As for “gravity” and “gravity beer,” Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/) provides the following helpful definitions:
Main Entry: specific gravity
Function: noun
Date: 1666
The ratio of the density of a substance to the density of some substance (as pure water) taken as a standard when both densities are obtained by weighing in air.
gravity
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French gravité, from Latin gravitat-, gravitas, from gravis
Date: 1509
1a: dignity or sobriety of bearing b: IMPORTANCE, SIGNIFICANCE; especially : SERIOUSNESS c : a serious situation or problem
2 : WEIGHT
It is my belief that before we consider gravity, we must establish a context with respect to smallness.
A beer’s original gravity is a measurement of the density of the sugars in water before fermentation. These sugars are extracted from the grain by soaking and rinsing during the mash. The water (wort) is boiled and hops are added. The wort is cooled and fermentation begins with the addition of yeast. The final gravity measures the density again, but after fermentation is completed, yielding a tangible expression of the conversion of fermentables into alcohol.
At one time during the long and colorful history of mankind’s stubborn insistence that the natural process of fermentation be harnessed to enhance human pleasure, the term “small beer” was widely understood to be a second batch (or sometimes even a third or more) brewed from one mash. This is known as “parti-gyle” brewing, and does not utilize the sparge, or rinsing of the mash, that has come to be an integral step in the mashing regime.
Imagine steeping a tea bag twice: The first cup (Gravity Earl Grey?) is full-flavored, and the second one much weaker (Milwaukee’s Best Darjeeling?) - but it suffices in a pinch. In the English language, the phrase “small beer” came to describe something deemed inconsequential.
Inconsequential? We’re not for it. During Gravity Head, we drink the first cup of tea.
Ironically, in modern industrial megabrewing, “gravity brewing” is the practice of efficiently utilizing capacity by making one batch of concentrated, high-gravity beer, then cutting it with water to produce the desired final alcohol content. The method is slightly different from the old-fashioned one, but the goal is the same, to produce “small” beer. The logic of the American mass market dictates that vast quantities of small, bland, mostly aluminum-clad lager be sold to equally vast crowds of people who don’t know and generally don’t care that alternatives exist
Sadly, these throngs of our fellow beer drinkers remain chained to gravity’s polar opposite in the spectrum of ales and lagers, mired in the realm of the everyday, the mundane, the “small.” In fact, “small” beers can be interesting and worthy (German Kolsch, English Mild), though seldom in the context of American and international megabrewing, where the lowest common denominator equates to the first commandment of the business and marketing plan.
Lowest common denominator? We’re not for that, either.
Gravity Head is far removed from the mass-market vision of beer as a commodity, because it celebrates all that beer can be. Gravity Head is the antithesis of BudMillerCoors, of wretched aluminum-clad, really small alcopops, of the insanely and irretrievably American notion that the essence of something must be negated for “it” to be “it,” if for no other reason than the superior marketability of the hollow facsimile for a nation that shops at Wal-Mart, eats at McDonald’s and detects sincerity in the voice of Dick Cheney.
The arrival of March hereabouts indicates that we’re renewing the search for first principles, for reality to match the idealized forms, for “it” to be rightfully “it.” What better way than to explore the wonderful world of gravity - old ales and doppelbocks, barley wines and imperial stouts, and of course funky Belgian specialties - as we’ve been doing yearly since the last millennium?
Density of fermentables, dignity in bearing, seriousness of purpose … all true and applicable, but more simply stated, a “gravity” beer is a big beer, one that demands measures of desire and respect on the part of the drinker, and one that rewards such efforts with exhilarating extremes in character and flavor.
Gravity Head is a yearly rallying point, almost evangelical in nature, for the community of the like-minded that has come together in collective pursuit of the perfect pint.
A Liteweight by choice? You're guilty as charged. Now, let the gravity beers flow.
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2010: Newton discovered it. We perfected it.
02/26/2010
Download the program ...
or view it in your .pdf reader.
2009: The Liver Olympics
02/27/2009
The deepest Gravity Head ever, with 71 gravity beers in all, of which 32 will be
appearing for the first time (obliterating the previous Gravity Head record total).
Download the program ...
or view it in your .pdf reader.
2008: You Cannot Defy Gravity ... Tenth Anniversary Exposition
02/29/2008
There’'s so much to barely remember about somehow surviving nine previous extravaganzas. The few, the proud and the insomniacs gathered at the Public House on a Leap Year Friday morning to appear on a WHAS-11 television remote feed hosted by local luminary Terry Meiners. Podge Belgian Imperial Stout was the winner of the Gravity Head 2008 fan vote.
There were record totals of 62 beers and 21 first-time selections, including three Bell’s HopSlams and a visit from Larry Bell himself.
Gravity Head 2008 Program
Gravity Head 2008 Schedule of events
Gravity Head 2008 Starting line-up and fan voting
2007: Gravity Madness
03/09/2007
March isn't just about basketball any more.
At the conclusion of the Gravity Head 2007 fan’s selection vote, three beers were tied for the top spot, forcing the NABC’'s impromptu “Elector Collage” into frenzied action, scouring the previously secret texts of the Freemasons and Illuminati for mystical procedures and ritualistic private dunkings of Krispy Kreme doughnuts in specially prepared vats of black coffee, and culminating in the decision to record the names on three sheets of weathered parchment, throwing them into the Senegalese skull cap once worn by bar patron Lee Cotner, and asking an unidentified Sportstime lunch customer to draw one out.
The winner was Ettaler Curator Doppelbock, one of 59 listed selections, including 19 first-timers.
Gravity Head 2007 Program
2006: Reality ABV
02/24/2006
With 54 beers to choose from, "Best of" sentiments centered on Rogue Old Crusty 2002, Bell's Batch 7000, Urthel Hop-It and Samichlaus 2001, with NABC's cherried Thunderfoot (Imperial Stout) drawing much praise.
The choice of a first-ever "fans' vote" for the 17th slot, New Holland Dragon's Milk, was virtually everyone's choice for "way better than we remember."
2005: It’s a Whole New Dementia.
03/11/2005
The seventh edition of Gravity Head will be remembered for the Publican’s questionable decision to contract pneumonia and be absent for much of the first two weeks. A diverse selection of gravity textures and flavors included 15 first-time drafts, with NABC’s own NobleSmoker moving fastest.
Matt Dunn's article on IndianaBeer.com
2004: Raise Your Glass to the Gravity Head Diet.
03/12/2004
Thanks to the experimental use of a cold plate, it was possible to have 18 gravity beers on tap at once. Also, once again, 18 first-time “Gravity Head Friendly” contestants were recorded. The recent trend of emphasizing microbrewed gravity beers continued, as it was becoming progressively easier to obtain the best in American brewing.
2003: Guilty as charged, Liteweight.
03/07/2003
18 first-time drafts led the way, including Bell’s Expedition Stout and our own NABC Solidarity. We bid a fond farewell the 1996 vintage of Rogue Old Crustacean Barley Wine - Crusty, we hardly knew ye!
2002: Liteweights need not apply.
03/08/2002
The emphasis in 2002 was placed on microbrewed gravity beers: Three powerhouse ales from Rogue in Oregon, three from Kalamazoo (Bell’s) Brewing in Michigan, two from Victory Brewing (“Malt Advocate” magazine’s Brewery of the Year) in Pennsylvania, and one from Brooklyn Brewing in New York. There were three cask-conditioned ales in 2002, and altogether, 16 first-time draft beers, including some that were making their Kentuckiana debuts.
2001: Light beer? I'm sorry, sir, but you're cut off.
03/09/2001
The local debuts of draft Samichlaus, Eggenberg Urbock 23, Hair of the Dog’s Fred and Adam, Scotch de Silly and Gale’s Millennium Brew, but more importantly, three cask-conditioned gravity ales were dispensed during the first three weekends of the festival.
2000: We’ve just signed legislation outlawing light beer forever … the bombing begins on March 31, 2000.
03/31/2000
In 2000, we upped the ante by offering six barley wines simultaneously … along with five Belgian strong specialty ales, four German bocks, three English strong ales, three imperial stouts, and two other American ales for good measure. It was the first year for t-shirts (featuring the phrase above and a catapult), “The Gravity Form,” the enshrinement of the starting lineup announcement and running the gauntlet as rites of Gravity passage.
Gravity Head Version 1.0 … April 29, 1999.
04/29/1999
The Gravity Head concept dates to 1999, when we decided to inaugurate our newly completed walk-in beer cooler by featuring as many “hoppy” beers as could be located on short notice. The ensuing festival would be called “Hop Head.”
Subsequently, more “gravity” beers were available than “hoppy” ones, and the festival accordingly morphed into Gravity Head. According to our flier, the inaugural Gravity Head would last “until each keg has passed away into memory’s warm glow of the greatest draft beer line-up ever seen in the metropolitan Louisville area.” Many of these beers, including Delirium Tremens and Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, have since become standards in the Rich O’s draft lineup.
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With each passing year, and much to my delight, it becomes simultaneously easier and more difficult to describe the phenomenon of Gravity Head. It exists on real and symbolic levels, and has taken on a life of its own that sometimes seems to exist quite outside my control.
