Mystic Brewery – Day of Doom Quad Coming This Week
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MyBeer Buzz
From Mystic Brewery:
The quadruple ale is the Belgian-style ale that the great beer writer, Michael Jackson, was largely referring to when he expressed his adoration of these ales calling them the “Burgundies of Belgium.” Truly, it is one of the worlds greatest beer styles. This almost dark beer can display huge aromatics and follows with flavors of nut, nougat, plum and cherry flavors followed by a haunting, complex finish. It is an immensely challenging beer to brew and we at Mystic have long looked forward to the challenge. Test batches were brewed, ingredients tweaked and this week we bring this very young beer to market. We say very young because this is the grand style to age…most good examples of the style continue to improve for years. But why give it such an odd name?
Belgian brewers (and those in the new world inspired by them) have long enjoyed the coy suggestion that there is something ominous about these beers. Apocalyptic themes are a grim but light-hearted implication that these are the beers to drink before the world comes to its cataclysmic end. It just so happens that this is exactly the scenario my ancestor, minister of the mystic valley, Michael Wigglesworth had in mind when he penned “The Day of Doom” in 1662, which opens with:
Still was the night, Serene & Bright,
when all Men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, & carnal reason
thought so ‘twould last for ay.
Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease,
much good thou hast in store:
This was their Song, their Cups among,
the Evening before.
Cups full and singing, so they greet the end. Wigglesworth’s epic poem was the XBOX and/or heavy metal music of its time. People reveled in it’s violence. Likely, they also imagined that it was not them who would suffer for their impiety.
After enjoying this beer, which launches at the Craft Beer Cellar this weekend, check out the bottle. The gravestone lunette is indeed Michael Wigglesworth…still to be found in Bell Rock Cemetery in Malden, MA. The typeface is that of a classic edition of the book.
Stop by and have a taste of Doom. Mystic’s resident English immigrant, Alastair Hewitt, will be doing a reading from the original text.
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