GET EARTHY WITH HEMP ALE

ATLANTA -- The heyday of hemp and hashish has long since faded, as distant
from the here and now as Woodstock or Jefferson Airplane. But hemp had been
around, in many uses, long before the 1960s. It's what we made rope from,
after all.

But beer?

The science of brewing is well-established, its basic ingredients fairly
standard around the world: malted barley (sometimes with additions of
wheat, oat or rye), lager or ale yeast, hops and water. It's the art that
varies, from style to style and brewer to brewer. What malts and in what
proportions? Which hops and at what stage of the brewing process? Which
yeast strains? How long the fermentation?

It is both art and science.

When Frederick Brewing Co. decided to add crushed hemp seed to the grist,
it was looking for something to set its Hempen Ale apart from other brown
ales.

If it piques the curiosity, so much the better. But, as brewmaster Tim Keck
says, it wasn't something just tossed in for the fun of it. "Hemp," he
says, "can be hard to work with. You don't always get the clarity you want,
so you have to be careful."

Done well, brewing with hemp seed can impart a subtle earthiness to the
flavor.

"The aim was to make a brown ale, but one that was a little spicier than
most," Keck says.

Hempen Ale is certainly that, not spicy in the manner of winter seasonal
beers but noticeable enough that you know it's not the usual brown ale.
This is, in fact, quite a good one, fuller bodied than most (but not heavy)
and more complex in taste. This is a brown ale that can stand up to steaks
and to slathery burgers.

Hemp makes up about 10 percent of the grist, the rest being barley, and the
Cascade hops in the finish give it a robustness seldom found in a brown ale.

What works in one beer, though, doesn't always work in another. Hempen
Gold, a companion beer from the Frederick, Md., brewery, is called a cream
ale, meaning a light-bodied, very pale brew of low alcohol content and
almost no hop character. With hemp constituting 20 percent of the grist,
the beer is top-fermented like all ales, but its flavor - what there is of
it - is entirely in the foretaste. It hits you and almost evaporates. A
real beer will unfold its character in the mid-taste and leave its
signature in the aftertaste.

"We were aiming for more of a mass audience," Keck concedes.

A better way to reach that audience might have been the way Lexington
Brewing of Lexington, Ky., has gone. Instead of trying to make a light ale,
it brewed a Coors-like lager and used rice (10 percent), the ingredient
that gives mass-market beers their crispness and their blandness.

Kentucky Hemp Beer is different in another way, too. Hemp is used in the
hopping process rather than as part of the grist, the aim being to give the
aroma a slight earthiness. But in a beer so lightly hopped to begin with,
the effect goes all but undetected.

The best way to set beer apart is the old-fashioned way: Choose malts with
care and balancing the hops like a painter with his colors. Do it well and
you don't need an eye-catching ingredient. The beer will speak for itself.

Triangle tastings:

WHITE FRENCH WINES. Tastings of white wines from Alsace and Loire at
Carolina Wine Co., Sunday, 1-6 p.m., fee per pour. Call 852-0236 or visit
www.carolinawine.com.

WINE DINNER. Six-course meal pairing wines from Franciscan Vineyards.
Sponsored by Fairview Restaurant at Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, March
23, 7 p.m. $80 per person; reservations required. Call Don Ball at 493-6699.

TASTING BAR. Tastings of affordable international wines at Carolina Wine
Co., Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sundays, 1-6 p.m., free. Call 852-0236
or visit www.carolinawine.com.

Send information on tastings or classes 10 days before publication to
Spirited Discussion, Food Section, The News & Observer, P.O. Box 191,
Raleigh, N.C. 27602; fax, 829-4647; e-mail, food@ nando.com.