January 2011

Gen. Zachary Taylor never resolved his ambiguity about the Texas Rangers. On the one hand, they made splendid combat troops, as they demonstrated at the Battle of Monterrey in September 1846. On the other hand, they were chronic troublemakers. The Mexicans called them Los Diablos Tejanos (“the Texas devils”)—and with good reason. Taylor felt no regret when his two Texas regiments went home after Monterrey.

One Texan, however, had won Taylor’s unqualified approval. Capt. Benjamin McCulloch and his company of Gonzales Rangers had thoroughly scouted the approaches to Monterrey and shown Taylor how best to get his army there. The general asked McCulloch and his company to come back. They did. In January 1847 they were mustered into federal service as “McCulloch’s Company Texas Mounted Volunteers (Spies).”

For many American consumers, wine was either “Burgundy” or “Chablis” before the renaissance that began in the 1960s. That is hard to credit today; and so, too, have we largely forgotten the fact that beer in the United States has also enjoyed a renaissance, perhaps even greater than that experienced by wine, and less commonly understood. “Pilsner,” the first golden beer, conquered the world so thoroughly that 50 years ago “modern” beer was a standard pilsner type in a can, a convenience product along with the sliced white bread and processed cheese. That’s all changed now, and here are some of the finest results of the American brewing revolution.

1. TUPPERS’ HOP POCKET PILS

Even as bud’s pitch-dog Spuds MacKenzie was leading major beer makers in an ever more frenzied dance of fads and marketing gimmicks designed to sell ever blander drinks, a countertrend was developing —a sidebar to the yuppie food revolution of the 1980s. Some beer drinkers, tired of a steady diet of near-tasteless lagers and one or two imports with only slightly more emphatic flavor, were discovering an alternative.

A new crop of American micro- and specialty “craft” brews were aiming to redraw the beer map, traditionally divided between “domestics” and “imports,” as a choice between “mainstream” (bland) and “sophisticated” (not bland). Ultimately, the most commercially successful would be the Boston Beer Company, founded in 1985, and its Sam Adams Boston Lager brand, whose patriotic label with its faux-colonial design suggested a return to the honesty and integrity of traditional New England craftsmanship. It struck just the right note in the Reagan eighties, when patriotism was making a comeback and movements to preserve America’s cultural heritage were scoring noteworthy victories.

In the history of American beer, the modern period begins on the spring day in 1882 when the short-lived American Association of baseball teams opened for business. The establishment-leaning National League, aiming for a tonier clientele, had recently doubled ticket prices and banned gambling, Sunday playing, and—most important—beer. Franchise owners in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and other brewing centers refused to accept the new rules and seceded from the league. Several of them were brewers themselves, and they had learned to count on a sizable increase in collective thirst on home-game days. So, banding together, they formed the American Association. Dubbed the Beer and Whiskey League by the competition, it scorned the toffs and made its pitch directly to the average workingman, keeping the ticket price an affordable 25 cents, playing on the Sabbath, his only day off, and serving what had already become his signature drink.

Look for the Sonoma County Tourism Program at www.sonomacounty.com or call them at 707-565-5383. The Northern California Handbook (Moon Travel Handbooks) contains excellent information on both history and practical matters.

Even if you’re drawn to California’s Sonoma County for its great wine and the high-style cuisine that enhances it, you can’t help noticing that everywhere grapes and history blend to produce a stronger brew. Visit the small, family-run Martini & Prati, one of the oldest wineries in California, and you’ll find the pride of Sandi Martini, the young offshoot of four generations of vintners, and her palpable love of the 100-year-old operation lingering far longer than the glasses of “Vino Grigio,” Zinfandel, and Merlot available in their tasting room.

The space was once used as a barn, and a bunkhouse for workers during harvest time. After Martini’s great-great-grandfather, Rafael, left his storefront in San Francisco to come out to the Russian River Valley, a place that reminded him of his Tuscan homeland, he farmed artichokes and fruits and tended grapes. The Martinis and other Italian immigrant families forged a community there that persists to this day.

“Rat!” screamed the tabloid headlines when John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” was hauled out of a prison basement in Afghanistan and into the public limelight. Media commentators had a field day projecting their obsessions onto Mr. Lindh. The conservative critic Shelby Steele attributed his defection to “a certain cultural liberalism” to be found in California, and one right-wing pundit called for his execution “in order to physically intimidate liberals.” The New York Times pointedly contrasted Lindh’s childhood with that of John Spann, the young CIA agent killed in Afghanistan who had been raised in Georgia.