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Recreating Medieval English Ales (1998)
- carabiner 3y agoJust drink Trappist beers.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThose are beers not unhopped ales.
- ch4s3 3y agoThe gruits are.
- cammikebrown 3y agoThey’re not necessarily old recipes. One of the more popular ones, Westmalle Tripel, was first brewed in 1934.
- jsmith99 3y agoThe strong ones are modern innovations (in response to Belgium banning bars from selling spirits for much of the 20th century) but those aren't the type the monks drink themselves.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jeron 3y agoThis professional historian[0] recreated the recipe last year and documented the process [0]:https://braciatrix.com/2022/02/10/medieval-english-small-ale/ https://braciatrix.com/2022/02/10/medieval-english-small-ale...
- Rodeoclash 3y agoI'll take this opportunity to try and bust the myth a bit more about people drinking alt because water wasn't safe: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u5dxoy/how_did_medieval_europeans_stay_hydrated_drinking/i51hwa6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u5dxoy/how_d... TLDR; People drank ale all the time because water is boring to drink!
- kevinmchugh 3y agoI'm not entirely convinced by that. The author establishes that water sources exist, which is obviously true because you can't brew without it. But water is heavy, and hard to store. If you've gone to the trouble to fetch and move a couple gallons of water, you might reasonably prefer to inoculate it with yeast rather than whatever happens to take off in your barrel.
- quantified 3y agoI'd rather take the trouble to move a couple of gallons of ale than water. But more for the enjoyment.
- version_five 3y agoIs it actually possible to drink just beer? Isn't it a net dehydrator? I drink a lot of beer, but always end up drinking a ton of water, certainly way more than if I hadn't had any beer. If I just drank beer I think I'd feel horrible, no?
- porknubbins 3y agoJust a guess but I’ve heard medieval beer would’ve been low alcohol and I think most of the diuretic effect of alcoholic drinks is due to the body processing the alcohol. So it might be possible.
- reillyse 3y agoThere were many different strengths of beer which (often)corresponded to different runnings/washing’s of the malt. The initial wort has higher amounts of sugars/fermentables while the later washes have significantly less. It could get down to 2-3% which. As to being a diuretic I think people are confused about how that works. It’s not like adding minus water if you drink coffee or alcohol, eg you wouldn’t die of dehydration if all you had to drink was coffee or beer.
- PeterWhittaker 3y agoSlightly off topic, but I remember reading many years ago about a brewer who wanted to do something special for his brewery’s tenth anniversary. Whilst researching, he came across what anthropologists thought was a hymn, only partially translated. He realized it was a recipe! With his domain knowledge, he was able to fill in some of the blanks. He then worked with the linguistic anthropology community to extend our knowledge of the ancient language in question. (Sumerian, maybe? It’s been a long time….) He brewed the beer/ale and the result was a think rich brew best described as liquid bread.
- rikthevik 3y ago"Beer is liquid bread, it's good for you" - They Might Be Giants
- J5892 3y agoAh, so that's how Soylent was founded.
- dmreedy 3y agoI'm not sure if this is what you're thinking of, but there's a story like that behind Dogfish Head's "Midas Touch" http://www.biomolecular-archaeology.com/?page_id=143 http://www.biomolecular-archaeology.com/?page_id=143 https://www.dogfish.com/brewery/beer/midas-touch https://www.dogfish.com/brewery/beer/midas-touch Though more reconstruction of ingredients from residue than linguistic reconstruction I guess.
- langfan 3y agoNinkasi, goddess of beer.
- 13of40 3y agoWell, that explains why there's a Ninkasi brewery in Eugene, Oregon and another unrelated one in the UK.
- aterris 3y agoI recently found the youtube channel Tasting History with Max Miller and I would highly recommend checking it out. If this post caught your eye, I think you will find it very interesting, wholesome and worth the sub. https://www.youtube.com/c/tastinghistory https://www.youtube.com/c/tastinghistory
- xoxxala 3y agoGreat channel. Very informative, interesting and tasty. I also recommend it. Max Miller also just published a cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Tasting-History-Explore-through-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B0B3Y84YP7 https://www.amazon.com/Tasting-History-Explore-through-Cookb...
- reillyse 3y agoThe author seems confused about beer and ale. Ale is beer but not all beer is ale. He seems to think it’s about hopping. It’s not. It’s about top and bottom fermenting yeast. Top is ale bottom is lager. That’s all there is. Nothing to do with hops.
- detaro 3y agoYou seem to be confusing modern-day terminology with medieval use of words. At the time the article discusses, the distinction between top and bottom fermenting yeasts wasn't even made yet as far as we know.
- ch4s3 3y agoAlso, see my sibling comment.
- reillyse 3y agoYea, but the author is in the present day and is using the terms beer and ale which are present day terms - not speaking a medieval language. They seem to think that beer and ale are different because of hop content- which isn’t true. To quote “The difference between medieval ale and beer was that beer also used hops as an ingredient.”
- detaro 3y ago> medieval ale
- reillyse 3y agoSo the difference between medieval ale and (present day)ale ? Or the difference between medieval ale and (present day) beer ? Is that what you think they mean?
- jaredhallen 3y agoAt the time these historical recipes would have been brewed, folks referred to a beverage made with malted barley and yeast as "ale" and beverages made with malted barley, yeast and hops as "beer."
- Bradlinc 3y agoI think this is a worthy try but I am skeptical if it tastes anything like medieval beer. I imagine the malt is significantly different. Are we still using the same barley varieties as we did hundreds of years ago? Were they able to malt as efficiently? I also think the yeast would have been very different. Which he touches on. Even if you had the exact yeast you would need to know pitching rates. That said, what he created most likely tastes a lot better than what they had in the 1300s.
- sciurus 3y agoMy take away from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sr7zk5/has_the_taste_of_beer_changed_over_the_centuries/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sr7zk5/has_t... is that even very well-intentioned, well-researched attempts at recreating historical recipes and being techniques are unlikely to yield historically accurate results.
- jaredhallen 3y agoThe malt definitely had less diastatic power, which is its ability to convert the starches to sugars during mash. They may have had some tricks of the trade, or they may have just ended up with less conversion. If it was the latter, you could manipulate your mash to emulate, but without knowing the goal you'd just be guessing. And the yeast, you're absolutely correct. And that's one of the biggest contributing factors in the finished product, especially with no hops involved.
- jojobas 3y agoMalting is harnessing natural enzymes produced in germination, better malting is a side effect of faster sprouting (something they'd plausibly breed it for). Wild barley is still around, one could hybridize as early a variety as he wishes. Lambic beers are still produced on wild yeast too. It would be hard to match an exact beer as a particular early brewer made, but seemingly easy to cover the entire spectrum of beers plausibly open to them. Then again, I have doubts they were consistent and reproducible with the kind of instruments they had.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
- getpost 3y agoThis reminds me of one of may favorite recipe books, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation by Stephen Harrod Buhner[0], also published in 1998. It's much more than a recipe book, there's lots of history and information on herbalism. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Herbal-Healing-Beers-Fermentation/dp/0937381667/ https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Herbal-Healing-Beers-Fermentat...
- MarkMarine 3y agoThis is interesting, but the amount of flavor that the yeast provides make it basically impossible to taste the ale as it was, without having access to the original strain. This time period predates the understanding of microbes, there was just some essence that needed to be moved from one ferment to the next (flocculated yeast, basically a yeast starter.) There are a few old yeast strains, like the Trappist beer strains that are specific to each monastery, left over from this time period, and that specific yeast MAKES the flavor of those amazing beers.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoYeast mostly turns water and sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. What flavors are you expecting to differ? Serious question - I know yeast will also produce vinegeary substances. Also in medieval times people used to infuse beer with mushrooms, herbs, plants - often psychoactive. I'd argue that this might very well have contributed the dominant taste component.
- TrueSlacker0 3y agoYeast is one of the most influential flavor creators in a fermented beverage. It would have huge effects on the final beer. But since sanitation was low, bacteria probably had a huge effect (acidic sourness) as well. Take the same base recipe from the article and ferment it with a hefewizen (banana and/or clove flavors and a resulting yeast in suspension haze), Belgian strain ( bubblegum all the way to barnyard aroma), wine yeast, bread yeast or as they mentioned the lambic yeast (resulting in a slight sourness) and you would have totally different beers. Modern brewers have access to hundreds of different strains just for beer, resulting in different flavors from each. In simple terms vinegar comes from bacteria and yeast. Yeast eats the sugar making alcohol, Bacteria eats the alcohol and makes acids. Kombucha style. Eventually resulting in vinegar.
- mrmincent 3y agoThere is a saying that brewers make the wort (unfermented beer), and yeast makes the beer. You could have the same wort and use two different strains of yeast and end up with markedly different beers.
- phillc73 3y agoIf you’re into this kind of thing, I’d like to recommend Historic Brewing Techniques, The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing by Lars Marius Garshol.[1] Absolutely fascinating and practical. It does focus on Norway to a large extent, but covers a little from other north-eastern European countries too. His associated blog is also great reading.[2] The author was really instrumental in the mainstream exposure of kveik yeasts.[3] Another interesting little book I have is Old British Beers and How to Make Them, by Harrison and the Durden Park Beer Circle. Not medieval, but still some really great recipes for approximating a lot of old beer styles.[4] There are also some good blogs still around on this subject. I’d recommend Shutup about Barclay Perkins[5] as a good starting point. The most recent article there is about brewing a stout from 1812. [1] https://www.garshol.priv.no/download/historical-tech/ https://www.garshol.priv.no/download/historical-tech/ [2] https://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/ https://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/ [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kveik https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kveik [4] https://durdenparkbeer.org.uk/index.php/product/old-british-beers-and-how-to-make-them/ https://durdenparkbeer.org.uk/index.php/product/old-british-... [5] https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2022/?m=1 https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2022/?m=1
- phillc73 3y agoActually, the Shutup about Barlcay Perkins link should have gone directly to the blog's homepage. The author writes something every day, not always exclusively about beer but mostly related to it. https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/ https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/