Story 2:
When last I saw our beloved Brother Finn Hemlig, he was disappearing down the corridor of the Trappist monastery, where he now lives, in search of solace and a taco. As he left, he told me to meet him the following Friday, and I was all too willing and excited to keep that appointment. Finn is the link to the past…the link to beer’s history.
Let me preface this story with a little background information. During my college years there were two major influences in my life. These things grounded me and put me on the track to a somewhat hopeful future. The first was, of course, beer and the other was a lot of female companionship. Well, the female thing became a bit more frustrating than I had anticipated, so I replaced that influence with the study of history. It's not that I gave up women entirely. I just became more selective. I studied history in a way that not many people had before. I not only read standard textbooks and studied the conventional history taught in school, but also the history based on mythology and folk tales. At times, this proved to be more exiting than the old textbooks. This interest in historical mythology led me to a reference of the Hemlig family living in Atlantis. Long thought to be a fictitious island of paradise, here is a reference other than those of Plato to confirm such a wondrous place.
For this interview, I was a little reluctant to bring up what I assumed would be a delicate subject to Finn; the history of the Hemlig family making beer in what would become a forgotten lost world. If you’ll remember, Finn’s family has been devastated by centuries of beer related mishaps. He loves to talk about his family, but no longer talks about beer in a good way. That assumption was way off base. He not only was happy to talk about it, he supplied information that very few, if any, had ever heard or seen. Again, this is both a history of brewing and a history of the planet Earth. From his living quarters at the Trappist monastery (which he thinks makes bread and traps animals for pelt sales), Finn Hemlig gives his second interview to discuss this amazing chronicle of humankind.
JE: Finn, it’s so good to see you again. Here’s the chocolate. How has your week been?
Finn: It’s been a good week. I have been grinding a lot of barley. The other monks here tell me there is some sort of festival going on in a few months that apparently requires a thousand loaves of bread. I’ve been told that every October they haul their wares into town and sell it at this festival. Some of the heathens at the festival sell beer, and because the townspeople are not sympathetic to my aversion to beer, the monks tell me to sequester myself until the festival is over. I do my part and mill the grain. Then, when they tell me they’re beginning to load up for the celebration, I lock myself in my room. I pray for those godless masses drinking beer. I hope none of the brothers are tempted by them.
JE: Oh, they must be getting ready for the local Oktoberfest…uh…which is…uh…an annual festival of bratwurst and…nevermind. Sorry, I know how much you don’t like to think about people drinking beer. So let’s get to the interview. This may be a touchy subject, but I found a reference to a Hemlig associated with the lost continent of Atlantis. Is that true? Is it in the family scrolls?
Finn: Good heavens. I haven’t thought of old Poseidon Hemlig in years. Ha! I’m glad you brought that up. He was named after his dad, who was named after the “god” that created Atlantis…allegedly. Some think it was Poseidon, the god, and some think it was some guy with an “opolous” at the end of his name. Homopolous…Philopolous…I can’t remember. The scrolls are a little weathered since they got wet as the island was going in the drink, but they’re still pretty legible.
JE: So, Poseidon Hemlig was involved in the production of beer on Atlantis?
Finn: Yep, and he was a farmer too. He was one of three suppliers of beer to the commoners and he was eventually appointed head beer maker to King Atlas himself. Not bad for someone who was probably 93 years old.
JE: King Atlas was a real person? Did the scrolls mention what he was like or what beer he liked?
Finn: He was a real person and also a real piece of work is what the scrolls say. He was bossy, corruptible, and a little bit snooty. The depictions of his appearance remind me of a young Al Pacino with the style and flamboyance of Liberace. What a combination, huh? The scrolls contain three recipes, but after Atlas declared himself Crowned Exalted Ruler of the Flaming Serpent, only one beer was allowed to be produced. Of course it was his favorite beer: Peachy Hemilgoff, later renamed Dainty Bubble Peach by Atlas. It's a recipe that was my forefather’s brew to help loosen up the women of the community. This was probably the first malternative beverage ever made. It predates Zima by a good nine thousand years. Do they still make Zima?
JE: I don't think so. By malternative, you mean a clear malt beverage with fruity additives and little to no hops or anything.
Finn: Yes, and it had crates of sugar in it. I guess Atlas had a dandy sweet tooth.
JE: Clear malt beverages are not my cup of…whatever, but I’m still amazed. Can you let our readers in on the secret recipe of Atlantis?
Finn: This one I can’t remember off the top of my head, so I’ll go get the scroll and let you look at it. Not touch it! Look at it. I’ll be right back.
As Finn shuffled excitedly down the hall, I wander through the dining room toward what I think is the kitchen as I follow the all too familiar odor of steeping grain. I pass a sign that reads “Off Limits - Top Secret Bakery” at the entrance of a corridor leading to a large wooden door. With butterflies in my stomach, I inch my way down the hall and crack open the door. To my surprise, I see two heavyset monks dumping cracked grain into a large mash tun. I am standing outside the brewing room of one of the great Trappist monasteries. The smell is magnificent and the sight is very much like you would imagine a 17th century monk’s kitchen would look like, stone walls, wooden tables, open fire ovens, and very little light. I’m lost in the moment. Mesmerized. Then I hear Finn yelling from the other room and I am snapped out of my daze. I quietly rush back to our meeting room.
Finn: Where were you? I was worried you might wander into the off-limits bakery. Those brothers of mine are strict about who can grace the sacred bakery. I've never even been in there. Can you believe it?
JE: No, I was just looking at the…artifacts and furniture.
Finn: They’re great, right? But they aren’t as amazing as this scroll.
Finn pulls from behind him a cream colored tubular leather sleeve that has frayed edges and dark brown cracks all over it. He puts on a cloth glove and begins to pull the Hemlig scroll out of its sheath. My eyes are opened as wide as they have ever been, and I can feel myself not breathing. The yellowed papyrus parchment is everything I had hoped for. It was elaborately designed with ornate calligraphy and a picture of King Atlas dressed in a glittering purple robe with a golden headdress holding a basket of peaches and drinking from a golden, bejeweled cup. There is a green snake coiled at his feet and it seems to be on fire. He does kind of have a Pacino look to him.
JE: Finn, I’m speechless.
Finn: As you should be, Junior. This sacred text is older than dirt and twice as valuable. Did you see Atlas? He’s a frilly guy isn’t he?
JE: Absolutely. So is that the recipe? It’s kind of faded and in Latin. Can you translate for our readers please?
Finn: Sure. Also, it’s in Atlantian and not Latin. King Atlas changed a bunch of words that were too hard to say and he renamed a lot of common things too like the “Atlas scoop” for a shovel and “Bowl of Atlas” for the toilet. Arrogant little… (inaudible.) It shouldn’t take too long to translate for you, but I might have to take a few moments to recall some of the linguistic changes. (Four of five minutes pass) Whew…here goes.
The Dainty Bubble Peach Clear Beer
Ingredients:
95 Liters of Mountain Spring Water
8 Liters of Yak’s Milk with cream taken out
19 lbs of sunbleached rice
5-6 Bushels of fresh Peaches about 40 medium sized peaches per bushel
6 tubs of Sugar - enough to cover the entire body of five good sized women
10 handfuls of pine needles to take the edge off of the sugary zing
How to Make It:
In a giant vat, begin with boiling all of the water fresh from the mountain’s pool
Throw in the pine needles after the boil has begun and let them dance by themselves in the water.
Add Yak’s milk
Add rice
While the white stinky mixture is bubbling and dancing, it’s time to prepare the peaches.
The first thing for peach prep is to hire the village virgins to cut the peaches in half, take out the stones, and stomp them into the thick wonderful juice.
When the peaches have been squished, get strong men to move the vat from the fire and add the thick juice to the mixture.
Let the mixture cool enough so that you can lower two of the village virgins into the vat and let them swim around mixing up the ingredients.
Now hook up the gravity fed sugar funnel and let the sugar pour over the virginal mixers. Make sure young mixers come up for air often.
After all of the sugar is thoroughly mixed, the mixing virgins should be shiny when they emerge from the vat. The mix is ready for the next step.
At this point, scoop out the pine needles, close the vat with a lid, seal it with bee’s wax, and put a burping water vent into the bung.
After twenty-one moons, the Dainty Bubble Peach is ready for the King and the ladies.
Finn: Posi Hemlig’s recipe was a smash hit every time he brewed it up. The entirety of Atlantis consumed mass amounts of Dainty Peach, especially Atlas. So he kept making more and more until Atlantians were practically swimming in it. I mean aside from the mixing virgins. On one particularly dramatic occasion, which coincides with Posi’s last journal entry, the island’s Water Management System employees started celebrating before the work day was over. They got to drinking and wheeled out the big machines and were driving them around. The story goes that Eddie Metropolous got so drunk he started drilling giant holes all across the island with his auger. The last written entry was that Posi felt a little bit of an earthquake, but that he would worry about it later since the elderberries needed to be picked. That seems to have been the end of Atlantis.
JE: The end of Atlantis? Just like that? Aren’t you devastated by that story?
Finn: Why should I be? It’s just another tale of a government employee that can’t hold his liquor, drives around and makes a mess of things. Don’t you read the papers?
JE: Well, there it is. Thank you again, Finn. It was an honor to be able to see this sacred scroll. I hope to see many more when we meet again.
Finn: Yeah, let’s make it next Friday. Sneak me in some more chocolate bars. Nothing with nuts or raisins though.
Finn rolled up the sacred scroll, slid it into its holder, and danced a little soft shoe number out the door. Once again, it’s another exciting historical adventure with Brother Finn Hemlig.
When last I saw our beloved Brother Finn Hemlig, he was disappearing down the corridor of the Trappist monastery, where he now lives, in search of solace and a taco. As he left, he told me to meet him the following Friday, and I was all too willing and excited to keep that appointment. Finn is the link to the past…the link to beer’s history.
Let me preface this story with a little background information. During my college years there were two major influences in my life. These things grounded me and put me on the track to a somewhat hopeful future. The first was, of course, beer and the other was a lot of female companionship. Well, the female thing became a bit more frustrating than I had anticipated, so I replaced that influence with the study of history. It's not that I gave up women entirely. I just became more selective. I studied history in a way that not many people had before. I not only read standard textbooks and studied the conventional history taught in school, but also the history based on mythology and folk tales. At times, this proved to be more exiting than the old textbooks. This interest in historical mythology led me to a reference of the Hemlig family living in Atlantis. Long thought to be a fictitious island of paradise, here is a reference other than those of Plato to confirm such a wondrous place.
For this interview, I was a little reluctant to bring up what I assumed would be a delicate subject to Finn; the history of the Hemlig family making beer in what would become a forgotten lost world. If you’ll remember, Finn’s family has been devastated by centuries of beer related mishaps. He loves to talk about his family, but no longer talks about beer in a good way. That assumption was way off base. He not only was happy to talk about it, he supplied information that very few, if any, had ever heard or seen. Again, this is both a history of brewing and a history of the planet Earth. From his living quarters at the Trappist monastery (which he thinks makes bread and traps animals for pelt sales), Finn Hemlig gives his second interview to discuss this amazing chronicle of humankind.
JE: Finn, it’s so good to see you again. Here’s the chocolate. How has your week been?
Finn: It’s been a good week. I have been grinding a lot of barley. The other monks here tell me there is some sort of festival going on in a few months that apparently requires a thousand loaves of bread. I’ve been told that every October they haul their wares into town and sell it at this festival. Some of the heathens at the festival sell beer, and because the townspeople are not sympathetic to my aversion to beer, the monks tell me to sequester myself until the festival is over. I do my part and mill the grain. Then, when they tell me they’re beginning to load up for the celebration, I lock myself in my room. I pray for those godless masses drinking beer. I hope none of the brothers are tempted by them.
JE: Oh, they must be getting ready for the local Oktoberfest…uh…which is…uh…an annual festival of bratwurst and…nevermind. Sorry, I know how much you don’t like to think about people drinking beer. So let’s get to the interview. This may be a touchy subject, but I found a reference to a Hemlig associated with the lost continent of Atlantis. Is that true? Is it in the family scrolls?
Finn: Good heavens. I haven’t thought of old Poseidon Hemlig in years. Ha! I’m glad you brought that up. He was named after his dad, who was named after the “god” that created Atlantis…allegedly. Some think it was Poseidon, the god, and some think it was some guy with an “opolous” at the end of his name. Homopolous…Philopolous…I can’t remember. The scrolls are a little weathered since they got wet as the island was going in the drink, but they’re still pretty legible.
JE: So, Poseidon Hemlig was involved in the production of beer on Atlantis?
Finn: Yep, and he was a farmer too. He was one of three suppliers of beer to the commoners and he was eventually appointed head beer maker to King Atlas himself. Not bad for someone who was probably 93 years old.
JE: King Atlas was a real person? Did the scrolls mention what he was like or what beer he liked?
Finn: He was a real person and also a real piece of work is what the scrolls say. He was bossy, corruptible, and a little bit snooty. The depictions of his appearance remind me of a young Al Pacino with the style and flamboyance of Liberace. What a combination, huh? The scrolls contain three recipes, but after Atlas declared himself Crowned Exalted Ruler of the Flaming Serpent, only one beer was allowed to be produced. Of course it was his favorite beer: Peachy Hemilgoff, later renamed Dainty Bubble Peach by Atlas. It's a recipe that was my forefather’s brew to help loosen up the women of the community. This was probably the first malternative beverage ever made. It predates Zima by a good nine thousand years. Do they still make Zima?
JE: I don't think so. By malternative, you mean a clear malt beverage with fruity additives and little to no hops or anything.
Finn: Yes, and it had crates of sugar in it. I guess Atlas had a dandy sweet tooth.
JE: Clear malt beverages are not my cup of…whatever, but I’m still amazed. Can you let our readers in on the secret recipe of Atlantis?
Finn: This one I can’t remember off the top of my head, so I’ll go get the scroll and let you look at it. Not touch it! Look at it. I’ll be right back.
As Finn shuffled excitedly down the hall, I wander through the dining room toward what I think is the kitchen as I follow the all too familiar odor of steeping grain. I pass a sign that reads “Off Limits - Top Secret Bakery” at the entrance of a corridor leading to a large wooden door. With butterflies in my stomach, I inch my way down the hall and crack open the door. To my surprise, I see two heavyset monks dumping cracked grain into a large mash tun. I am standing outside the brewing room of one of the great Trappist monasteries. The smell is magnificent and the sight is very much like you would imagine a 17th century monk’s kitchen would look like, stone walls, wooden tables, open fire ovens, and very little light. I’m lost in the moment. Mesmerized. Then I hear Finn yelling from the other room and I am snapped out of my daze. I quietly rush back to our meeting room.
Finn: Where were you? I was worried you might wander into the off-limits bakery. Those brothers of mine are strict about who can grace the sacred bakery. I've never even been in there. Can you believe it?
JE: No, I was just looking at the…artifacts and furniture.
Finn: They’re great, right? But they aren’t as amazing as this scroll.
Finn pulls from behind him a cream colored tubular leather sleeve that has frayed edges and dark brown cracks all over it. He puts on a cloth glove and begins to pull the Hemlig scroll out of its sheath. My eyes are opened as wide as they have ever been, and I can feel myself not breathing. The yellowed papyrus parchment is everything I had hoped for. It was elaborately designed with ornate calligraphy and a picture of King Atlas dressed in a glittering purple robe with a golden headdress holding a basket of peaches and drinking from a golden, bejeweled cup. There is a green snake coiled at his feet and it seems to be on fire. He does kind of have a Pacino look to him.
JE: Finn, I’m speechless.
Finn: As you should be, Junior. This sacred text is older than dirt and twice as valuable. Did you see Atlas? He’s a frilly guy isn’t he?
JE: Absolutely. So is that the recipe? It’s kind of faded and in Latin. Can you translate for our readers please?
Finn: Sure. Also, it’s in Atlantian and not Latin. King Atlas changed a bunch of words that were too hard to say and he renamed a lot of common things too like the “Atlas scoop” for a shovel and “Bowl of Atlas” for the toilet. Arrogant little… (inaudible.) It shouldn’t take too long to translate for you, but I might have to take a few moments to recall some of the linguistic changes. (Four of five minutes pass) Whew…here goes.
The Dainty Bubble Peach Clear Beer
Ingredients:
95 Liters of Mountain Spring Water
8 Liters of Yak’s Milk with cream taken out
19 lbs of sunbleached rice
5-6 Bushels of fresh Peaches about 40 medium sized peaches per bushel
6 tubs of Sugar - enough to cover the entire body of five good sized women
10 handfuls of pine needles to take the edge off of the sugary zing
How to Make It:
In a giant vat, begin with boiling all of the water fresh from the mountain’s pool
Throw in the pine needles after the boil has begun and let them dance by themselves in the water.
Add Yak’s milk
Add rice
While the white stinky mixture is bubbling and dancing, it’s time to prepare the peaches.
The first thing for peach prep is to hire the village virgins to cut the peaches in half, take out the stones, and stomp them into the thick wonderful juice.
When the peaches have been squished, get strong men to move the vat from the fire and add the thick juice to the mixture.
Let the mixture cool enough so that you can lower two of the village virgins into the vat and let them swim around mixing up the ingredients.
Now hook up the gravity fed sugar funnel and let the sugar pour over the virginal mixers. Make sure young mixers come up for air often.
After all of the sugar is thoroughly mixed, the mixing virgins should be shiny when they emerge from the vat. The mix is ready for the next step.
At this point, scoop out the pine needles, close the vat with a lid, seal it with bee’s wax, and put a burping water vent into the bung.
After twenty-one moons, the Dainty Bubble Peach is ready for the King and the ladies.
Finn: Posi Hemlig’s recipe was a smash hit every time he brewed it up. The entirety of Atlantis consumed mass amounts of Dainty Peach, especially Atlas. So he kept making more and more until Atlantians were practically swimming in it. I mean aside from the mixing virgins. On one particularly dramatic occasion, which coincides with Posi’s last journal entry, the island’s Water Management System employees started celebrating before the work day was over. They got to drinking and wheeled out the big machines and were driving them around. The story goes that Eddie Metropolous got so drunk he started drilling giant holes all across the island with his auger. The last written entry was that Posi felt a little bit of an earthquake, but that he would worry about it later since the elderberries needed to be picked. That seems to have been the end of Atlantis.
JE: The end of Atlantis? Just like that? Aren’t you devastated by that story?
Finn: Why should I be? It’s just another tale of a government employee that can’t hold his liquor, drives around and makes a mess of things. Don’t you read the papers?
JE: Well, there it is. Thank you again, Finn. It was an honor to be able to see this sacred scroll. I hope to see many more when we meet again.
Finn: Yeah, let’s make it next Friday. Sneak me in some more chocolate bars. Nothing with nuts or raisins though.
Finn rolled up the sacred scroll, slid it into its holder, and danced a little soft shoe number out the door. Once again, it’s another exciting historical adventure with Brother Finn Hemlig.
