All Over Albany

Another resurrected Albany Ale is now available

The Albany Ale Project and C.H. Evans Brewing Co. have teamed up again to resurrect another version of the once-famous Albany ale.

This latest version is based on recipes from 1830 that were surfaced by Albany Ale co-creator Craig Gravina, and adapted by Evans head brewer Ryan Demler. (You might remember the first time they did this a few years back -- that version was based on an 1865 1901 recipe.)

Beer blurbage from C.H. Evans:

Our version of the 1830s recipe uses New York grown and malted 6-row barley from Pioneer Malting in Rochester, NY as well as NY produced honey from B's Honey in Watervliet. As with many older styles of beer, "Albany Ale" was brewed with hops, though at the time there wasn't a distinction as to the types or timing of additions, so we took a bit of creative license here and used some cluster variety hops and a token amount of NYS grown Cascade.

This mid-strength beer (of the time) clocks in at 7.9% Alcohol By Volume (ABV) and drinks rather crisp and clean for a recipe nearly 200 years old. The body is light, almost sharp and dry. The relatively heavy hopping rate (for the style) and heavy use of honey result in a brew that's dry and has a pronounced bitterness that helps clean up the finish. A bit of "breadiness" comes through from the grain and works well with the subtly piney hop flavor.

This latest resurrected Albany ale will be on tap exclusively at the Albany Pump Station starting today (September 2) -- and they expect it to be available for about three weeks.

So much of history is the little, everyday stuff that gets lost over time, or just isn't compatible with the way we transmit history. So the Albany Ale Project and the collaboration with C.H. Evans are interesting not just because they highlight Albany's robust brewing history, but also because they afford the opportunity to actually taste (more or less) something from the 19th century.