Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project
Pretty Things Beer Jack D'Or....$6.49 / 22oz
Rated 95/100 RateBeer
Beer Type: Saison Americain
Hop Variety: Nugget, Styrian Golding, Columbus & Palisade
Malt Variety: Pils, Vienna, Wheat, Oats, Rye
ABV: 6.5
IBUs: 57
Color: jackish gold
“Jack D’Or” is a simple table beer, or “Saison Americain” as we’re referring to it. We are not trying to coin a beer style – we’re just having fun. The Jack D’Or (pronounced “Jack Door”), is at the very center of Pretty Things and nearly three years on we’re still pleased as punch that he joined us!
As you know, PRETTY THINGS doesn’t brew “styles” per se. Close, but we re-imagine everything and leave the style numbers in books on the shelves where they belong. What that means is that while other people might be able to put our beers into a category, we have a hard time with it! Our beers are first and foremost creative beasts, not “types” of beer. Jack D’Or is the kind of beer Martha and Dann like to drink before, after and during a great meal. Heck, we’ll drink this sort of beer any time.
On Dann & Martha’s honeymoon in France and Belgium they stashed quite a few cases of Wallonian beer into their trunk. Every night after setting up their tent they’d cook lardons and lentils on a camp stove and enjoy fresh “saison” under the stars.
Inspired by some of our favorites like Saison DuPont, but also DeRanke’s XX Bitter, De Dolle’s Arabier, and local IPAs like Smuttynose, the Jack D’Or starts off with North American Pils, Vienna, Wheat and Malted Oats (among others) and is hopped with a combination of four hops, finishing with Palisade and Nugget. The bitterness is the real backbone of the Jack D’Or. It’s a proper “plant-like” bitterness with all of its jagged edges, beginning deep in the soil, then to the stem of this beer and up into to the very tippity heights. Fermentation-wise we use a blend of four yeast strains to give Jack D’Or its refreshingly dry character. Finally, despite all of the spicy flavours in this beer it contains no actual spices – only malt, oats, rye, sugar, hops and yeast. One more time: there are no spices or citrus in Jack D’Or. Wheat lends acidity at Jack’s edges, then rye and our blended yeast character come into play for a bit of polyphony, displeasing the notion of “balance” and creating the fire in the belly of Jack D’Or!
The creature on the label is Jack D’Or himself, conceived and drawn by Dann. Far away in a small clearing in the woods of New England, ankle deep in the mash tun, he contemplates and conjures himself into a batch of beer. For those of you who are new to this, Jack is a grain of malted barley, but more than that: he is the unifying force behind all of the Pretty Things. Jack D’Or Must Die!
Pretty Things Saint Botolph's Town....$6.49 / 22oz
Rated 93/100 RateBeer
Rated 98/100 in its style on RateBeer
Beer Type: Yorkshire dark brown ale
Hop Variety: if you can taste any let us know
Malt Variety: all of the primary malts for this beer come from Thomas Fawcett & Son, Yorkshire
ABV: 5.9%
IBUs: 38
Color: deep reddish brown in the light, brown to black on the bar
When Martha and I began thinking about what type of beer to brew next for PRETTY THINGS, there was no discussion. In fact we’ve had it figured out for years. We both had our hearts set on brewing the sort of beer we loved so much in Yorkshire.
Many people know that Martha and I love Theakston’s Old Peculier, at least the cask version. But Robinson’s Old Tom is high on our list as well. Now that Samuel Smith has released Yorkshire Stingo that makes three. At the brewery where I worked in Yorkshire we made a unique beer called “Morocco Ale” that is quite similar as well.
Obviously PRETTY THINGS isn’t all about simple replication. As a rule we don’t do beer “styles” straight up, as it doesn’t leave any room for creativity. Instead we take our inspiration from great beers as a starting point.
“Rustic Dark Ale”, is about as apt a descriptor as we could come up with for Saint Botolph’s Town (we almost used “New World Stingo” but decided to save that for a future beer). This ale is formulated with the malts of Thomas Fawcett & Sons of Yorkshire, England as its base. When I was brewing in Yorkshire I visited this magnificent maltings many times, seeing crystal and roasted malts still made by hand. On brew day their crystal malt gave an amazing golden raisin-like aroma in the kettle. Fantastic!
As we did in Jack D’Or, we used a small amount of Malted Oats, but cut it this time with Torrefied Wheat. We “chaptalized” using four different types of sugar in very small doses for both flavour AND colour.
SBT is fermented with two yeast strains for a unique rustic finish. But it’s in the yeast strains where this beer really departs from the typical: one is a German ale strain, the other is a common English strain. Why? Because it’s about the flavour, not just ticking the “style” boxes.
In the end we have an ale of 5.9% abv with a big malty, almost smokey Black Malt character, a bitter attack from Fuggle hops, a rich barleymalt finish, some dried coconut hints and an old ale acidity around the edges. We’ve even timed its tan head, standing proud for ten minutes!
The name “Saint Botolph’s Town” is in tribute to our great home in America: Boston. The original Boston in Lincolnshire, England is an abbreviation of “Botolph’s Town” or “Botolph’s Stone”. When we were back in Yorkshire recently, we found a churchyard where St. Botolph spoke in the year 675; a ‘stump’ (broken old cross) marks the spot. Saint Botolph is a 7th century saint from England whose feast day is June 17th. Perhaps a great day to save a bottle or two for!
by Dann
How about some Fluffy White Rabbits for Easter!
Pretty Things Fluffy White Rabbits....$7.49 / 22oz
Rated 95/100 RateBeer
Beer Type: Why, it’s some sort of Triple
Hop Variety: Amarillo, Saaz, Styrian Golding
Malt Variety: Pils, Malted Wheat
ABV: 8.5%
IBUs: 50
Color: Pale Gold
Our first Spring, we brought you a magical tree full of waving babies… and the Baby Tree has stuck around, we’re happy to say. So for our second Spring, and each Spring since, we’ve made a pale gold, hoppy triple called Fluffy White Rabbits. This is a fun and Springy beer: possibly even our fun-est beer. In Yorkshire, they say “White Rabbits” on the first of the month for luck, and here’s to a lovely warm Springtime for all of us!
The beer is 8.5% abv, with Saaz, Styrian Goldings and Strisselspalt hops added aplenty. Fluffy mouthfeel: yes, really! There’s a faint sweetness with tropical fruit undertones. Fluffy White Rabbits is a very “Pretty Things” take on a Triple.
We use what we think are the finest ingredients around: malts from Weyermann (Germany) and Fawcett (Yorkshire) in this beer.
It’s a fun one, we hope you enjoy it!
Dann has been working on the poem for this beer since springtime of 2009. One day, maybe you’ll come back and find it here. One day.
Pretty Things Lovely Saint Winefride...$7.49
Rated 97/100 RateBeer
Rated 100/100 in its style on RateBeer
Beer Style: “Brown” Lager
Hop Variety: Hersbrucker
Malt Variety: Blend of German Pils, Vienna & Carafa malts
ABV: 7.0%
Color: Rich Brown
Lovely Saint Winefride is a “brown” lager, created by Dann using a complicated and extremely-rare decoction mash. You’re correct, “Brown Lager” isn’t actually a style, but we wanted to make the most deliciously malty lager imaginable. At the same time we wanted this to taste like a lager you’d actually find in Germany, bursting with authentic character and suitable for the most discerning old-timer.
Besides the decoction mash, we fermented Saint Winefride at 52 degrees and lagered her over a period of 9 weeks in the deep of winter. They just don’t make lagers like this here in New England. The beer is malty, containing a blend of German malts and roasted German malts. There’s even the wisp of smoke near the end.
St Winefride lived in post-Roman Wales from 600 to 660 A.D. She was charming and intelligent, and decided to become a nun. Unfortunately, this news went down poorly with her suitor, Caradoc, who hacked off her head. Luckily, her Uncle Beuno was able to perform the miracle of reattaching it and she recovered fully. (Hooray!). She became an Abbess and governed Gwytherin Abbey in Wales until her death on November 3rd, 660 A.D.
The lager, yes lager, started out as an idea to create a very rustic beer with a roasted character and a brown disposition. We imagined a pre-Great War sort of beer that might have been on its last legs of popularity. The kind of beer young folks of the time would laugh about as being “an old man’s lagerbier”. Well Pretty Things is the old-man’s-dream-beer-brewer, so we decided to give it a whirl. We started with malted barley and hops from the German tradition and employed a single decoction mash. Decoction is a slightly complicated, time intensive and little used technique (on this continent anyway) that insured temperature accuracy in the age before real temperature control. Got it? Okay, that was a boring explanation. How is this: we took a portion of the mash and boiled it at 212 degrees F for 15 minutes. Trust us, boiling a mash is rare. Dann has only done this a handful of times in his twenty year career (on purpose anyway). Ahem. We continue by saying this brown lager is also quite delicious and nice to drink. If you choose to not think about boiling mashes and old men we assure you this beer will still very much please your palate.
Tasting notes: deep brown red colour, tannish head, fine carbonation, deep dark malt character with quite a lot of yeast presence in the flavour, refined Hallertau hoppiness. 7% ABV
Quite a lady! We hope you enjoy this beer! Keep an eye on this page as we will add more beery-details in the days to come.
Just in time for Easter
Pretty Things Baby Tree....$7.49 / 22oz
Rated 95/100 RateBeer
Beer Type: Quadruple
Malts: Pils, Vienna, Chocolate malt, Oats
ABV: 9.0%
Color: Garnet
Baby Tree was our first Easter beer. We LOVE Easter here at Pretty Things. Usually after the long Boston winter, we’re itching to bring out the bunnies, bonnets and yellow fluffy chicks and get on with our Springtime.
The Baby Tree is a real tree. This must be said. It dwells in Sexhow and carries cavorting baby-dolls and in season, a few pears appear. It belongs to great friends of Dann & Martha, and they chose to rescue these small plastic people from a landfill-fate by allowing them to ride in their pear-tree many years ago. And thank heavens they did.
Our Baby Tree is a very magical, traveling tree filled with waving, happy babies, some of whom may or may not resemble Mikheil Gorbachev. There may also be some discrepancy in the number of limbs, but we cannot be sure where other baby heads may be poking through the leaves so we don’t worry ourselves about it. If you want, read our poem about it.
Baby Tree beer is a Pretty Things take on the best of Abbey-style brewing from Belgium. Inspired by monastic and abbey quadruples, embellished with dark fruit flavours, not too sweet, not too heavy, it’s a springtime beer with some of the richness of late winter. It makes it perfect year round, so that’s when we offer it! You should be able to find it most months of the year, on draft or in bottle.
All in all, it’s our way of bringing a bit of Springtime to you and to us, all year round. Hooray!
-Martha
Pretty Things Meadowlark IPA....$7.49 / 22oz
Rated 98/100 RateBeer
Meadowlark IPA is a new juicy and floral hoppy ale we brewed to celebrate the flavor and spirit of American craft brewing. This 7% alcohol beer has a sunny orange-gold colour, 60 International Bittering Units, a smooth mouthfeel and layers of soft flowery hops. We wove fragrant Citra and Bravo hops from the Pacific Northwest with intensely fruity Galaxy hops from Australia. The malts are English pale & crystal, flaked barley with malty highlights from Munich malt and Roast Barley. The resulting patchwork is as “American” tasting as short ribs and slaw, and provides an excellent accompaniment to that kind of food too!
