Craft Beer and Museums: A Smart Pairing

On a Thursday evening in midwinter, the lobby of Burlington's ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center was packed. But the crowd anxiously awaiting the stroke of seven hadn't arrived for a new display or the chance to see baby Softshell turtles in the Animal Care Lab. No, everyone in line had turned up for a craft beer tasting. More specifically, they were there for FeBREWary: The Science of Beer, a two-hour special event that included presentations on beer history and chemistry along with access to more than two dozens bottles of stouts, saisons, pilsners, and pale ales.

Well before the last guest had even left the building, staff members were declaring FeBREWary a success, excitedly discussing the possibility of future beer nights at the aquarium. All across the United States, from Syracuse to Seattle, a growing number of institutions are discovering the tremendous appeal of craft beer and its ability to raise revenue and attract visitors. This weekend for example, marks the tenth anniversary of Hops and Props, a tasting event that features over 40 breweries and benefits Seattle's Museum of Flight. Meanwhile, at the end of March, the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology in Syracuse will host the eighth annual TAP into the MOST.

Numerous animal parks organize "Brew at the Zoo" days. And fine art museums have taken notice, too. On March 9th, the Akron Art Museum in Ohio brings back their popular Art of Ale event, while the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has already begun to plan another ARTonTAP for October. Will history museums embrace this trend next? Maybe. In May, the New York Historical Society launches Beer Here: Brewing New York's History, a temporary exhibit that surveys "the social, economic, political, and technological history of the production and consumption of beer over the past 350 years." Heady stuff, to be sure.

I'd really like to see an exhibit that places fermented beverages in a historical context, explaining the relationship between ancient ales and cultures of the past. To drink, the museum could offer Fraoch, a Scottish gruit made with heather and bog myrtle instead of hops. Or maybe they'd pour Dogfish Head's Egyptian-inspired Ta Henket and Birra del Borgo's Enkir, a saison brewed with a grain that's been found at Neolithic sites. I'll bet it would find a large audience, and beer travelers like me would probably race to the internet afterwards, feverishly searching for Egyptian holiday offers, Scottish heritage vacations, and archaeology tour packages.

Trailing the Wilderness Prophet

In early June of 1869, a then 31-year old John Muir arrived in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where he would spend the next few months with a flock of sheep, their shepherd Billy, and a friendly St. Bernard named Carlo. Enchanted by what he saw, Muir filled his notebook with notes and sketches, and in 1911 published them as My First Summer in the Sierra. Last month Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released a 100th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the book, with lavish color photography by Scot Miller. It's an attractive volume, and one that will likely inspire fans of the Scottish-American naturalist to visit his beloved Yosemite National Park.

Muir left his mark on California and the West in many ways though, and it's possible to travel to some of the other places that were significant to him during his lifetime, too. I wrote about five of them for the San Francisco Chronicle, but many more certainly exist. Quite a few are worth seeing. Wherever you ultimately decide to go yourself, consider this sentence from My First Summer: "Nature as a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go; for the mountains are fountains—beginning places, however related to sources beyond mortal ken."

Photography courtesy of the John Muir National Historic Site

Historical Maps and What They Teach Us

Because I don't enjoy shopping, I rarely buy souvenirs on my trips abroad. Yet two years ago, while browsing the stacks of a used bookstore in St. Andrews, Scotland, I happened across a small volume with a faded red cover that I couldn't bear to leave behind. Plus, £4.50 hardly seemed extravagant given that I'd paid £3.80 for a pint of beer and a mug of black coffee the night before.

Published in 1928 by Methuen & Co. Ltd. of London, The Fjords and Folk of Norway is a unique combination of travel guide, social history, and encyclopedia. It was peppered with 43 images photographed and captioned by the author Samuel J. Beckett, and to my delight, included a two-color, fold-out map of a country the preface confidently described as "a land in every way ideal for holiday travel." Given the theme for this year's Geography Awareness Week, I thought it deserved a mention here.

As readers of this blog already know, I can get a bit nerdy when it comes to maps. Even so, I'd argue that The Edinburgh Geographical Institute's precise cartography is interesting for a couple of different reasons. First of all, the scale shows distances in British Statue Miles, Kilometres, and Norwegian Miles—a unit of measure I wasn't familiar with. Secondly, the large scale inset of the great fjord region offers an informative lesson in how physical geography and population density determine transportation infrastructure. By studying the railway, road, and steamboat routes, it's possible to accurately infer that the landscape is rugged and sparsely peopled. In fact, about two-thirds of Norway is mountainous and in 1925, the population was only 2,772,414. Today this Scandinavian nation has about 4.6 million citizens, many of whom still rely on boats as a swift means of North-South travel.

Finally, I found it somewhat curious that the mapmakers also included an inset of historic Bergen, gateway to the fjord region. Lacking enough detail to be useful for visitors, it's informative nonetheless, with elevations for a few of the surrounding mountains and an attempt to indicate the growth of the city beyond its commercial center.

A Brew With Bite

The Scots know their malts. Unfortunately, my first road trip across Scotland didn't allow enough time for a detour to Aberdeenshire. I say unfortunately because that very same year, a little less than two months before I arrived in fact, a couple of guys and a chocolate lab started a brewery in Fraserburgh on the coast of the North Sea.

So it wasn't until my neighborhood beer merchant began to carry their malty products that I finally got to try BrewDog. But instead of choosing Punk IPA, their most popular style, I opted for the more unusual and enigmatic Dogma, a heather honey infused ale.

At 7.8% alcohol by volume, Dogma packs a punch, especially if you finish a 660ml bottle by yourself, as I did last night while watching the season premiere of "The Office." It didn't acquire much head when I poured a glass, and to my nose, smelled strongly of overripe fruit and honey. The malts came through in the flavor and although my taste buds did identify notes of bitter honey, they haven't yet learned to distinguish a kola nut from a guarana seed. Poppy seed on the other hand, really stood out in the lingering finish.

I'd definitely recommend trying this complex beer, ideally at pub like The Halfway House, Edinburgh's smallest (and one-time Scottish pub of the year). I'm guessing it could go well with an order of stovies and oat cakes.

I Was Waiting To Be Struck By Lightning

Maybe it's all the rain. Or perhaps I'm actually a melodramatic person. I suppose there's also the possibility that I have a Scottish cell or two in my bloodline. Whatever the truth may be, I can't stop listening to Camera Obscura's new album, My Maudlin Career. Songs like "The Sweetest Thing," and "Swans" are fantastic, four-minute synopses of emotional devastation. With lines like "When you're lucid you're the sweetest thing/I would trade my mother to hear you sing," it's clear that lead vocalist Tracyanne Campbell endows her lyrics with a peculiar Glaswegian sensibility, but it's the rest of the band that really elevates the music from mere pop to sheer poetry.

What I find most appealing about this quintet is that so many of their compositions involve a solitary journey: in pursuit of a feeling, to reunite with or escape from a person. Others lament being alone somewhere, or express a desire for another place, another time. We travel for lots of different reasons, reasons that occasionally change mid-trip. It's curious to me that the experience itself can often produce feelings we didn't expect to have at all.

A couple of years ago, towards the end of a ten-day trek through Thailand, I found myself standing on Hat Rai Leh underneath limestone cliffs and an inky night sky that seemed to stretch infinitely westward. The friends I was traveling with had gone to bed, tired after an afternoon spent fighting the Indian Ocean's tides. Our Asian holiday had been thoroughly enjoyable thus far, and yet as my mind drifted off with the sound of the surf breaking at my feet, I was overcome with an intense feeling of loneliness. Suddenly I longed to see the girl I'd been dating for the past six weeks. And the longer I stood there on the beach, the deeper the pit in my gut became.

I could have used Camera Obscura then. Something with swooping strings, a throbbing bass, a bright horn part, and plenty of jangly tambourine to drown my mood with noise. A song to tell me I'd been struck by lightning.

Munro Bagging

Rainy days in June remind me of Scotland. Two years ago I had just returned from ten days in Caledonia and as I gaze out my window at the rain falling over Brooklyn right now, I'm reminded of the gray afternoon I spent struggling up Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak. Nevis also happens to be the tallest of the "Munros" (mountains with elevations topping 3,000 feet), and it's a climb made all the more challenging by the unpredictable nature of the weather at the summit.

To quote one of the safety notes printed on the Harvey map I bought at the tourist office in Fort William: "Always be prepared to turn back in the face of a sudden deterioration of weather." In hindsight I'm happy to have bagged this, the most famous of the Munros, but I can't say I enjoyed the hike all that much. The visibility went from bad to worse and what started as a light drizzle became a steady shower that left me soaked from head to toe. Which might have been tolerable had I not been greeted at the top by wind and snow. Mind you, I did pass a older gentleman in shorts and a running singlet on my way back down, but I'm pretty sure he was insane. In any case, my Scottish folly led to the single best night of sleep I've had in my life.

Of course some people are of the opinion that the real reason to visit Scotland isn't the hill walking, the haggis, the golf, or even the abundance of whisky distilleries. As I argued in an article for Transitions Abroad, it's the beer.