Eagle-eyed readers (and a few doe-eyed ones) may remember a post from a few weeks back discussing a Southern persimmon beer recipe from 1913. We’re thinking about making this recipe, following it to a T — including the rainwater part. But it’s far more important to see if we could take this Southern winter tree fruit and make tasty beer out of it. I’m pretty sure that a non-barley-based beer from 100 years ago would likely taste more like Pruno than, say, Westvleteren.

Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first step in a persimmon winter ale is to get some persimmons. A few years back, I read a great article in the Carrboro Citizen about finding persimmon trees. Check it out. But come back, because I’d be sad if you didn’t read the rest of my story!

Are you back? Great! Thank you!

I had to find a persimmon tree. To become its “caretaker,” a seemingly Southern euphemism for “if you’re not using the fruit from this tree, I’ll gladly take some.” At the peak of the harvest (particularly good this year, word had it), I was still hunting down a source. I posted on my local bulletin board — not much luck. I asked renowned chef Bill Smith of Crooks Corner for advice — he told me to keep asking around; to find someone just as he has.

Facebook to the rescue. I posted a request and within a few days had my source — a family from church we’ve known for a few years. Here’s the tree.

By the time I got to the tree, some of the fruit had already fallen to the ground. That’s good and bad: persimmons taste best after they’ve fallen to the ground — you only need one bite of an unripe persimmon to learn this lesson. It’s rather like eating felt. The bad part is that animals love persimmons.

But a gentle knock of the branches to “encourage” the fruit to fall seemed reasonable. I started with a gentle shake of the limbs, which produced healthy results:

After several hours of knocking and collecting, I had quite the batch: two huge bagfuls of sweet, ripe wild persimmons. Next time around I’ll collect the persimmons in a large tub of water, as the sheer weight of the harvest tended to crush the already-ripe fruit. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture of the final harvest, so here’s a shot of 1/100th of the end result:

There are already a cuss-ton of pictures in this blog post, so suffice to say I followed this procedure to mash the fruit. We ended up with two large bucketfuls of sweet fruit puree. It tastes like spiced fruit. Perhaps those of you who’ve had persimmon could come up with a better description. I personally think of it as ripe apricot meets fig meets tomato. Sound gross? It’s not.

The harvest will make several rounds of First Frost, our winter persimmon ale. Details on the beer coming next week — right now, it’s fermenting away. I also made some persimmon pudding, following Chef Bill Smith’s recipe…yep, the same Bill Smith who encouraged me to keep asking around and keep hunting.

I found my treasured tree. Thank you to my friends, its true caretakers, who shall remain nameless on this post so no one else bugs them.  I offered them some persimmon pudding but they seemed more interested in the beer. Here’s hoping it turns out…the harvest took some time, and I can think of nothing more rewarding than having 32 craft the harvest into a memorable winter ale.

For some reason, I can’t make it through Monday Night Football. I wake up hearing the highlights…then I’m up for another three hours. Does that happen to any of you?

So I’m up. Researching, thinking, and preparing for persimmon.

Fullsteam’s mission isn’t all that different from any other craft brewer. We’re all trying to get you, the potential consumer, to realize that beer goes well beyond “fizzy yellow.”

What makes us different? For us, the vehicle for conversation is Southern agriculture. We ferment the providence of the Southern sun, expanding beyond fizzy yellow to the rich hues of the harvest: verdant green basil. Mahogany fig. Burnt hickory. Banana-hued paw paw. Rhubarb red, green, and white.

Are we trying something new? Yes and no.

Yes, in that we’re carving a niche that few others have attempted. (Side story: a friend of mine from Pennsylvania was explaining our concept to a fellow Northerner, who said to him, “They’re trying to make Southern beer? And their flagship is a steam beer, not a Pale or IPA? How many ways are they trying to go out of business?”)

No, in that all this has been done before. All what again? Southerners making beer with what’s local. As in, their backyard.

(Full disclosure: I’ve lived in North Carolina 17 years…longer than any other place I’ve lived. Not yet half my life. So I’m not a Southerner or a Tar Heel. But I ain’t movin’.)

Witness the 1913 antebellum anthem “Dishes and Beverages of the Old South” and its recipe for Persimmon beer:

PERSIMMON BEER (1913):

The poor relation of champagne–with the advantage that nobody is ever the worse for drinking it.

To make it, take full-ripe persimmons, the juicier the better, free them of stalks and calyxes, then mash thoroughly, and add enough wheat bran or middlings to make a stiffish dough.

Form the dough into thin, flat cakes, which bake crisp in a slow oven.

When cold break them up in a clean barrel, and fill it with filtered rainwater.

A bushel of persimmons before mashing will make a barrel of beer.

Set the barrel upright, covered with a thin cloth, in a warm, dry place, free of taints. Let stand until the beer works–the persimmon cakes will rise and stand in a foamy mass on top.

After three to four weeks, either move the barrel to a cold place, or rack off the beer into bottles or demijohns, tieing down the corks, and keeping the bottled stuff very cool. The more meaty and flavorous the persimmons, the richer will be the beer.

Beware of putting in fruit that has not felt the touch of frost, so retains a rough tang. A very little of it will spoil a whole brewing of beer. If the beer is left standing in the barrel a wooden cover should be laid over the cloth, after it is done working.

Fermentation can be hastened by putting in with the persimmon cakes a slice of toast dipped in quick yeast. But if the temperature is right, the beer will ferment itself.

Now I’m not sure what a “warm, dry place free of taints” is, but I do know this: making “Southern Ag” beer like Persimmon ale is nothing new under the sun. It’s as old as Souse and Hog’s Foot Oil, Barbecued Rabbit, Squirrel Smothered, Possum Roasted, Molasses Pie, and Blackberry Mush (recipes also found in the free-to-download Dishes and Beverages).

But we’re also wise to another historical fact — one that I’m sure “contrarian historian” Maureen Ogle will appreciate.  (Maureen, if you’re reading this, that’s both tongue-in-cheek and a tribute to your disinterested research.)  Persimmon beer didn’t taste that great. Especially when the lagers of Germany and Eastern Europe found their way down South. Maybe it’s better to say that persimmon beer “fell out of favor,” as Americans en masse turned away from the local, homemade, and inconsistent to the more fail-proof and inoffensive.

Perhaps North Carolina playwright and activist Paul Green penned it best.

“Man never could drink enough to get drunk on it, and now that legitimate beer has come in, making of persimmon beer has just about passed out.” (source)

Perhaps we live in a different era.

That is the great experiment; the vehicle for conversation.