Pick Your Six

By Lewis Smith

Certain things are inseparable parts of our state’s identity: college basketball, beaches, mountains, barbecue, Raleigh being under constant road construction — all essential building blocks of North Carolina’s unique character. And also — pirates. North Carolina’s history is replete with stories of legendary buccaneers, brigands, cutthroats, and various assorted men and women of piracy, many of whom enjoyed a good drink now and again, mayhem permitting. We here at Brew Scene, in what is commonly termed “a lay-up” in the beer writing game, decided to match six legendary North Carolina pirates with six legendary beers, and see if we came up with something both nautical and nice.

THE PIRATE:

Blackbeard (Edward Teach)

In the 17th and 18th centuries, it’s very diffcult to turn a ravenous appetite for mayhem into a career path, but damn if Edward Teach didn’t manage OK with it. Cutting a swath of pillage up and down the coast, one of his favorite gimmicks was setting his own beard on fre to scare people, which we’ll admit is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that cements one’s legacy as a legendary rogue and why you always warn kids not to play with matches. It’d be a heartwarming feelgood story of making your own way in a hard world, except for ... well, all of it, especially his sorry fnish — Blackbeard was ultimately shot fve times, cut 20 times and executed by beheading, probably to keep him from coming back as a zombie.

THE BEER: Blackbeard

Breakfast’s (Heavy Seas Beer, Baltimore, Md.)

Our friends at Heavy Seas beer came up with porter so powerful, you’ll feel like you just kissed a cannon. A powerful concoction worthy of Mr. Teach, this beer features notes of nuts, coffee, and so much malt, but the main takeaway from start to fnish is the powerful kick it gets from being aged in bourbon barrels. That bourbon favor is the main element of the taste, though it does even out to a sweet fnish. Make no mistake — this is one heavy duty pour (that bourbon aging kicks this into a pleasant 10 percent ABV, after all) so this is not necessarily a beer with those who have plans for the rest of the day. But the favor and the sheer force of it made it an instant favorite, and worthy of Blackbeard’s legacy.

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THE PIRATE: Mary Read

Mary Read took a fintlock and cutlass to gender roles. She started her career of evil with some light fraud — dressing up as her dead older brother to get money out of a relative. Soon deciding that she liked the whole “having clothes with pockets” thing, she got married, opened a bar, and ended up a pirate. As you do. Mary won a duel of honor once with the surprising but effective strategy of fashing her opponent and then cutting his throat, in what a more juvenile column about beer might call a “booby trap,” but we here at BrewScene would never dare to stoop that low. Not at all. Eventually she fell in with Anne Bonny — almost literally — and they became the Thelma and Louise of their day, united by their common interests in drinking, fghting and swearing a lot.

THE PIRATE:

“Calico” Jack Rackham

“Calico” Jack was kinda like the Lando Calrissian of piracy — dude was long on style. Dressing in colorful fnery and having a pretty swank pirate fag, Jack raised a fair share of hell in the company of pirates like Mary Read and Anne Bonny, the latter of whom he had something of a thing going on, because you share everything on pirate ships, it seems. When fnally captured and sentenced to hanging, Anne was said to tell Jack that she was really sorry, but if he had fought harder, they wouldn’t be hanging him like a punk. But for the fact that he was dead soon after that exchange, one hopes Rackham was comforted by the fact that he was a lock for winning the “best breakup story” contest no matter where he went.

THE BEER: 13 Rebels ESB (French Broad Brewing, Asheville, N.C.)

This beer was quite an interesting pour. A fulsome taste that’s not too rich gives way to something that’s overall very savory and not at all bitter. Very malty character that manages to be very perfectly pleasant in a number of respects. It’s a perfect beer for those times when you’re over the IPAs and want something heavy, but not porter or stout kinda heavy. A solid, skillfully well-balanced beer.

THE BEER: Hidden Pipe Porter (Raleigh Brewing Company, Raleigh, N.C.)

From the capital city comes this coffeebrewed delight. A very rich yet not bitter (despite the fact that there’s some very powerful coffee in the mix) porter, Hidden Pipe cuts the potential sharp and bitter taste coffee beers can sometimes end up with by adding in chocolate and molasses for a delicate balancing act that fnishes with a smooth, but not terribly sweet fnish. You know it’s a good beer when you buy one and wish you’d bought two, and such was my experience with Hidden Pipe. It’s an excellent beer for those of you who are fends for coffee beers, or just beers in general—it’s a very enjoyable pour.

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THE PIRATE: Anne Bonny Renowned for her skill at being a pirate, as well as her skill with drinking and swearing, balancing motherhood and career (and using it to get out of being executed a time or two) and the most pro ice way of dumping someone of all time, Anne Bonny’s story is inspirational (think Bonnie and Clyde, except with less Clyde and another Bonnie) not least because she managed to be an utterly scandalous lass kicker ...and apparently never hanged for it, because what a career of piracy, murder, and thievery often needs to be legendary is a feel-good ending.

THE PIRATE: Charles Vane

Pirates, despite the romanticism of their legends, were pretty raw dudes when you get down to it. You sort of have to be to do a job like that. Charles Vane was so rude even the legends can’t give him too much of a gloss. Earning a rep for torturing people he captured, taking a ship by hanging the captain, cheating his crew out of their share of the loot, shooting at governors, refusing pardons for his crimes, setting his ships on fre and crashing them into other ships and ending up being dumped by his own crew Charles Vane, plainly, was not a “people person.”

Charles Vane eventually got put off his own ship by his crew, which really makes you think about how much of a bad boss you have to be to get forced out by pirates. Eventually he was executed and his corpse was kept in chains, “just to make sure,” we suppose.

THE BEER: Invasion Pale Ale (Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, Fla.)

From the hometown of the Buccaneers, we have this tropical pale ale, which is … challenging. A tart initial taste gives way to a panoply of primarily dry and fruity favors, which keep a throughline of tartness, yielding at last to a crisp, vaguely bitter, finish.

While the first sip will feel like tartness overload, give it some time and try to pick out the tropical character of the beer as you make your way through the pour. Under the right circumstances it’s a very refreshing and very rewarding drinking experience.

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THE BEER: Saranac Irish

Red Ale (Matt Brewing

Company, Utica, N.Y.)

As befts a cutthroat colleen from (allegedly) County Cork, we have this concoction from Saranac. A rich taste gives way to a sweet and slightly foral aftertaste, with neither taste being overwhelming or dominating the experience. There’s a hint of caramel and toffee you can just about pick out, but there’s care taken to make sure the two don’t turn the beer into a sickeningly sweet syrup. Very winning and balanced beer—an ideal introduction to the world of reads for the novitiate, and the advanced student can also appreciate the light touch in the various balancing of favors.

THE PIRATE: Stede Bonnet

Stede Bonnet is called “The Gentleman Pirate,” because if there’s one thing a good pirate legend needs to really stick, it’s an ironic nickname. Stede was a well-meaning rich boy who, upon meeting Blackbeard, threw away all of that to join his crew, because this “pirate” deal seemed like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, he was sort of crap at it, and so Blackbeard kept him under lock and key until Bonnet escaped, got a pardon, went for revenge on Blackbeard, didn’t get revenge, got a new crew (thought he knew so little about seamanship he left most all of it to the quartermaster) and went out for a mission of revenge, only to get caught and hanged a few months later, because mediocrity ultimately succeeds at precisely the level it should.

THE BEER: Edmund Fitzgerald Porter (Great Lakes Brewing, Cleveland, Ohio)

It seemed appropriate somehow that we match a hapless pirate with a beer named after an unlucky boat. Fortunately for all concerned, the beer is much more of a success than either (though whether it’s better than the Gordon Lightfoot song about the wreck, well, that I leave to the reader’s judgment) The beer is pretty fantastic — a heavy and heady mix of coffee and chocolate in in the initial taste that yelds to a smooth and slightly sweet fnish.

It’s a big, dark, savory drink, and it’s quite fantastic. A bit too heavy for a casual drink, but if you’re in the mood for something on the dark side, you could do much worse than to give this one a try.

And there you have it — a veritable rogue’s gallery of lawlessness, lager, and ales. Hopefully we’ve encouraged you to give these beers a try, rather than hoisting high the black fag and cutting some throats. But if in the unlikely event we did, we only ask you save us one of those cool pirate hats.

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