Cassia Spiced Ale is a Welcome Winter Addition

Our Cassia Spiced Ale (pronounced Cash-a) is a delight in these cooler winter months. It’s dark amber in

color, with aromas and flavors of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and Madagascar bourbon

vanilla beans. We also fermented it with a Norwegian Kviek strain of yeast that adds a

little honey character and rounds it out.

The Story Behind the Beer

Cassia (also called Cinnamomum Cassia or Chinese Cassia) is an evergreen tree

originating in southern China but now also cultivated in Indian, Indonesia, Laos,

Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam). It’s bark is used to create cinnamon – an aromatic

spice that is used primarily in cooking. The Cassia bark was used by humans as far

back as 2700 B.C. Around 500 B.C., cassia made its way to Egypt where it was an

additive to their embalming mixtures.

According to the Greeks, The first Greek reference to kasia is found in a poem

by Sappho in the seventh century BC. According to Herodotus, both cinnamon and

cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh and labdanum, and were guarded

by winged serpents. Herodotus, Aristotle and other authors named Arabia as the source

of cinnamon; they recounted that giant “cinnamon birds” collected the cinnamon sticks

from an unknown land where the cinnamon trees grew and used them to construct their

nests.

While the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews used cassia as a cooking spice, it was also

used as a perfume and for medicinal purposes. According to the Judeo-Christian Bible,

cinnamon was used by Moses as an anointing oil. In the 17th century, Cinnamon was in

widespread use throughout Europe as a key spice.