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Comparative Imbibature

Comparative Imbibature #1

Essays Approaching a Deeper Understanding of the Hauf n’ Hauf

How should one approach pairing whisky and beer? What exactly is the Platonic ideal of the Hauf n’ Hauf? Following my most recent experiment, I’m confident I know what it isn’t.

With Glencairn and can empty, and as I veered into the kind of doze a lion might enjoy after a haunch of antelope, a light mane massage and long exposure under the Savannah sun, it occurred to my impaired brain that this wasn’t the effect boilermakers were supposed to have.

Sure, the tradition calls for a softening one-two of spirit and ale, a salve for the aches of a day buried down a mine or the strangling stress of welding things together in a shipyard. But it is important to finish both glasses and still function afterwards.

I suspect very few miners or metalworkers would have drank 10.5% beers alongside their dram although, were they to have done so, I’m sure they’d have handled things better than I did. I can say with confidence, however, that the earliest hauf n’ hauf pioneers almost certainly weren’t in sun-warmed flats, watching ‘F1: Drive to Survive’.

Here I share some learnings discussing the hedonic essence of the boilermaker. I am confident that, should you heed my warnings, you will greatly enhance your enjoyment the next time you liberate a can of something to accompany your whisky.

  • 1. Make sure your ABVs are manageable

With any pairing, experts say you should either contrast or complement. When it comes to the overall alcohol strength of your hauf n’ hauf, and with whisky starting at 40% ABV, frankly you need to be realistic with the brewed component. When I poured a large measure of 49% ABV This is Not a Festival Whisky and opened 330ml of 10.5% beer, I unwittingly mounted one of those mechanical bulls after someone has tinkered with the power supply – it was fun at first but I was soon asking why my legs didn’t work. Going forward, any beer over 6.5% ABV simply won’t be considered for a boilermaker. If the whisky is close to or above 50% ABV, I’m probably not going to be interested in any beer above 4.5%.

  • 2. Establish the dominant partner

If point 1 is about being mindful of the practicalities of consumption, point 2 is all to do with finding focus. Where boilermakers are concerned, in my experience it is never 50:50 and perhaps should not be. It is crucial to understand which drink you want to hold the whip. In my unsuccessful hauf n’ hauf attempt, I put two liquids together that were evenly matched, but the overall experience lacked harmony and freshness. It is vital that the drinker recognises when they have a virtuosic performer and use the accompanying beverage to show them off to best advantage. I wouldn’t expect Eddie Van Halen and Beethoven to duet happily, so why did I do it with the Tempest Barrel 04 Sidecar Imperial Pale Ale and the Compass Box? For the record, the Tempest was delicious but if you have the same bias as me, you’re goal is to enhance the experience of the whisky. The Imperial Pale Ale was simply too heavy going. Rather than being given a series of lay-ups, the whisky was instead locked in a bad-tempered arm wrestle. Soupy beer and oily whisky offered no relief from either side, with both competing for my appreciation and attention. Given its ABV, the Tempest should have been enjoyed solo.

  • 3. The interest of the beer should reduce in inverse proportion to the calibre of the whisky

By way of a development to point 2, it seems clear to me that the ‘posher’/’fancier’ the Scotch, or the more you want to taste it, the more populist the beer needs to be. At the highest levels of prestige, the beer should prostrate itself entirely, acting as the broom to the whisky’s curling stone as it rumbles across your palate. One of my favourite boilermakers is The Spice Tree with Kernel Brown Ale. They are extremely evenly matched in their unshowy but well-honed flavoursomeness with the mashbill of the beer enriching the maltiness of the whisky while the tangy hops balance the baking spice notes of the spirit’s oak character. They are also united in being not exactly cheap, nor easy to find. This works because there is parity in the modest interest pertaining to the beer and the whisky.

If, however, we want to drink something like Talisker 18yo (assuming you can afford to), we need to reduce the processing power demanded by the beer. Perhaps a good craft lager like a Camden Hells or even a not too aggressive sour. By the time you are sipping on a 3-Year-Old Deluxe or a well-aged, limited-edition Springbank, you’re into Asahi levels of brewed restraint. A dram of Brora 1972 Rare Malts served alongside anything other than an arctic-ly frosty Budweiser would be sacrilege.

So how will I be acting upon my insights going forward? I will pay closer attention to the whisky I want to exalt, considering where its limitations might be and what style of beer may help rectify things. Then I’ll try to find a can at a reasonably low ABV by way of a sparring partner. The preferred whisky for my next investigation will be Fettercairn 16yo. I’ll report back on what brew is chosen, and how they played together.

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A Sober Perspective

I was speaking to friends recently about Dry January. One said that he used to do it annually but the appeal steadily waned. Maybe starting two successive years under pandemic restrictions was hard enough without further, self-imposed, denial. This piece isn’t about judgement.

Going the whole of January without a drink has never been a conscious goal of mine, but then my alcohol intake is miniscule anyway. It’s often a surprise to people when I tell them this – a whiskymaker who barely drinks.

Much as my parents more-or-less successfully taught me that booze is to be enjoyed but respected, the main cause of my current temperance is a mild form of PTSD carried over from two years as a brand ambassador for Chivas Regal in Dubai, and the toll three hangovers a week took on my health.

For a desert state, the UAE is one of the wettest places I’ve known. If you’re a European who has spent any time in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, ‘Brunch’ will trigger very particular, albeit hazy, memories. With so many events between Sunday and Thursday evening for my job, I tried to foreswear Brunch and keep my weekends clear of booze. But many of my friends didn’t drink for a living, so hanging out with them on Fridays and Saturdays often involved a glass or two of something.

I was never one of those remarkable specimens who can wake up hangover-free after a skinful, and my body increasingly struggled with the toxins I was asking it to process. When the end of my two-year stint approached, I made it clear to my employers that a role doing something in a sample room 9-to-5 (it was actually more like 7-to-4) would suit my interests much better than another 12 months as a tanned cadaver.

Once back in the UK, I revelled in what I had only been able to briefly experience during the UAE summers, when religious holidays made the bar scene way more low-key: with no alcohol entering my system for days at a time, I felt fantastic.

While Sinatra’s famous quote about pitying teetotallers is hilarious, I can definitely attest that the 5pm relief at finally being able to stomach solid food is a hollow win.

Without meaning to, I’ve gone a month without a drink. In a challenging first two months to 2022, stringing many alcohol-free days together has had cumulative benefits for me. Sleep is better and with improved rest comes the option to do more during the day. I’m running regularly again and feeling fit and strong all the time is – sorry to say – preferable to the merry benevolence that comes halfway down your second pint.

The single biggest benefit, though, is cognitive. After ten days without alcohol, I find that my mind can process things more effectively. I cover mental ground more rapidly and self-critical thoughts can be managed more easily. It’s like sweeping all the background programmes from your desktop while also muting unhelpful notifications.

From a purely rational perspective, then, drinking looks a lot like the voluntary impairment of my own faculties. Hemingway is a strange and fascinating creature. But I am also battling a productivity imperative, one in which the demon on my shoulder has disguised itself as an angel of industriousness. Teetotalism feels a tad fundamentalist, throwing out the socially-rich and flavoursome baby with the alcoholic bathwater.

Flavours behave differently in the glass compared to the mind. Sipping a dram reveals further facets over tasting alone. As much as Liquid Texts deals with the imagination, it will only succeed in my eyes if it allows me to engage – in deep ways – with the world of people, atoms and physical processes.

This phase of giving up will end and once again I’ll be experimenting with how much alcohol and how often. My month off has reminded me of hedonic moments tea cannot get anywhere near: takeaway pizza from a proper pizzeria with a glass of chilled red wine; cask strength whiskies with good friends; Champagne from Ulysse Collin (a sadly infrequent occurrence); a perfectly made Negroni in a swish bar. These are moderate delights that warrant feeling a bit below par for a day or two.

I have experienced the kind of clarity that comes with tea’s alpha waves and running’s endorphins, as well as the particular insight alcohol can occasionally bestow. While I do benefit from time spent in both worlds, I will always favour the writer over the imbiber.