[MR] ale and beer in period (Fwd: Aoife-Links Digest, Vol 8, Issue 4)
SNSpies at aol.com
SNSpies at aol.com
Thu May 19 15:01:45 PDT 2005
In a message dated 5/19/2005 1:05:18 PM Eastern Standard Time,
aoife-links-request at scatoday.net writes:
Today's Topics:
1. Slainthe! Ale and Beer in History (Aoife)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 18:42:48 -0400
From: "Aoife" <aoife at scatoday.net>
Subject: [Aoife-Links] Slainthe! Ale and Beer in History
To: <aoife-links at scatoday.net>
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Greetings my faithful readers!
This week's Links List is about Medieval Beer, Ale and the like. How to make
it. What to drink it in. Recipe sources. Messages on the topic. The History
and significance of Ale through the ages. Now that we're gearing up for War
season, we'll need something hearty to sustain us, and we can't drink water
(gasp)! So it's time to buckle down and get our vats bubbling, because
nothing is more refreshing on a hot Pennsic day than a nice, historical
brewski.
Enjoy this Links list, and please share it where it will find a ready
audience.
Cheers (literally)
Aoife
Dame Aoife Finn of Ynos Mon
m/k/a Lisbeth Herr-Gelatt
Riverouge
Endless Hills
Aehtelmearc
If you wish to correspond with Aoife directly, please send mail to: mtnlion
at ptd dot net
Recipes from Kenelm Digby--1669
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/Digby-recipes/
Digby is the first source most folks turn t when they begin to make
historical brews. This page contians 22 links of Digby's recipes and lists.
How to Brew Your First Beer
Rev. F
By John J Palmer
http://realbeer.com/jjpalmer/Howtobrew.html
(Site Excerpt) These instructions are designed for the first-time Brewer.
What follows can be considered an annotated recipe for a fool-proof ale
beer. Why an ale? Because ales are the simplest to brew. There are two basic
kinds of beer: ales and lagers. Ales can be brewed in a relatively short
period of time at room temperature. Lagers require longer times (a month or
more) and cold temperatures.
14th century beer mug
http://www.northerner.com/products/scg-k11.html
The Northerner is a commercial outfit, but they have several images of
reproduces beer mugs, steins, and glasses from our period of study.
Medieval/Renaissance Brewing Homepage
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/brewing.html
60+ links on the subject of historical brewing
The SCA Brew Historical Brewing Library
http://www.homestead.com/sca_brew/files/library.html
A vast array of links on the subject
Brewing with Period Recipes by Lord Corwin of Darkwater
http://brewery.org/library/PeriodRen.html
(Site Excerpt) "The monks of St Paul's Cathedral brewed 67,814 gallons of
ale using 175 quarters of barley, 175 quarters of wheat and 708 quarters of
oats."
- Domesday Book (1086). Finally, a brewing reference with some hard data! A
quarter is defined as a unit of weight equal to 2 stones, or 28 pounds. It
is also defined as a unit of dry volume equal to 64 gallons. Since 1 gallon
of grain weighs about 4 pounds, we have a quarter being equivalent to 256
pounds of grain. Pounds of grain used is good to know, for we can then
estimate the strength of period brews. Malted barley is about 80%
fermentable sugar, and malted wheat is about 75%. I don't have a figure for
oats, but it should be in the neighborhood of 70%. Restating things a bit,
"The monks of St Paul's Cathedral brewed 67,814 gallons of ale using 196,314
pounds of sugars", or 2.9 pounds per gallon.
ALSO SEE (in addition to his many other articles on the subject)
Brewing on the Dark Side by Lord Corwin of Darkwater
(Reprinted from Scum #6)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/scum/brewing.on.the.dark.side.html
(Site Excerpt) Alas, as the malters discovered, you can't rush Mother
Nature. Malt dried too long, or too hot, will caramelize. The sugars in the
malt closest to the heat source darken and are no longer fermentable into
alcohol. But progress is inevitable, and malters sought a balance between
production, profit, and malt quality. Kiln dried malt became the status quo,
and beer and ale darkened as a result. How dark is perhaps impossible to
say, but one account, that of Archdeacon Becket in 1158, claimed that "Two
of these chariots were laden solely with iron-bound barrels of ale, decocted
from choice fat grain, as a gift for the French who wondered at such an
invention - a drink most wholesome, clear of all dregs, rivalling wine in
colour, and surpassing it in savour."
A 1503 English Beer By Lord Frederic Badger
http://www.nwlink.com/~badger/1503.html
(Site Excerpt) "To brewe beer x. quarters malte. lj. quarters wheet ij.
quarters ootos/ xl. ll weight of hoppys.// To make lx barrell[es] of sengyll
beer
arnold chron. (x-um 20), fol.xciv.r/b (r.i.r/b)"
Translation:
"To make 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of
wheat, and 2 quarters of oats, with 40 pounds of hops."
- Richard Arnold, "Customs of London", 1503
Bring That Beer Bock to Me
by Caleb Reynolds
http://www.buffnet.net/~caleb/scum/bockbeer.htm
(Site Excerpt) In the fist quarter of the fourteenth century a medium sized
town called Einbeck, in Lower Saxony, became the epicenter of a beer that
was so different and fulfilment that it managed not only to outlive its
place of birth, but to remain one of the most popular styles of beer even up
to today. Ainpöck'schen Bier, as it was known, was exported all over
Northern Europe. The Bavarians eventually shortened the name to Bock, which
we know it as today.
Gruit and Unhopped Ales
http://sca_brew.homestead.com/Gruit.html
An treatise on the subject of older-style Ales and those with extra flavor
ingredients.
A short bibliography of Medieval/Renaissance Brewing
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/brewing_bibliography.html
Sources for Historical Brewing
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/histbrew.html
Age, Clarity, and Smoke in Medieval Beers
A posting from the historical brewing mailing list:
Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 11:36:00 -0700
From: Dennis Walker
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/age_clarity.html
(Site Excerpt) Harrison writes of beer: "The beer that is used at noblemen's
tables in their fixed and standing houses is commonly of a year old, or
peradventure of two years' tunning or more, but this is not general. It is
also brewed in March and therefore called March beer; but for the household
it is usually not under a month's age, each one coveting to have the same
stale as he may, so that it be not sour..." [stale enough to be not
sour...could this mean, old enough the yeast has settled?]
The Development of Beer Through History
by Ricardo Roces
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/medny/roces2.html
(Site Excerpt) What made beer so cherished was probably due to health
reasons. In a period of plagues, water was probably the most unsafe
beverage. However, beer, because of the "cooking" process was some how
sterilized. By then beer had become a standard beverage, drank by men and
women of all ages, and enjoyed with a meal or in a tavern. Monasteries had
the best brews, with monks becoming experts at brewing. The beer they
served, no doubt, had the effect of cheer for the troubled population.
Regia Angolorum: Early Medieval Brewing
http://www.regia.org/brewing.htm
(Site Excerpt) Beer is a very simple drink to produce. In its simplest form
it is quick to produce, but almost unpalatable to modern tastes! Before I
describe how the beer is made, here are a few background details: Correctly
any beer made in our period should, in fact, be referred to as Ale. The word
Beer used to refer to a brew containing hops, or Beor (honey). Hops were not
used in this country until much later. The first record of their use being
1236 A.D.
Medieval English Brewing
by Fred Hardy
http://brewery.org/brewery/library/MedievalFH.html
(Site Excerpt) Perhaps I can shed some light on several of these areas. As
for carbonation, the Celts and Brits had the same pressure vessels as did
the Burton brewers who shipped IPA around the world. They are called
"Barrels", and the coopers' art was well established in the British Isles
before the Roman Invasion. It had not been forgotten during Henry's time
(The Renaissance), since it was the vessel of choice of both the Burton
brewers of IPA as well as the modern day Real Ale advocates of CAMRA. The
carbonation was less than Bud, but equal to today's real ale served in
England. For a killer head the Norse (and probably more than a few Brits and
Celts) would plunge a hot poker into the mug to release dissolved CO2 and
produce accompanying foam. At a time when central heating was unknown, the
alcohol and actual warmth of the drink were probably welcomed.
Recreating Medieval English Ales
(a recreation of late 13th - 14th c. unhopped English ales)
(designed and brewed by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson, Sept. 23rd -- Dec. 28th, 1998)
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~pwp/tofi/medieval_english_ale.html
(Site Excerpt) These recipes are a modest attempt to recreate ales that are
not only "period", i.e. pre-17th century, but is actually medieval. These
ales are based on newly available evidence from the late 13th and early 14th
centuries. Not only was beer significantly different some three hundred
years ago, in 1700, in comparison to today, ale was significantly different
around 1300 than either ale or beer was in 1600. The primary reason for this
difference in the product is a seemingly small difference in technique: for
an ale, the wort, the liquid containing sugars and protein extracted from
the grain, was not boiled prior to fermenting. For a beer, the wort had to
be boiled with the hops. This seemingly small difference was in fact a
change in technology that had long-reaching consequences for the
preservation, as well as taste and nutritional value of the beer.
Stefan's Florilegium: Beer-msg (additional Florilegium links on the topic
appear at the top of the page)
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/beer-msg.html
(A collection of messages about Medieval Beer and Ale. Site Excerpt for one
message) Digby is good, but pulls from late in period. There are some
earlier
works, German 15th and 16th century, that are specifically about
distillation of spirits. Also, "Il Herbario de Trento", an Italian
herbal from in-period. Also, some research into the origins of
various European liqueurs may reveal the original uses of some of
the herbs and spices in brewing (e.g., hyssop, angelica, anise,
fennel, grains of paradise, cubebs, cumin, cloves, etc.). A review
of the complete Gerard's herbal (versus the excerpt reprints that
are more common) may yield useful information. Also, Bancke's
herbal (English), and a manuscript of Dodoen's (Dutch, from whom
Gerard may have generously 'borrowed').
Gambrinus' Mug (formerly Cat's Meow) Recipe Archive
http://brewery.org/gambmug/
An overwhelming amount of informqtion about Beer, Ales and much more.
All About Beer Online
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/recipes/
Advice, recipes, supply sources, etc.
Mr. Goodbeer: Virtual Beer Technician
http://www.mrgoodbeer.com/recipes/
Homebrew "troubleshooting and repair advice"
Harvest Moon Brewers Yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarvestMoonBrewers/
(Site Excerpt) Harvest Moon Brewers, Inc., is a non-profit organization
based upon the education of brewing sciences throughout history. Our
membership base is derived of many professionals as well as talented and
experienced homebrewers and commercial brewers who have a passion for
sharing their knowledge in brewing sciences. Our members portray monks and
townsfolk from the Renaissance Era to re-enact history at faires.
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