face-hair) beer.

With so many options, so much potential just waiting to be mashed and fermented, it seems wrong to brew a clone of an existing beer, to recreate what has already been created, to add nothing new and plagiarize the work of another brewer so brazenly.

But, despite being the safe and boring choice, cloning is one of the best things you can do to improve your homebrewing skills. We know why we like certain commercial beer, be it the flavor or smell or presentation (or a little from columns A, B, and C), so by attempting to brew a clone, we can see how exactly the brewers used their alchemical skills to bring about such a well done beer. It gives us a standard to measure our own brew, and ultimately brewing skill, against.

How to Brew a Boddingtons Clone

I won’t try to hide why I picked Boddingtons of all the beers out there; it was, and will always be, my dad’s favorite beer. As my Untappd profile says, I’m pretty sure I drank Boddingtons before milk. I understand it may not be everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, especially since it was purchased and retooled by Whitbred and then ABInBev, but this is the brew that my dad used to teach me about beer, his rambunctious youth in British pubs, and how to tell a good story over a pint of ale.

“The Cream of Manchester” is a standard English bitter, fiercely golden with a thick white head, that, outside of pubs dotting the northern English countryside, comes in tall yellow and black cans, each of which contains a floating beer widget. Hopefully my all-grain homebrew will be less like the stuff available in the US today, and more like the stuff my dad drank on tap back in Manchester during the late 70s and early 80s. He always said there was nothing quite like a cask-condition, freshly pulled pint of pub ale.

Stuff You’ll Need

For a five gallon batch:

6.2 lbs of 2-row malt (British preferred, American accepted)
4 oz of Crystal 40 (for that golden color)
1/2 oz Patent Black Malt (for roasted goodness, and a little more color)
1/3 lb of invert sugar (which requires brown cane sugar and citric acid, explained below)
1.25 oz Fuggles (for bitterness and aroma)
.75 oz Kent Goldings (for aroma and flavor)
British Ale Yeast (I used WhiteLabs WLP013 but WYeast 1098 should work well, too)

You’ll also need all of the standard all-grain brewing stuff, like a mash-tun, brew kettle, bucket, carboy, fire, spoon, etc.

Step 1: Mash it up

The first thing you’ll notice is that this isn’t very much grain for a 5 gallon batch. Most American Ale recipes call for at least 10 lbs of malt, and we’re nearly 4 lbs short of that here. That’s because Boddingtons is a pretty low ABV brew, bubbling in at thoroughly sessionable 3.9%.

Because it’s so little grain, it’s best to mash for a bit longer than normal, say 90 minutes instead of 60. Mash the 2-row and specialty malts at ~151 degrees, stirring once or twice to make sure there are no malty dough balls floating around. Sparge once to loose the sugars, settle the grain-bed by draining off a liter or so, then send the rest right into your kettle.

You might be surprised at how brown the wort is, but that’s OK. From my experience, the color of the beer in a carboy or other container is much, much darker than it is in a glass.

Step 2: Make some invert sugar

While the grain is mashing, you’ll want to start your invert sugar. For the record, you can buy something like Lyle’s Golden Syrup, but if you’re putting in the work for all-grain brewing, you might as well create all of the ingredients from scratch. Consider it a lesson in self-sufficiency. Or survival preparation. Your call.

Invert sugar is naturally found in a lot of fruits and honeys, but you can make it yourself by adding citric acid to normal cane sugar, and heating it in water. The citric acid breaks the bonds of the sucrose in the cane sugar, resulting in free fructose and glucose (which are both sweeter than regular old sucrose). For those curious, this is the same chemical structure as the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, but our version is made from completely different ingredients (namely: not corn).

You want to heat 1/2 a lb of cane sugar (not table sugar) in 3/4 a cup of water. As it’s heating, add 1/8 a teaspoon of citric acid. Let it simmer, stirring frequently, for at least 20 minutes. The longer it simmers the darker and thicker it will be. You don’t want it too dark or thick for this beer, so try not to simmer it for more than 30-40 minutes.

Step 3: Boil her up (or down, not sure how it works)

Now that your grain is mashed and your sugar is inverted, you can start your boil. As soon as it’s roiling enthusiastically, you’ll want to add 1 oz of your Fuggles and .5 oz of your Kent Goldings. Boil for another 45, stirring as your impatience dictates. Next, add your invert sugar, a teaspoon of Irish moss (or a whirlfloc, if that’s how you roll) and the rest of your hops. There are no hop additions at burnout for this recipe, so you just need to wait another 15 minutes. Now is a good time to drop your (cleaned and rinsed) wort-chiller into the beer so that the boil can do most of the sanitation work for you.

Step 4: Drink a beer and chill out (while the beer chills out)

I always try to drink something in the same style as what I’m brewing. Three guesses as to what I was drinking this time around.

This is a good time to use the excess water from your wort chiller to water your poor, droopy hydrangeas. You can also use some to hose the bird-poop off your car. Get creative with it.

This is also a good time to get an original gravity reading.

Step 5: Pitch your yeast

Around ~75-80 degrees you are ready to stir the hell out of your wort and pitch your yeast. Remember that the more oxygen the yeast has, the better it will get established, and the better it will attenuate. I sometimes seal my bucket and shake the hell out of it once the yeast is already in there, just to make sure it’s well distributed and has enough oxygen to breathe comfortably.

Step 6: Prime and bottle

Let the golden-brown joy ferment a week, then rack to secondary. Bottle by priming with 2/3 a cup of cane sugar. Let the beer very slightly carbonate (to mimic the traditional style) for another ~14-21 days.

That’s it! Enjoy one for me and my old man.

Review: Yards Brawler Pugilist Style Ale

July 4, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

The first one was easy. The second, hardly a challenge. By the third, I needed a breather, but I wasn’t finished. I was just getting limber.

I had counted eight shadows milling about the tavern door. Three had remained while five moved to places unseen. I assumed at least two would make for the creaking back door, and at least one would remain ahorse, waiting to run down any person foolish enough to run.

I didn’t know if Mortimer was upstairs or down, or hidden in some alcove beneath the ancient wooden floors. I decided it best to not let these men find out. I mouthed two silent prayers to the Old Gods; one for me, and one for the men I was about to kill.

Crouched near the front door, I slid a long dirk from its leather sheathe and held it backwards against my right forearm. With the other, I grasped a tiny sliver of metal; a needle-like blade that I used to kill without much mess. As the first man stuck his head in the door, just behind his make-shift torch, I thrust the needle upwards into his neck, severing the tiny bundles of nerves near the back of his spine.

He hit the ground hard, his muscles dead and only the wooden floor to catch him.

The door flung open under his weight and a second man darted in to catch the first. He was greeted by a flash of folded steel, and a gaping wound across his face. A second quick strike to his lower back sent him into the long sleep.

With two down, I rolled behind a support beam near where the locals had been drinking. Strong wind blew through the open door, extinguishing the two lanterns near the bar and on the hearth. The fireplace whipped and danced, feeding on the gust of oxygen. The entire tavern was bathed in a low light.

An assassin’s playground.

A third man moved near the doorway, but kept safely behind the frame of the door, trying to peer into the darkness beyond. As I eyed him, I heard movement near the back door. Seconds later, it burst open, rotten wood splintering across the room. A quarrel from a well aimed crossbow grazed my shoulder, ripping my leather chest piece and tearing the soft skin around my collar bone.

I flung a dagger in response. Blade over hilt it rolled, until it found a new home lodged permanently in the eye socket of one of the men storming the back entrance. I drew my short sword. The element of surprise was gone and my off-hand was injured and bleeding. This would come down to steel on steel, that is, unless one of these cowards brought a gun.

The man at the front entrance had stepped into the tavern, his long cavalry sabre glowing with a surreal power in the torchlight. I knew he’d have a hard time swinging that big a blade indoors, so I let him tip-toe forward, looking for me with long swings of his flame. The second man near the back had retreated at the sight of my dagger sticking from his friend’s skull.

As I decided who was the next victim of my knives, I heard glass shatter on the upper floor. The two I had not accounted for must have scaled the side of the building and broken their way in through a second story window. As the man with the sabre turned to look at the stairs, I made my move. My first stroke met a timely riposte. As he swung to counter, his long blade caught a piece of wood in the rafters. Unable to dislodge it, my sword easily pierced his stomach and chest; an upward thrust that hit more organs than it missed.

His body slumped and died, the sabre shaking where it stuck in the crossbeam.

I darted up the stairs, ignoring the man at the back door. Mortimer was no fighter. He may be able to kill a man, but against someone with any kind of training, he’dbe an easy target. The upstairs was pitch except for the glow of the waning moon. I heard two men whispering, one trying to give commands, the other arguing with him. Their talking gave away their location. Their pointless banter was as good as a death sentence.

The first fell before I had even stepped in the room, my needle finding a soft spot near his ear. The second lost a hand as he rose it to parry, and fell screaming before I silenced him permanently. Mortimer was not upstairs. This tavern had no obvious cellar, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hide secret places, left over from the Plague Era and Oliver Cromwell’s reign.

I sat for a second to catch my breath and wipe the blood from my blades. There were two left by my count, one downstairs with a crossbow, and a man atop a horse outside. I quickly peered through the broken window to see a man on a huge destrier. It was a powerful, gorgeous horse, with a black mane and a chocolate coat. I wanted to avoid hurting the horse if I could; my last horse had died to a volley of muskets and I longed to ride a powerful steed again.

I waited at the top of the stairs to see if the crossbowman dared to follow me up. My earlier attack had left him sheepish, and I’m sure he had by now seen the devastation I had left on the tavern’s floor. I couldn’t chance rushing him; as much skill as I put behind my short sword, a crossbow had range, and I knew this gent could fire it well, given the chance.

I pried the top off of a tobacco barrel near the pantry at the top of the stairs. Wrapping two lengths of shipping twine around it, I made a make shift shield and braced it against my weakened off hand. All I needed was one chance; once chance to catch his bolt, one chance to close the gap. A crossbow was lethal, but dangerously slow to reload.

It was over quickly. The bolt pierced the top of my shield and before the man had even drawn a second quarrel, he lay dead. I unstrung the shield and threw it down, admiring the quality of the bolt lodged in the wooden slats. It was a shame to kill a fletcher of such skill, but fletching was a dying art, giving way to gunsmithing and the black powder arts.

Before I bothered searching for Mortimer, I knew I had to do something about the horseman trotting lazily outside. He could not have known what had happened inside, short of the scream of the man I dismembered upstairs, so I had time to think. I watched him closely through a downstairs window. He moved back and forth on his huge beast, a two-shot pistol in one hand, the other on the reins.

I hated guns. Cowardly devices that required no skill but could kill with impunity. I wanted the man dead, but I also wanted his horse. A makeshift pike would not suffice; it would put me too close to his pistol, and might hurt the horse. He was too far away to rely on a thrown dagger, and my skill with a crossbow was admittedly lacking.

Instead, I filled an old clay growler with the lamp oil from the lantern near the bar. I ripped off a small patch of cloth from my already torn tunic and shoved it into the top of the bottle. The temporary fuse lit easily when held over the open fire of the hearth and I had only seconds before the bomb exploded in my hand.

At the sight of the fireball created from my cocktail, the horse reared in fear and sent its rider sprawling. As he fell, I sprinted until I couldn’t feel my lungs, short sword out, sharp, and ready. By the time I was on him, he had regained his feet, and saw me, blood in my eyes. He lowered his pistol, but was never able to fire.

I wiped my blade on the grass. A queer silence fell over the tavern, a silence that can only follow a bloody, angry battle. I broke it as soon as I knew no men were left alive.

“MORTIMER!”

I heard nothing for a few minutes expect the hooting of an owl and the crackling of dropped torches.

“MORTIMER!”

At the second shout, I heard a loud “thunk” and the sound of footsteps across a wooden floor. At the doorway appeared my fool brother wearing a tricorne hat and wielding a pathetically small dagger.

“Is it over?” he squeaked.

“Yes, brother. You’re lucky I arrived when I did.”

“I’m so glad you got my message; they’ve been hunting me since Dunwich.”

“Who has been hunting you?” I knew Mortimer was in trouble, as usual, but not what kind of trouble.

“Them.”

He said this as he moved towards the corpse of the horseman. He dug through his small clothes, searching for something. At last, he pulled a small leather fold free and threw it at my feet.

A Scotland Yard Badge. Special Investigator Albert Haynes, Directed at his King’s authority.

A lump formed in my thorat.

“Mortimer…what have you done?”

9 out of 10.

When blood meets beer, beer turns red. And bloody.

Review: Yards Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale

June 12, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Mortimer bought my dinner. A big plate of steaming fresh crow.

I received an anonymous telegram this morning. The cryptic messaging could only have come from him, in a futile attempt to be clever and evade authority.

Carlyle STOP I was truant to our rendezvous STOP Plan has changed STOP Staying at our place STOP Do not think me dead STOP

I had been certain he’d botched the job and gotten himself killed in the process. I’d pulled him out of close calls, away from deals gone bad, and out of the clutches of debt collectors a few too many times to ever assume anything he did had worked out as planned. I’m not sure why I thought this job would be any different. My brother is about as trustworthy as a street urchin when your back is turned, but he is still my brother.

I made my way to the Stonewall Tavern in Oxfordshire, hoping to finally catch up to him and get the full story. The dingy little cottage-turned-inn hadn’t changed much in the years I’d been in America. A bit more moss on the crumbling stone walls, a mess of ivy climbing the rotting wooden window sills, but the same old Stonewall I’d loved in my youth. Even the old sign was still intact, hanging lazily from two ornamented wrought iron hooks above the door.

The building was familiar, but the staff and patrons were not. My cos had told me of a feud gone bad several years after I boarded a ship to the new lands, in which the former owners had been murdered in their sleep over a few missing sheep worth less than a half crown. The new owners hadn’t done much with the decor; the inside of the tavern reeked of moldy ale and burnt lamb stew.

The barkeep eyed me suspiciously, keeping half his gaze on the short dagger I keep on my hip. I’d been a pariah in Mary-land for wearing the blade out in public, but I did not feel safe without it. Someone in my line of work is wise to keep his knife as sharp as his tongue. I often felt I was out of place in this newly emerging world. Long gone were the days of cloaks and blades, replaced by pea coats and gunpowder.

I ordered the tavern’s signature ale, and waited. Mortimer was not in the common area, but I expected as much. He wasn’t the brightest fellow, but he had a knack for hiding. Being craven gave him a certain longevity, all the result of his uncanny ability to disappear in plain sight. I quaffed the heavy golden liquid, letting the alcohol settle my thoughts and send my mind swimming languidly into a mildly drunken stupor.

Several men behind me were arguing about the state of affairs in the Americas, debating how things had changed in the wake of Thomas Jefferson’s death some twenty years prior. I could tell from their threadbare clothes and crude guttural speech these were an uneducated bunch, speaking of things they didn’t know and had never seen. I was certain that these men could not even read the most basic of writing, so their mindless argument was built of the worst kind of backwoods rumor mongering and poisoned truth.

As I finished my second pint, I noticed a commotion outside the tavern. The dim light inside made it impossible to make out many details through the ancient glass windows, but I could see a group of men and horses, some with lanterns, others with rifles. The tallest of them was barking orders.

I knew they were here for Mortimer. The peasants broke their conversation and made for the back door. As they scurried out of harm’s way, I could hear other men shouting as they surrounded the building. I slipped up next to the front door, pressing my back against the wall to hide my frame.

They may have known Mortimer was inside, but there were two things they wouldn’t be prepared for: me and my knife.

I’d made a living out of killing. There would be blood tonight. And it wouldn’t be mine, or Mortimer’s.

The influence of the colonies was felt strongly, even here in the heart of Britain.

Ad Memoriam

May 28, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I was naturalized as a US citizen in 2008. Despite this, I’m American in culture only; my heart and national pride remain firmly grounded in my British heritage.

I no longer have an accent, and my ties to England only remain in traces: my birth certificate, my obsession with ales, my parent’s lingering accents.

Growing up a resident alien, unable to vote, and in turn unable to voice my opinions about the country, I felt an odd disassociation with America. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t belong. Sometimes I felt like my humor and tastes were extra foreign.

We lived in the America, but we were crappy Americans. We didn’t eat PB&J or meatloaf. My mom put butter on all our sandwiches. We celebrated Thanksgiving, but only because everyone else did. Fourth of July felt like national betrayal; could I in good conscience celebrate my physical country’s victory over my birth country, even if it was hundreds of years ago?

But as I grew up, I started appreciating what other Americans appreciate. Freedom and french fries and Federal holidays. As I learned to be more American, I still distanced myself from war and military service. It could be because I’m a wuss or just dislike guns, but I’ve always considered myself a through-and-through conscientious objector.

In college, I lived with two Marines. They were dedicated soldiers, and taught me a lot about sacrifice for country. My view of service began to change. Both of my grandfathers served, albeit in a different country. Some of my best friends, neighbors, and coworkers have given their time, energy, and devotion to their country. I’d be willfully ignoring everything around me if I didn’t take time to appreciate how much military service has impacted my life.

My grandfather (mother’s side) gave me his British Armed Forces WW2 victory medal a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It’s a very impressive looking medal, but I don’t have a jacket to mount it on, or any other good way to display it. So, as is my nature, I took a bunch of pictures of it.

As I snapped dozens of pictures, I thought about what this little medallion meant. It is a microcosm of honor, bravery, commitment, and nationalism. A small chunk of .800 silver with a date stamp is worth more than it’s weight in gold.

This Memorial Day, remember that military service is not about war. It is a day to remember and reflect on bravery, sacrifice, and putting something bigger than yourself first. It is about upholding what you believe in, whether you want to or not. It is about accepting that sometimes, you have to fight for what you believe is right.

Thank you to my Grandpa Haynes for his service as a paratrooper in WW2. Thank you for the excellent medal, which I will cherish for my entire life until a time when I can pass it on to my son. Thank you to everyone out there who has ever donned a uniform for his or her country, ally or enemy, for your commitment to valor.

Thank you, because I know I couldn’t have done something so selfless and brave.

A gift from Clifford Hayes: grandfather, solider, husband, father, great man.

Review: Yards IPA

April 23, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

That fool Mortimer did it again.

I told him that he’d never get away with it, but his stubbornness is trumped only by that of a mule. His last minute, hair-brained scheming always leaves me worried that I’ll find his body in the trash-filled gutter one of these days. Given his propensity towards the drink and the company keeps, that may be all too appropriate.

I arrived in London by coach but a few days ago. My travels southward were mostly unimpeded despite the recent flooding of the Thames. Mortimer sent word that he would meet me at the old Dog and Tree, but I’ve yet to uncover any sign of him. His commitment to truancy in our schoolyard days was well known, and much of that behavior spilled over into his adult life. I’ll save my worrying for when I’ve got more information about his condition or whereabouts.

The pub is just as I remember it. Dark, musty, full of the most unsavory types Brixton can muster. I feel at home staring at these disheveled denizens over the brim of my pint glass. The amber of my India Pale Ale tints my vision. The place looks a bit brighter with ale on the brain.

I won’t waste my time asking the barkeep if he’s seen Mortimer. At this point, he’s cocked up the original plan so badly that he’s either dead, or on the run. I hope for my Mother’s sake that he’s not dead. Her old heart couldn’t take a final let down from that life-long disappointment.

Halfway into my beer, a scuffle breaks out on the far side of the tavern. Some surly gent appears to be upset that another, smaller, cruel looking fellow has been cavorting with his wife. I watch the scene unfold, eventually coming to blows, until the smaller man deftly sticks a thin blade in between a few of the larger man’s ribs. He winces and slumps. The wound is bad, but he’ll likely survive. Before he leaves, the smaller man spits on his beaten opponent.

An antique clock chimes, letting me know that Mortimer won’t be coming. The bustling of the bobbies outside causes a lump to rise in my throat. Scotland Yard would be hot on my heels if they’d intercepted my oafish brother, and he, being craven to the core, would quickly betray me to save himself.

I finish the rest of my pint. The bitterness fits the mood of the evening and the bubbles sting my throat. I should go look for him. I should do it for my family, for my surname.

I slide a counterfeit shilling to the barman. The beer was good; I feel guilty for such brazen robbery. The fog has settled heavily on the damp, English night. I hear a blaring siren a few blocks away.

8.75 out of 10

The fog settles on London like the head on a freshly poured pint.