Bragging on braggots

Bellwether is about to do for braggot what it did for gruit.

The North Spokane brewery specializes in Old World offerings like braggot, a honeyed beer/mead hybrid, and gruit, a typically hopless ale brewed with herbs and spices.

In February, it packed its cozy space for Gruitfest , featuring a half-dozen of those on tap. And on Saturday, it hopes to attract an equally enthusiastic crowd for Braggotfest , with a dozen examples from several area breweries.

Like gruits, braggots can cover a wide range of beer types from light to dark, mild to strong, malty to hoppy.

“It’s almost more of a method than a style,” says Bellwether brewer/co-owner Thomas Croskrey. “There are all these different beer styles that you can turn into braggots and gruits.”

Braggot traces its origins to the Middle Ages among Nordic and Celtic populations (it’s mentioned in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” ). They likely started out by blending finished ale and mead, often accented with herbs and spices, then began brewing using a combination of grain and honey.

Not all beers made with honey are braggots, though there’s no clear definition of the term today. It’s simply not something federal alcohol authorities see often enough to establish firm guidelines.

“Honey-based beverages basically died in the 1600s and are just starting to come back in a major way,” says Jeremy Kyncl of Green Bluff’s Hierophant Meadery , co-sponsor of Saturday’s event.

Croskrey considers 30 percent honey content to be the minimum for braggots, though his are typically 50-50. Even so, they’re not necessarily sweet; the sugar ferments into alcohol, leaving behind the flavor components.

And with more than 300 honey varieties in the United States – plus regional variations within those, based on climate and other conditions – there’s an abundance of flavors.

Croskrey uses lighter clover honey in his new Summer Run session braggot (4.6 percent alcohol by volume), a collaboration with Nu Home Brew that gets its bright, crisp character from a combination of lemongrass, birch bark and basil.

Hearty buckwheat honey goes into his stronger, Scottish-inspired Seawolf (7.9), lending what Croskrey calls “almost a Tootsie Roll chocolate.” And given the natural variations in honey supplies, he says, “Every batch is a little different. This one’s a little more chocolatey, this one has a little more leather. I love that part of it.”

Like Gruitfest, Braggotfest centers around a collaboration – actually, a variation on the same collaboration: the dark, mild We Are Gruit, a joint effort by Bellwether, Young Buck, Whistle Punk and Republic Brewing that included nine herbs and spices.

After that was served straight for Gruitfest, Bellwether and Young Buck aged some of it in merlot barrels. Then it was blended with Hierophant’s Gilead vanilla poplar mead to create a rich (7.5 percent ABV), complex concoction called Casus Fortuitus.

That’s Latin for “happy accident,” explains Kyncl, who came up with the concept while blending his meads with a growler of We Are Gruit that Croskrey brought to a party. “It just fell into place,” he says.

The blend starts out with a tart, fruity edge from the yarrow in the original recipe and the barrels, softened by the mead. But as it warms, says Young Buck’s Cameron Johnson, it becomes more like a mellower mulled wine.

The Braggotfest lineup also includes a blend of Young Buck’s gose (tart wheat beer) with Hierophant’s Matricaria chamomile mead, last year’s Darknut green walnut braggot collaboration by Bellwether and Hierophant, and three other special creations: a big (11.7 percent) brown braggot by Badass Backyard brewed with Fireball Jawbreaker candy; a saison version with lilac and clover honey from Four-Eyed Guys, and a red braggot with knapweed honey by Top Frog.

Also look for the regular Honey Basil Braggot from Northern Ales and seasonal Aegir’s Grog with ginger and juniper berries from Rants & Raves, along with Bellwether’s Seawolf, Summer Run, Honey Hop braggot IPA with blackberry honey and hopless Kulning gruit with wildflower honey and smoked malt.

The event runs from 3 to 9 p.m. Admission is $15, which includes a commemorative 15-ounce tasting mug (for the first 70 customers, or Bellwether logo glasses after that) and your first six drink tickets. Five-ounce pours will cost one to three tickets, depending on the beer (10-ounce pours also available); extra tickets will be $2 each, or three for $5.

Nationally touring acoustic artist Brian Griffing will provide live music from 7 to 9 p.m.