Viking Braggot Co. of Eugene crafts the historic fermented drink from honey and barley, often with a deft touch of hops
Beer is made from hops and malted barley. Mead is made from honey. Both beverages date back thousands of years. So does braggot, a hybrid of mead and beer that brings together the best of both fermentations.
While braggot is not as well-known as its malty and honeyed parents, it was especially popular in Medieval and post-Renaissance Europe and the United Kingdom (Geoffrey Chaucer even gives it a nod in “The Canterbury Tales”). Like craft beer, cider and mead, today braggot is making a modern comeback while staying true to its origins.
Technically, braggot is a type of mead (and given its history in areas from Norway to Wales, you might also see it spelled bragget, bragaut, bracket, bragot or bragawd). Instead of being made only with honey, braggots combine as much as half honey and half malted barley.
Technically, braggot is a type of mead (and given its history in areas from Norway to Wales, you might also see it spelled bragget, bragaut, bracket, bragot or bragawd). Instead of being made only with honey, braggots combine as much as half honey and half malted barley.
If you aren’t interested in the hoppy bitterness associated with many Northwest beers, braggots are traditionally hopless, though breweries such as Eugene-based Viking Braggot Co. also brew hopped versions. As with beers, braggot colors range from pale to dark. Honey aromas and textures come through, and hopped versions usually balance sweetness and bitterness.
“People tell us they enjoy that the honey rounds out or smooths the flavour and you aren’t left with that bitter beer taste,” explains Dan McTavish, co-founder of Viking Braggot Co. “Even our IPA-style braggots have a huge amount of hops but aren’t over-the-top bitter, which people really enjoy.”
From left, Viking Braggot Co.’s head brewer Perry Ames, and co-founders Addison Stern and Daniel McTavish inside their specialized brewery in west Eugene. (Kelly Lyon/The Register-Guard)
Finding their brewing niche
Along with craft beer, the public was beginning to take more notice of mead, and McTavish first encountered it while a student at the University of Oregon.
“When I thought of ‘mead’ I thought of tales of big wooden mugs being crashed together and much more along the line of beer,” McTavish says. “After a little research I came across the braggot style and I was hooked.”
McTavish would homebrew in his small apartment near the UO campus, where he was a senior at the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business. Over winter break in 2011, he and fellow Viking Braggot co-founder Addison Stern came up with the idea for a craft brewery, based in Oregon where the industry and market were at the cutting edge. During their remaining time at the UO, McTavish and Stern began learning all they could about the craft-beer industry nationally and within Oregon.
“There were so many awesome breweries out there. Even if you could make better beer, those other breweries would still be better funded, marketed and distributed than we could ever dream of being,” McTavish says. “So the idea of something niche, like braggot, that nobody else was doing, was very attractive.”
After graduating in June 2012, McTavish and Stern began networking and evaluating potential brewery locations. By December they had a facility, and in 2013 produced 114 kegs (57 barrels). With products available in Oregon (primarily from Eugene to Portland), Viking Braggot and its five employees last year crafted 684 kegs (342 barrels), and is on pace to produce 420 barrels, or about 840 kegs, for 2017.
The growth, says head brewer Perry Ames, comes from growing awareness of braggots and an interest in craft beverages beyond beer and wine.
“People tell me they really like the diversity of the styles and ingredients that we use,” he says.
Honey, hop subtleties
The word “braggot” and its variants stem from Irish and Welsh words meaning “to sprout,” a nod to sprouted, malted barley. As with beer, malts could be pale (such as you might find in a blonde ale or pale ale), smoked (for a more traditional flavour), or dark (reminiscent of porter or stout). Strength ranges from a common 5 to 7 percent ABV, to around 13 percent ABV.
Beyond fermentable sugars, honey provides aromas, flavours and textures that bring the essence of the honey to the fore in the glass. Braggots can be hop-forward, but if brewers hop a braggot they often use mellower varieties that won’t dominate but instead enhance from the background.
“Braggots are very similar to craft beer. People worry without having tried them, that they will be cloying or too sweet,” McTavish explains. “We ferment most of the honey so you are left with a subtle, but added complexity of the remaining honey. The biggest taste would be how smooth and full-bodied the brews are.”
For people interested in trying braggots for the first time, McTavish and Ames recommend they start on the lighter side, such as Viking’s Reverence, a red ale brewed with orange blossom honey, or Freyja, a blonde ale that works in local wildflower honey, ‘Crystal’ and ‘Cascade’ hops, and honeybush, a South African herbal tea. Honey character will come through more in lighter braggots, yet balance with subtler malt flavours.
From what Viking Braggot’s team is seeing in distribution trends and in its tasting room, more and more people are cluing in to the world of braggots.
“The educational aspect of braggot was a huge battle right off the bat,” McTavish allows. “It is still a daily thing to describe, correctly, what a braggot is. But one of my favourite things is to overhear a group of people, where one person is explaining what a braggot is to their friends, and that happens more and more.”
