EVERYBODY’S DANISH Fred A. Nielsen at Chipping from the Rough

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EVERYBODY’S DANISH Fred A. Nielsen

By fred | September 1, 2008

Moving on in my unfinished family life book, this chapter took place when we lived in Lynwood, Calfornia, I was about seven years old at the time, but these two events are branded on my mind, like they happened yesterday. I hope you enjoy reading about my Danish Dad and his adventures. Never was he dull, always dreaming up something new. READ ON–

CHAPTER (Dad the Brewer & Vintner)

When Dad was still an “ice man” we lived in the small suburb of Los Angeles County called Lynwood. I know that I talked about Dad being an “ice-man” before, but for the younger generation let me fully explain what it was all about. Believe it or not there was a time not very long ago when no one had a refrigerator. You had an ice box in the kitchen and ice was but in the top compartment to keep the food cold. You could not freeze anything. You kept the stuff you wanted real cold on top with the ice. The bottom had everything else, cheese, milk, vegetables, left over food, etc. If you needed ice you left a card in the front window of your home so the ice-man could see it, the ice-man that had your route would then go in and fill up your refrigerator box. He had to be honest, as many times the homes where everyone worked would have the key hidden where only the ice-man knew of the location.

We had two ice men in the family, Dad and my Uncle Gerner. We had four at one time as my Uncle Chris was one for a short time and also Dad’s Cousin Dave Petersen. Dad helped all four of his relations with a route during the depression period when work was hard to get. Gerner worked his way through college at UCLA selling ice.

Our Lynwood house was a frame wood three bedroom, one bath home with a large cellar under the house. The cellar was great for storing stuff that Mom and my Grandmother would can in big glass containers like vegetables, jams, jelly, canned fruits, all sorts of neat stuff.

Right down the street about a block away from our house my Dad’s sister, Olga and her husband Chris had their home. About my cousins, Olga and Chris’s sons, –Soren, Tommy and David, there will be more about these three cousins of mine in a later chapter.

One evening at dinner my Uncle Vigo (Mom’s brother) and a fourth cousin of Dads, Dave Petersen, got into a discussion about making their own beer. They had read about making it themselves and it didn’t seem like a big deal. They needed some bottles, a tool to cap the bottles, a large vat, yeast, malt, and a few other things, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

The big argument seemed to be how much raisins, yes raisins, to put in the vat. Whatever “recipe” they were using said that the more raisins, the higher the alcohol content the beer would be. Dad, Vigo, and Dave were all in favor the high alcohol content.

A few weeks later they were ready to go. The three of them were down in the cellar. I was a very young kid, maybe five years old, I remember Mom yelling “Freddie, don’t go down the cellar, stay up here, the ‘boys’ are working.” I remember it sure smelled funny down there, a kind of funny ‘malty’ smell. Anyway, I don’t remember how long later, maybe a few days or a week had gone by and the ‘boys’ were ready to bottle the vile stuff.

We are talking a major operation, they must have had at least ten cases of big quart bottles to fill and cap. Now the wait was on, the aging in the bottles began.

Dad could hardly wait. Whenever Vigo or Dave dropped by, or anyone else for that matter the only topic of conversation was how the brew was coming. I think Dad and the guys had promised a sample bottle to just about everyone, friends, neighbors, you name it.

One evening a few days before they were going to open the first test bottle, we were just sitting down to dinner, and POW, BANG, POW, glass could be heard breaking and flying all over the cellar. We were sitting in the dining room which just happened to be over part of the cellar, it was like bombs going off under us.

For weeks later every few hours or days, another POW or BANG would go off. A very funny odor started to creep into the house, a decidedly sour, awful smelly malt type of smell. Mom was mad as hell, I don’t ever remember her that mad at my easy going father or her brother Vigo. Cousin Dave was also in the doghouse big-time!

Mom’s rule, no one was allowed to go into the cellar, we would just have to live with it.

Advise? Every one was an expert, but the general consensus was that the fermenting process that was causing the expansion, and making the bottles explode would run its course, —eventually!

As time went on, and on, and on, or so it seemed, the discussions were endless, but it seems Dad and the guys had been just too eager to get a high alcohol brew, maybe the extra raisins did it. Anyway, when there were no explosions for several weeks Mom said the guys could go into the cellar. She first made them put on heavy overcoats, hats, and got some old window screen for them to hold over there faces, so that if a bottle exploded the glass would not hurt their eyes.

About five bottles out of well over a hundred survived the brewing and aging process. The cellar was a mess, broken glass containers of jams, and fruit Mom and Grandma had canned. The stink of malt, decaying food, Mom looked at Dad, her brother and Cousin Dave and went into the house, coming out with buckets, soap, Clorox, and scrub brushes. I don’t ever remember any words being said. I do remember three grown men, would be brew masters, working and scrubbing for hours until the cellar was spotless. The odor stayed with us for months, Mom did everything including the lighting of incense sticks in that cellar. Finally, after months it faded away.

The only other time I remember Dad getting involved with the alcohol process as a kid was one day in the back of the big ice wagon truck he used for his ice route was a huge barrel. “What’s that Andy” Mom said. Dad said “I got a good deal on a barrel of red wine – all it needs is a little aging.”

Dad had to ask several neighbors to help him get the barrel out of the truck and into the garage. They arranged a small platform in the corner of the garage, so the barrel could lie on its side. The wood barrel had a tap on it so it could be checked every so often, and Dad put a tin cup on top of the barrel so it could be sampled every few weeks to see how well the aging process was coming. The winery where Dad got the barrel said it should take six months to a year.

Our neighbor, on the left side of our house was an old retired fellow, kind of a little guy, a hundred and twenty pounds or so dripping wet. I remember his wife was very much against drinking alcohol, any kind of drinking, she hated the stuff. She was a very large lady – if you saw the two of them together one glance and you knew who was boss!

Shep was the neighbor’s name, I don’t remember his full name. Shep loved a drink. He would stop by when Dad was home, and Dad realizing his problem would ask if he wanted a beer or shot of Bourbon, Shep never refused.

Shep’s back yard had a lot of old chicken coops in it, it was a deep lot, and in Lynwood in those days you could raise chickens and have animals on your property. Shep had gotten rid of his chickens long before we move in, and he would let us kids play in the chicken coops. They still smelled a little, but we had ‘command posts,’ for army games and played a ton of games back there.

You could find pints, half pints, of booze hidden all over the place, some full, some empty. I told Dad and he said we should never touch Shep’s secret hoard, he said “He is a good neighbor, he’s good to you kids, just leave Shep’s stuff alone, and don’t ever tell his wife about it.”

I often noticed Shep in our garage, he would say, “I’m just seeing how the aging of Andy’s wine is coming.” Dad took the tin cup and tasted the wine every few weeks but it always seemed too raw. Finally, about six months later Dad said it tastes like its ready.

The next Sunday we had a house full of family. Dad was all excited he was going to serve his mature, fully aged wine for dinner. He got a funnel from Mom and a couple of bottles and opened the tap to fill the bottles. When he got to the third bottle the tap was hardly running. Dad couldn’t figure what was going on, a full barrel of wine.

“Freddie, would you but this piece of wood under the back of the barrel quick when I lift it up, it’s going to be heavy so do it quick” Dad said. So Dad took off his jacket and prepared to lift a very heavy barrel, a piece of wood in the back should make the barrel tap better.

Dad could not believe it, the barrel was almost empty. Dad confronted Shep the next day, “Shep, what happened”. Shep said “Gee Andy, I just checked it every day or so for you to see how it was aging.” Dad started to laugh, he figured that Shep had taste tested over fifteen gallons of wine. Dad’s days as a vintner were at an end.