The Working Man's Beer
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มี.ค. 2024
- What was beer like for the working man 250 years ago? Was it necessity, pleasure, just getting through the day? Did children drink beer? We discuss these questions and more in The Working Man’s Beer.
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"Nobody needs 15 gallons of molasses beer." You don't know me!
Yeah I don't tell you how to live your life.
Alright then. Let's rephrase it: Brewing 15 gallons of beer in the same vessel introduces practicality problems for the home gamer. Using three 5 gallon carboys in parallel makes everything much easier. Strictly speaking I would probably prefer five 3 gallon carboys for handling reasons :P
@@andersjjensen Let me rephrase again, 15 gallons of molasses beer just gets me and the bys started.
Need? No. Want? ...yes.
Exactly - if I like it, then I have to start all over again making some more :D
Homeboy at 0:56 hittin' the pipe, slammin' the tallboy, frills and lace and a pouf hat, what a legend.
The more things change the more they stay the same
Legend
What I would give to hear the conversation that took place as that painting was being made
So homeboy was basically a hipster...😂
I'm a professional brewer myself and I researched the topic of historical brewing a lot. A single batch of mash that brewers prepared was usually used for making two different batches of beer. The first portion of wort, high in sugar content, was used for brewing the so-called "first beer" or "good beer", which was quite expensive and often exported. Then the grain was washed with new water to get second wort, used for small beer - a low-alcoholic, daily brew. The process of sparging (continuously trickling water through the grain to extract sugar while taking the wort) was considered illegal for hundreds of years and treated as adulterating/watering down beer.
I do a bit hobby brewing. Is it thrue that wathered down beer tastes different than light beer fermeted with the same strength as the wathered down version?
@@danielstrobel3832 It makes a difference because brewing strong beer can stress the yeast and cause it to produce various potentially unpleasant flavors. This would especially be true before people understood how to breed yeast for high alcohol tolerance. On the other hand, those flavors might actually improve the beer in moderation. It depends on the exact yeast strain and recipe.
that the way i do it. i do a big thick mash and first sparge is either an imperial stout or old ale at ~8%. the second sparge is a small beer session ale around 4%. same yeast starter for both. get about 3.5 cases for around 40 bucks at my kitchen brewery scale.
I'm no brewer nor do i drink much beer but I'm friends with a few guys who run a pretty successful brewery. I just love the process.. I love the aromas and I love the creativity that goes into creating some seasonal ale etc. Really neat stuff
I'm a second generation Australian home brewer and in actual fact it often has a high alcohol content. Sometimes 8 or 9%. I've also read Samuel Pepys nine year diary, in the 1600s. He lived to a decent age. He almost only ale and wine. Three times in his life he drank water. Twice he nearly died, and the third time it was under his doctors advice to cure his constipation, and it was Epson water. In the nine years of the diary he only found two alternatives to alcohol. Once he drank milk reliably sourced from the countryside and not suffering from tuberculosis like city cows. The other time he had a cup of hot chocolate. But both were prohibitably expensive, even for relatively wealthy man
I work at a pub in London, originally built before 1542 and rebuilt in 1676. Our conditioned ales are much more similar to these historic beers than the keg beers widely available in Europe and America. Jon, if you're ever in the UK, drinks are on me!
Brother that's the coolest thing.. your pub has been around since mid 1500's...!
@@jmason61England, where the bars are older then our nation.
Hey, what's the name of the pub? I live in London and would love to visit
@@josephfield2722 It's called the George Inn, it's the last remaining coaching inn in Borough, south of London Bridge. Sadly it's not actually a very good pub, mostly because of management by Greene King, which is owned by a giant Chinese conglomerate who don't know why people go to the pub; it's also just a bit too busy for the size of the place. But hey, come on down and have a look at the architecture and history of the place!
@@TheRyujinLP We have two pubs that date from the crusades. Nottingham City, England. "Ye Olde trip to Jerusalem" and "Ye Olde Salutation" Peace and goodwill.
Commercial brewer here, so of course I loved this ep!
- I remember a story about a Frenchman who visited the US in the 1800s and was horrified that everyone, men, women, and children, were drinking all day long.
- Your notes about the boiling water killing the beer and adding unsterlized water later are spot on. Everything should be boiled, then the beer cooled down to below 80F before the yeast is added (though some yeasts, like the Norwegian kveik can handle much higher) and nothing added after that unless you know what you're doing (like dry hopping). What they were doing only worked because they were drinking it so fast - in fact, there was absolutely no need to boil the water in this case, there are farm beers made that way. You only need aroung 155F to convert the starches in the grains to sugar.
- What you're making here is basically an extract beer. Some might sneer about the lack of grain, but for homebrewers who don't want to bother with the pain of mashing grains, making an extract beer from malt syrups is a perfectly fine way to go and shaves an hour off the process. They're not usually as flavorful and full bodied as the same batch made with all grain, but better a good extract beer than a mediocre all grain beer! You have no hops but I still think this is more beer than cider.
- Making the daily beer was one of the (many, many) duties of the wife! Brewing is kind of a sausagefest now (with some welcome exceptions), but back then beer for the home was just another form of daily food, so under the auspices of the wife for non-commercial brewing. And it was sometimes hilariously awful (from our perspective). I have an old recipe for house beer, which is basically:
Take a pot
Fill it with crumbled bread
Add the white of one egg
Add yeast (whatever you can get)
Fill it with water, stir
Cover the top with cheesecloth
Leave it to ferment and the next day 'it will be fyne to drynke' 🤣
Yep, the "alewife".
any chance you could estimate the alcohol content of this molasses beer from the video? :)
@@Steeferino I'm not them nor a commercial brewer myself, but 5lbs molasses/ 3.75lbs pure sugar in 15 gals of water is very light, and Vinolab says it only has a potential of about 1.5%. A healthy yeast could turn most of that into alcohol within a day or two. It seems to me this recipe is "functional" and just serves to sanitize/ add calories to drinking water
thanks!@@stinkymart3173
I still drink it from time to time. From the supermarket though. "Oud Bruijn."
7:35 - I think you hit the nail on the head with your assessment of why the recipe would still work. The brewery / kitchen and all of the wooden vessels and wooden utensils would have been alive with yeast. The homebrew club I belong to has a 'magic wooden spoon' that gets passed around for brewing, and if you use this spoon you don't add any other yeast to the beer. All the yeast comes from the spoon... makes a really good farmhouse style slightly sour ale.
@GlenAndFriendsCooking Does it have a significant impact on the taste? When you make different styles of beer with the same starter( wooden spoon in this case) is there a taste that all beers have in common?
Also, how was the spoon made to be full of yeast? Did it soak in a beer or in a yeast mixture or?
Lastly is there a guarantee it will stay this way or does it have to be treated in a certain way to keep it the way it is, full of yeast?
@@hansmemling2311 All good questions - yeast is all around us on everything. I have another group of friends that pass around a piece of 'log' found in a ravine - same thing - it's covered in wild yeast and that yeast gets a foothold in the beer. In both cases the yeast will morph over time and change slightly so every brew is a bit different. Also in both cases since it isn't a 'pure' strain of yeast the beer takes on a slightly sour flavour. No special care is taken with either; other than not allowing it to get too hot.
@@GlenAndFriendsCookinginteresting, I will research this further. Thank you so much!
I'm also wondering if the yeast on the raisins would do a mixed fermentation in the bottles
Wow! The science behind brewing beer jumped up spectacularly in only three centuries.
Well, three centuries is a lot of time
Louis Pasteur had a huge influence, of note when France lost its land that produced the good beer hops to the Germans, Pasteur did a bunch of research into beer production and discovered yeast's effect, also leading to the use of Pasteurization of beer to preserve it and more efficient strains of yeast. Ironically the Germans were the ones who went crazy with developing that. xD
The biggest game-changer was the discovery of yeast. Up to the 17th century, if I'm not mistaken, the only ingredents allowed by the Reinheitsgebot were water, malt, and hops.
@@user-cp1ku6kr6zwe went from sailboats to rocketships in three centuries lol
Beer hasn’t exactly turned into rocket science. Most of modern inventions are just ways to make it taste the same on an industrial scale. The way beer is made is still very similar to the late Middle Ages just a few more ingredients added. I’d go as far as to say wine actually has become more complicated but also here it’s still very close to its original we just have better tools to monitor what is going on so we can manipulate the taste better.
"To alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." -Homer J. Simpson.
You might have missed one other possibility. The raisin.
Grapes have natural yeasts on them as well and it could have been a source of viable yeast.
I knew that when I was young brewing Finnish Sima, a hard lemonade with raisins.
Doubt it. Home brewers, including myself still use a prime in bottles. These days it’s usually a sugar drop however. You wouldn’t want it refermenting in the bottle with a different yeast strain, it would risk causing off flavours.
Raisins have tannins which affect mouthfeel. They are commonly used in mead for this reason.
Yes they do FRESH as I have seen and experimented with first hand. This was an issue where my father worked as his boss wouldn't kill the wild yeast properly, they'd put in the slow brewing packet yeast for the wild yeast to take over when they thought it was dead and cause things to explode. But as for raisins, too dry, too old, the yeast would likely be dead.
Yes. You can make a sourdough starter with raisins and also an apple brandy/cordial. Rye/bread kvass also has raisins in it.
This reminds me of a common beverage in Slavic nations called Kvass.
Yea, made the same but instead of molasses you'd put dried rye bread and sugar.
I live in Poland, and Kvass is actually hard to come by these days. So is podpiwek. The kids all want Pepsi etc. Makes me sad, I love it! I live close to Lviv, and the first thing I always did in summer was get a glass from a bar on the market square. They still have those old Soviet kvass vending machines with the glass on a chain you rinse out (in the same way that the touristy parts of London still has phone boxes, I mean. It's not like they're the norm!). I haven't been to Lviv since 2020... damn. First the pandemic, then the war. I miss it.
@@TheLastPhoen1x I use dried rye bread, molasses (for color), sugar, and sourdough culture. It's ready to drink in 24 hours, but gets too sour within a week. Very refreshing on hot days, and almost no alcohol. Sometimes raisins, sometimes lemon, sometimes cardamon... It's definitely more cider-like than beer-like.
@@richardthompson6079 If you use the kind of bottles with the ceramic lid on a rubber washer, held on with steel wire, you can just pasteurise the entire bottle in a pot once it has reached the right amount of fizz. Those bottles will vent if the pressure gets too high, and the heat will kill the yeast so it doesn't sour any further. Doing it in a corked bottle can lead to explosions. Ask me how I know.
I make kvass at home. But I toasted and ate the bread for my last batch. But next shopping trip, yes, I'll get more.
You had me at beer.
You think they ordered pints or liters back then?
The recipe have a chance to actually work. Even if they kill the initial yeast.
Raisin's are a good source for wild yeasts, hence even if it's just one raisin, given enough time and not to much bad stuff in the bottle, the wild yeast will take over and do the job.
I have killed a lot of yeast during my learning time as a... let's say, homebrewer. Believe me, it's better to keep your scientifically-produced yeast alive to achieve the desired results.
"no one needs 15 gallons of molasses beer"
Depends how thirsty you are....
Or how many guests you are expecting.
@@mikespangler98Or how many slugs you want to trap.
"I know what you're thinkin, it wasn't the drinkin, this man died of thirst..... Johnny Tarr"
Вот, вот, 15 галлонов не так уж и много.
I grow my own hops. So once a year around mid Autumn I brew a big batch of beer. It usually lasts me till the end of Spring. I give some bottles away to family and friends, everyone likes beer as a gift🍺
Drink beer! It's got electrolytes.
And since that's what plants need, pass it on to them!
Brewndo!
hell yeah..... 'health piss'.......
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! 🍀🍺💚
Ye Mon ❤
Watermelon wine actually.....and for some reason I cleaned up a parking lot as my deed for the day = tourists B-).
I've been brewing ale nearly 40 years. Folks who wanted ale were highly motivated to malt barley: wet, spread & allow it to germinate, then dry it for brewing. Baking some fraction of it to a darker color changes what it does to the color & flavors of the finished product. producing what we refer to as caramel, chocolate & roast malts. Folks who had the urge would figure that out, too. Creating the wort is to steep the malt at less than boiling for a half (hour) glass (30 minutes) or even an hour, which I have done often. If using water from your rain barrel or well, boil it a fraction of an hour (10-15 minutes, if you have a clock to go by) & tip into a clean vessel (in my case, a disinfected 6 gallon carboy.) Folks would burn something inside the barrel to clean it sufficiently. Tip the wort in & "pitch" yeast when it is slightly less than "blood warm" or about 80°F. This, depending on the time of year, would ferment for days or weeks. If you stumbled upon a yeast strain that made a stronger ale, you would keep that alive for next time, using it to make bread, for instance. That would be the good stuff. Using the same malted barley a second time around would get you small beer, at half to a third the original batch alcohol content. I've done that too, just for the experience. Molasses beer? I tried that in beer once & would vote with Ben Franklin's colleagues in the print shop for porter.
Simply burning the inside of a vessel instead of rinsing it with precious water to sterilise is a very interesting concept to me!
some brewers and coopers burnt sulphur matches in the barrels to sterilize them.
Sulphur was used for everything, wound cleaning and treatment until the 20th Century when penicillin was discovered.
Malt barley gets very technical, basically you allow it to germinate, but you have to regularly take samples after they sprout, and measure the little shoot that grows off the side of the barley grains.... when the little shoot gets to a certain length in terms of percentage of the length of the grain.... then it was ready to brew. If you used it before it was ready, you wouldn't get as much maltose (malt sugar) from the grains.
"You need soft water"
Even my tears of frustration are saturated with calcium, why is my region cursed
Edit: Several replies since my immediate reaction have informed me of caveats and workarounds to homebrewing in a hard water area! Though I still hate it here and I'd not wish it on anyone
High calcium water can be good for brewing IPAs. Some of the popular styles historically brewed in certain areas were affected by how their water chemistry affected what styles brewed well there.
You do realise water softener is readily available right ? It's the 21st century not the 18th. We aren't at the mercy of local chemistry anymore.
@@clothar23 I realize the absurdity of me making this statement, but I'm pretty sure he was just making a joke, not meaning anything serious.
@@whosweptmymines3956 his Warhammer avatar informs me he definitely missed the "joke" part
Sorry but some of the finest beers in the UK are brewed in hard water areas. The hardness of the water used in a brew will alter the characteristics of the brew but soft water is not a necessity.
"Beer is a very, very healthy drink."
-Alleck Ahaulik
Last time my wife and I were in Dayton we visited the Carillon brewery - it was amazing! I'm so glad I saw your older videos on it.
"The unsafe water" is a modern misconception. This may have happened in a few cases but most people drank water. The reason for drinking beer was primarily as a source of calories.
The exception is sailors who needed an alcoholic beverage to mix with the water they brought on long voyages to make it safe after it had stagnated and got lots of nasty things growing in it. This mixture was called grog. The reason rum took over in popularity is that it was stronger so you needed to mix less with your water so you could carry less and it was really cheap to make (it was made from waste products of the sugar production).
They also called Ben Franklin " The Water American " at that Print shop... You taught me that John.
Cheers!
"No one wants 15 gallons of molasses beer" - Hold my Beer.
15 gallons of beer, shelf life maybe five days, hmmmmm... Let me guess, you build Boeings?
Bwahahaha
@@Pygar2I brew 10 gallons of beer pretty regularly, and and am eyeing brewing a 15 gallon batch later this summer, It's a beer that will need to be aged for about 6 months minimum. A 5 gallon keg can disappear pretty quickly, I've been to parties where 10 gallons would be gone by the end of the night. Then that other 5 gallon will be good for myself.
@@TechnoGeek18023Shelf life is a good thing. Have you heard "Uncle Hiram's Home-made Beer", here on YT?
Something similar to table beer that is served at cafeterias and restaurants in many places in Finland is called "kotikalja" or home beer. Low alcohol content, around one to two per cent let's say and a dark color. Very tasty and great way to wash down what you've just eaten!
Same in Sweden. 2.2% beer.
Beer is a staple food, Greetings from Franconia/Bavaria. 😁😁😁
True, although german / bavarian Reinheitsgebot kinda ruined some parts of beer culture. Not saying that its only bad but its a mixed bag.
I adore German beer culture, particularly Southern German beers - bocks, marzens, helles, dunkels, altbiers, kellerbiers and wiessbiers! Ive brewed and enjoyed them all. Prost from the UK.
@@KingTrouser and I adore you, you know what's good. ☺☺
I used to make my own cider for a long while - some from canned juice, some from fresh pressed and even pressed my own a couple of times (what a sticky, wasp-covered mess that was). I can see why early modern people would drink green beer over a long, chancy-fermenting alternative - at least for everyday use.
I did a couple of papers at uni about brewers in early Canada - namely John Molson and Alexander Keith. Both started their businesses with government contracts in mind - supplying the navy and merchant fleets on the eastern shore of North America. Molson "settled" for supplying Montreal with drink while Keith's signature India pale ale - heavily hopped - was taken up by the navy for its long storage life.
Capt James Cook's crew made the first beer in New Zealand, when they camped up in the Fjordland area of southern NZ for a rest and general ship repairs. That was in the 1770's I think, I can't remember which voyage as he made three to NZ. It was made with NZ native tree leaves (replaces hops) and whatever source of sugar that was aboard, maybe dry sugar in some form or molasses. Apparently it was rated as a reasonable drink by the crew and Cook. Cook was quite insistent that his crew got fresh 'greens' and fruit where ever they could, to prevent scurvy which was prevalent with seamen in those days. It was a theory that he was testing out. And it worked. Later scientific research confirmed that COOK was right in his theory. Vitamin C prevents scurvy.
What an excuse to drink..... health piss !!!
Many cafeterias in Finland serve a very low-alcohol sweet beer for lunch. It's called kalja and it's delicious.
I prefer to take the sour fermented milk though, called piimä.
In Russia, they drink a fermented bread drink called kvas, which is usually about 0.5 to 1.5% ABV, with meals.
@@sinicolvalley6185i saw LifeofBoris make kvass, its a live drink is it not?
Sima?
@@patrickmcelrath4962 Unless purchased in bottles from a store, yes it is alive.
@@sinicolvalley6185 Right. Kalja is basically kvass, but the Russian stuff is _really_ sweet, as sweet as Coca-Cola.
Fantastic topic! The amount of research and trial-and-error experimentation that must have gone into this video is remarkable. Thank you for sharing all of your hard work with us, so very informative!
And on today, St. Patrick’s Day, I raise a glass of Irish beer to you, Townsends, while I make my Colcannon potatoes and beer braise my sausages for tonight’s supper. ☘️
Knowledge of brewing grew quickly in the 18th century. By the last third of the 1700's brewers began using the hydrometer to measure specific gravity. This lead to the discovery that some types of malted barley produce a better yield than others. For example, brown beers like Porter were always brewed using 100% brown malt. Brown malt was cheaper than pale malt but they discovered that pale malt was much more efficient in converting starches to sugar. So even though pale malt cost more brewers found they didn't have to use as much to get the same result. This also sent maltsters on the quest for better methods of malting barley. Eventually brown malt disappeared as a base malt and morphed into a specialty malt. (the brown malt you buy today has nothing in common with brown malt from the 18th and early 19th century).
Yeast was becoming better understood as well and some breweries started propagating blends of yeast to get better attenuation and other desired qualities in their beer. At one time in history breweries in large cities were all using the same yeast strain. Competing breweries would even share yeast with each other if someone needed a fresh batch. By the end of the 18th century however yeast was not the ubiquitous ingredient once thought and house strains were carefully cultured and guarded.
As scientific knowledge grew even the brewers thoughts on the water being used changed. Brewers began to analyze their water and experimented with treating their water to achieve a more favorable profile.
Science really exploded in the world of beer brewing in the 1800's but the journey out of the dark ages into the enlightenment began in the last third of the 18th century.
As always, I adore your content!
I have been making wine by 18th century standards for years and am so happy to see someone espousing the benefits and practicalities of beer by similar methods. Thanks for being such an important resource. Especially for those new to these 'hobbies'. 💗
"what if beer was more than a recreational drink?"
.....its...its not?
Beat me to it.
professional beer drinkers in the house! 💪💪💪
Beer is liquid bread
Meal in a glass.
I always thought it was just for breakfast!
An interesting anecdote of how colonial Americans viewed the dangers of liquor was the way rum (by the English) and brandy (by the French) were weaponized as trade items with the Haudenosaunee and other natives. There are desperate petitions to NY, France, and England by Iroquois sachems and diplomats to stop trading liquor because of the havoc it brought. Despite the plea, anyone vying for power and influence in the region brought lots of liquor to condolence ceremonies and treaty conferences to intentionally liquor up the delegates and get the advantage in all sorts of agreements, especially land deals.
same with the indigenous peoples the world over.... it is very damaging for them. And the same requests to stop alcohol and/or drug supply was made and ignored. Generally people think opium was a customary Chinese past time. It happened when the British were there.... they would export heaps of trade goods to England, and on the return trip they would stop off on the way to China, and fill up he ship with opium for the Chinese market. IT caused really bad problems with in China, and the Brits were asked to stop this trade..... and guess what they did? They continued the trade..... The whole opium thing in relation to China was introduced by the Brits. It wasn't an old Chinese custom at all.
Love this channel. Thank you for keeping the traditions that sustain us alive.
Beer came long before hops. Just cause it ain't got hops, don't mean it ain't a beer. Ginger, yarrow, wormwood and a plethora of herbs and spices were used before to flavor and preserve beer.
Beautifully done as always. What a gem this channel is!
so the science behind the G.W. recipe, the scolded yeast turns into yeast nutrient for air bourn yeast, this is a open air yeast fermentation. yeast nutrient is mostly vitamin b dead yeast is rich in vitamin b. The Rasin or 2 will provide additional yeast that naturally clings to the fruit and it will also provide a bit of sugar to carbonate.
Poor yeast gettin told off so hard it dies; so sad
I've made molasses wine which I let ferment fort about two months and filtered and fined. It ended with an ABV of 17% and a PH of 5.2. It wasn't good...on its own. It produced a wonderful flavor, but it was sour and astringent. Never have I ever made better pancakes than the ones I made by substituting half of the buttermilk in the recipe for my molasses wine. If you want pancakes that have a subtle gallette-meets-fortune-cookie flavor, and a bit more texture. They have enough flavor that I didn't bother with syrup...instead using a thin layer of whipped butter with a casting of powdered sugar. Legitimately delicious to an unexpectedly high degree. I haven't been in a position where I can do long ferments because I'm not sure when I'll be leaving my current situation...else I'd be making more as we speak.
Fascinating stuff. I like any effort to connect us with those times. Too many have forgotten it, or never learned it. Who knew how and why beer was so important? John's narrative explains it in his usual genial way.
"In John's usual GENIAL Way". PERFECT ADJECTIVE!
Really enjoy watching these but also like reading the interesting comments.
Dude your channel is amazing. Thanks for the vids
Ben Franklins' is considered to be one of if not the best autobiography ever written. I read it long ago as a teenager and it was such a pleasure,
Haha I found it totally insufferable. The subtitle should have been: how i became so virtuous, thrifty, temperate, brilliant, and terribly, terribly modest.
@@Umbrellagasm 🤣 That too!
Townsends: "No one needs fifteen gallons of beer".
Every enlisted Marine in every Marine barracks: _stares in crayon flavored confusion_
Don't really have molasses here in Germany, but we have sugarbeet syrup (which is basically the same thing - remenants of sugar production, but from beets instead of cane). So I might try this at some point.
You can make your own molasses pretty easily actually!! It’s just melted down brown sugar with some water and lemon juice. I question how well German style brown sugar would work for diy molasses (much less wet and clumpy than the American style) , so tbh Goldsaft would also probably do much the same thing. Viel Erfolg!!🍀
Im türkischen Laden gibt es auch Molasses -- Granatapfelsyrup, glaube ich, nennen sie das. Vielleicht typischer "altmodisch" als Grafschafter Goldsaft. 🤷
Molasses can be bought online from Amazon. I had a 5 l canister delivered to my doorstep. It is molasses meant to feed microorganism and work perfectly for the ginger beer. I have two batches sitting on my shelf. I use reclaimed yeast for that. Boiling half of the leese provides nutrients for the yeast colony.
Thank you so much for your hard work and research! Love your content and channel!
Beer does not require hops. Hops as an ingredient in beer only started around the 1600s
The German purity law says hops are a requirement, that where Americans assume it’s a law
i was wondering about that cuz i remember watching another video that mentioned ale is traditionally brewed without hops, and ale is a type of beer
Gruit Ale specifically was brewed with a mix of herbs instead of hops. Ale has come to mean a top fermenting beer (brewed warm) rather than bottom fermenting (brewed cold) lagers.
Truth. It used to be bittered with a variety of herbs.
@@treyokelly9662 strong un hopped ales tend to be rich and syrupy…which hops tends to offset. Herbs and spices were occasionally used, but honestly couldn’t for a daily beverage
Unaware to them, brettanomyces infected wood causing a souring effect. It’s the hallmark of sour beers now. Once a wooden barrel is infected it never comes out. This is how they balance the richness of strong ales, though they weren’t aware of it
@@Menuki though what you say is mostly true, I'd do more research in the history of hops. It's our newest mainstay ingredient in beer. Most beer was bittered with a variety of whatever herbs were available. And besides your daily beverage was not a strong ale. It was small beer or table beer if you will.
Another common sugar source, a bit further west and south, was sorghum syrup. Depending on how far inland you were, it was even cheaper than the molasses.
While a misnomer, this would be considered a "ginger beer" even though it has no grain.
Edit: Hops are NOT what make a beer. Grain is what makes a beer. Many beers rely on the malt or the roast for flavor and a gruit for preservation. The East India Trading Company are the ones that really popularized hops in beer because it was the only way they could get ale to their troops stationed in India during the Opium Wars.
Grain=beer+distilation=whiskey
Fruit=wine+distilation=brandy
Sugar/molasses/syrup=sugar wort+distilation=rum
Agave=agave wort=+distilationmezcal/tequila
Whiskey/brandy/rum/tequila/potato mash+distilation=vodka
vodka+distilation with juniper, Seville orange, coriander and citron=gin
If I remember correctly that the legal definition of "Beer" is heavily influenced by the 1514 Bavarian purity law (Reheitsgeboht) that states that beer is beer when it is made of malted barley and hops. The distinction of "ale" and "beer" is not defined by composition but by time period...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Barley is not the only grain for beer and gruit predates the cultivation and widespread use of hops.
Even very early Bavarian/Prussian lagers were drank very young or preserved with a mix of local herbs rather than hops.
Ales and Lagers are both beers, the difference being the type of yeast used and temperature during fermentation. Lagering yeasts are more prevalent in the Bavarian caves while England and France had to do above ground fermentation which tends to happen at warmer temperatures, favoring the formation of an ale barm.
I really enjoyed this video. I’m looking forward to trying this recipe out! Thank you so much!
What a great video! Thanks for posting.
love the vids
The raisin in the bottle ferments it like wine would. If you don't have the right bottles they'll explode if kept long.
Thank you, Sir! Will be giving this one a try for the upcoming hot summer! Cheers!
That was a great video. Very informative.
Leeuwenhoek was a contemporary of this time period but I can imagine medical science was still in the process of understanding the relationship between bacteria and illness, much less the science of food production.
Oh yeah, not even close. Leeuwenhoek was the first to observe microbes but it wasn’t until Pasteur came around that anyone made the link between them and disease
Another great episode and i always enjoy seeing and hearing about the
history of America especially in the
Revolutionary and the pioneer days.
🇺🇲🤠🐴🇺🇲
Love these videos!
Super interesting video, thank you!
3:01 1% or less has to have almost no intoxicating effect. Even with modern light beers (< 4.5% or so) it can take a real large volume to really feel much effect.
Which is why no one minded serving it to children back in the day. Or hell nowadays in some places.
Ginger beer, kombucha, kefir etc usually finish at similar percentages too
4.5% bears just two 12 oz beers would get you arrested for DUI. 4 can defiantly get you drunk. "light" beer refers to calorie count not alcohol content. 4.5% is standard for beer
@@harryballsak1123 You do realise BAC is entirely based on weight. A bigger person would have to drink more in order to hit the legal limit.
As for the effects of intoxication that is also entirely subjective . And includes factors like body weight and tolerance. And tolerance itself varies from person to person. With heavy drinkers needing more to achieve the same effect. People in particularly good shape will also have a higher tolerance.
I never developed a palate for beer, having not had a drink until my mid thirties because I was worried I’d become an alcoholic (family, history of depression, etc.). I still don’t drink very often at all, mostly because I was, until recently, in a depressive state and I didn’t want to self-medicate, but I’m not a teetotaler. I’ve found that, if I’m not having mixed drinks with liquor, I vastly prefer ciders over beers, and I’d definitely give this one a shot.
Now this is the video I was waiting for.
Like cider or mead. Mead is fermented honey wine and is thousands of years old. Honey, molasses: fermented liquid sugar in this beer or mead.
Really, what any alcoholic beverage really is, is water, a yeast and some kind of sugar that feeds the yeast fermentation process.
I consider this an ale but according to Oxford's dictionary that would be the "historical" interpretation of the word ("A beer brewed without hobs"). To me anything brewed on fruit (that isn't grape) is cider, honey is mead, any source of sugar + hops is beer, and any non-fruit source of sugar, without hobs, is ale. This would strictly speaking make a mead with hobs a beer.... which also seem a bit funny...
Beer without hops is ale, at least in Britain.
"Green" is a term used for various foods and drinks that are newly made and only meant to be preserved for a short time. Green cheese, is essentially, cottage cheese. A way to preserve surplus milk for a little while longer, but without the long-term keeping properties of actual cheese. To say that the moon is "made of green cheese" does not mean it's actually green in colour, but that it's pale, like cottage cheese.
Ales do have hops though - it's usually lagers that have less. (From an English bartender and ale conditioner)
You got it backwards, ales have hops. Have you tried an IPA? (India Pale Ale) They taste like nothing but hops.
@@kado51393Traditionally, the main difference between ale and lager was the type of fermentation, ale being made with top, warm fermentation. Bittering agents - not originally hops - were used to aid preservation.
Until the C16th all European beer was ale. Then bottom-fermented beer called lager appeared.
Hops gradually became the principle form of bittering agent with different quantities and types _ along with different malts - used to make different styles of beer.
The complete dominance of hops as a bittering agent began with the European agricultural expansion in the C18th. I doubt that home brewers in the American colonies would have had ready access to hops until somewhat later.
What we are shown in the video appears to be a top-fermented beer i.e. ale and un-hopped.
IPA was developed in the C19th. It was designed to be shipped to India in bottles and required large amounts of bittering agent - by that time hops - to preserve it on the journey.
The use of the term ale to indicate a more hoppy flavour than other top-fermented beer is recent.
@@realhorrorshow8547 .....was not shipped to India in bottles. The shipments ( voyage around the Cape of Good Hope ) on British supply ships would have
been shipped in oak casks. The extra hops used in the fermentation aided in the preservation for the long journey. The rolling action
of the ship on the ocean added to the impartation of a small amount of oaky tannins into the flavor of the beer. Modern examples of
IPAs have mostly lost the subtle oak flavor and just go for big, bitter hop flavor.....not true to style.
@@urbanurchin5930 I would concede your point that IPA was bottled in India, but your extraneous use of ellipses offends me, so I won't.
This reminds me of the soft mead I made several years ago, minus the yeast. And yes, honey instead of molasses, lemon slices instead of ginger - but the process is almost identical. I was holding an event that typically had regular mead... but had a friend attending that was a recovering alcoholic, so I dug around for a "soft" version. It was fantastic, and after watching this I a) want to make it again, and b) wonder how it would taste with ginger instead of the lemon. Since I can make it in very small batches, I may try both!
From what I understand - the modern beers and liquors started to appear during the 19th century accompanied by the alcoholism we are so familiar with today. I understand that from ancient times the beer was much more about nutrition and safe drinking sources than becoming intoxicated for the pleasure of it.
I am curious how they determined that their pure water sources were 'soft' or 'hard' in character. What kind of chemical test could they have used? Or is there a certain flavor that they tasted in the water? I never developed a liking for beers or liquors though I do use them in my cooking when the recipe requires it.
I would be willing to risk making a beer in the manner they did it actually so I could taste it as they made it really. Might need to make several small batches in order to retain those 'old yeasts' in the brewing container as you call it! Great video!
If I am inferring correctly that “soft” or “hard” water means the same then as it does now, you can actually tell very easily if you take a shower. Hard water has a very different “feel” to it than soft water, as well as tasting different.
I used to make beer. I stopped doing it when my kids were born as I haven't got the time to make it, or the spare time to drink it (plus I don't want to be inebriated around kids). It's one of those things that's easy to do, but hard to do right. I never managed anything close to a decent craft beer, but I managed a fairly drinkable brew... better than anything you'd get in a can, and cheaper!
you are required as a parent to teach your children proper beer consumption
@@metal87power yeah, they're all under 10 at the moment. Time and a place.
@@brick6347yep got about 6 more years
Good beer comes from a unitank. Modern brewing hardware makes it easy.
Then make it weaker.... unless ur using kits, at that point yoir not REALLY making your own beer then.
If people avoided drinking water, then how did they make the tea & coffee as a beverage to drink to avoid drinking water? It's basically made from the water that they were avoiding. If it's due to it being boiled first, as with tea/coffee, then how come they didn't simply boil water first to make it safe for drinking?
People, at the time, did not understand that boiling water made the water safe to drink. Pasteurization didn't exist until the later half of the 19th century, and virology and the study of infection is a relatively new science.
It is my understanding that they did do that and the idea people drank beer and what not because water is "unsafe" is a bit of a misconception.
I find it odd to find it here but I suppose someone is mistaken. Whether it's the side I thought to be correct or this one.
I love the variety of ales, stouts, and lager in Britain. It seems odd only to recognise beer as this sparkling chilled stuff when it's such a recent invention and wasn't anything like that for hundreds of years prior.
It was great to see you at the Kalamazoo Living History event as always!
Cheers, Townsends! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I've been reading "Beer in America The Early Years 1587-1840". Very interesting read! This recipe seems more like a ginger beer/dilute rum and less like a beer due to the lack of malt. I know barley was hard to come by in the early years, but it's interesting that even when barley was still available a recipe like this would be so popular. I'm guessing it's very light bodied and easy to drink 🤔
More essential minerals than malt. You may be right about the flavour. "Molly Miller's molasses beer foamed with a zest more exquisite than the choicest wines of France or Germany." Harper's Magazine, July 1878 213/1
And cheap to make. Malting barley is also a time and labour intensive process.
Amazing level of production in this segment Jon. Looks like television
I have started making my own meads and melomels. Have been wanting to try ciders too and this sounds fantastic. Thank you for the advice and knowledge.
BEER!
Let Them Have Beer!
That phrase definitely caught my attention.
I'm drinking my second batch of homemade beer. It wasn't as hard to make as I thought.
@@mikespangler98 problem is the carbonation my batches where allways low on foam and carbone
Give us, this day, our daily.....BEER
Just some thoughts:
First of all, thank you for this video. I love your content and you have made good progress over the years.
As far as beer goes, I like to read into ancient Sumerian/other ancient cultural sources. Egyptians really understood beer, too. I mean, it wasn't long since people started using grain as a major source of nutrients. Just read the stories about Gilgamesh. "They placed bread and beer in front of him. His heart grew light". Because of that, I began brewing my own beer (small beer). I'd take it with me to work on the farm. I understand why people saw beer as such an important foodstuff. My recipe used either a date fruit concoction with malted grain and a culture... or maple syrup and the other ingredients. Really easy. You don't even get tipsy on small beer. Alternatively, there is kvass. I love it. My Ruthenian ancestors made it, and so do I. We use rye bread, water, and a culture. It's basically a really weak beer. That was in conjunction to the millet porridge, potatoes, borshch, and cheese that they consumed every day.
No much changed in many agricultural cultures, as you know.
Take care!
I'm going to have to try this! Thanks John!
That glassware are beautiful.
Its great to see/hear you talk about historical homebrewing!
"It was drunk right away."
Enjoying a Stella for breakfast yes it does make you strong 💪
European Budweiser !
No it doesn't. Stella is trash
I love you John!
Thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching this video
Touching on Beer as a military Ration - I was recently reading a biographical account of the Spanish Civil War. The author talks about soldiers drinking wine almost every day (obviously wine was widely available in Spain at the time). They were pretty much allowed to drink as much as they wanted as long as they could fulfill their duties. I imagine alcohol was deliberately used as a way to help soldiers cope with the horrors of war, deal with minor injuries and to pacify them and prevent mutiny, for many centuries, even before the 1700s.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
*-Homer Simpson*
I always thought when people in the past drank beer instead of water there was probably something more to it than everyone was constantly drunk, turns out it's not strong and barely qualifies as beer today. Schools are really bad at nuance.
keep in mind they have a vested interest in turning you against the past, making everyone who came before a fool, so they can peddle any new ideas to you and fill your head with them.
Yes, but also they were somewhat drunk all the time
wait, was my reply deleted? is youtube trying to defend public schools?
@@KairuHakubiTH-cam has a bizarre auto-deletion system. I don't think anyone knows how it works, exactly, or what keywords or profanities trigger it.
@@razorknight92 figures. sensible censorship is an oxymoron.
Nice and detailed. Beautiful pictures.
Just tried this recipe (scaled down to fit my vessel, just under 2L). I had a little bit of a spiced ginger drink in the fridge so I added that in place of the powdered ginger. It's been bubbling vigorously for about 3 days now and I just had a taste. It's not terribly exciting but it is pleasant and refreshing. The process is pretty similar to making bread kvass, so I will definitely try to synthesize a molasses+ginger kvass recipe after this!
Technically that would not be a beer because it has no malted barley or hops in it. I would call it a molasses ale or more accurately a molasses wine. FYI you would use a very similar process for making mead (honey wine).
in beer making, any 'beer' without hops is an 'Ale'. In the very early days in England, it was ales, then hops were discovered, and beers started to become available.
@@colonelfustercluck486 True. I also know that rum is made from distilling fermented molasses, but I have no idea what you would call the fermented molasses itself - which is what was made in this video.
It also just had... flavour! which is nice
"no one needs 15 gallons of molasses beer" i disagree sir.
When did this channel get 4k? the barrels look amazing!
At the eastern Europe this can be caled kvass. And the kvass are not under the beer regulation rules.
If I recall correctly Kvass is made from dark rye bread...and is bitter as hell because of it.
Molasses beer at least has the decency to be sweet . And a tad more alcoholic depending on the yeast strain used.
@@clothar23 Usually sugar is added to Kvass to both up the strength... and to make it palatable. But when poor people are poor they do what they gotta do.
@@andersjjensen Why would you bother with something as disgusting as Kvass at all without the neccessary ingredients to at least elevate it.
It certainly has no benefits on its own merits. Honestly a person of little means would be better off consuming its ingredients separately.
Yes, it is rye bread kvass most popular, but kvass can ɓe made from everything that containe some sugar.
What is the malt liquor? What gets you drunk quicker? What comes in bottles or in cans? BEER!
Hahaha, I love that song😂
Bro a Lego stop motion of that song was one of the first vids I watched on YT God im getting old lol
Vaping grain alcohol gets you drunk quickest.
@@OffGridInvestor and that's how accidents in the brewery occurs
I've been home brewing for several years now. Mostly working with mead and cider. Would love to try this one sometime. Thanks for the video.
The Beer vs gin situation is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Although beer is indeed healthier than Gin, one of the big reasons that people promoted beer and made gin look bad was propaganda. Beer brewers wanted to protect their business and the booming gin industry was hurting it. The painting called "Beer Street and Gin Lane" by William Hogarth was allegedly commissioned by the brewing industry. Hogarth was very skeptical of the brewers while painting and added all sorts of interesting satire into it.
Notice how in the "beer street" painting, most people are round/overweight while Hogarth himself (top left) is painted as skinny and having an "S" shaped figured. Hogarth believed the "S" shape was the "Line of beauty" and so when he painted all the brewers (the people who had commissioned him) round, it was a subtle insult.
That'd probably be pretty good if he substituted nutmeg for the ginger; I guess he'll have to try that sometime.
Shhhh dont give Jon any ideas!
I just found a limited run chocolate stout with 9% alcohol content in our local market. I bought them out. Happy St Patrick's Day! (Patrick was a finished work believer in Christ)
In Europe during the plague, beer was considered holy, because it was safe to drink.
So Cheers 🍻 go get a beer.
Wonderful video
[10:40] "Now some people might not even call this beer, because..."
Real beer doesn't require hops. But it does require a malted grain.
Former home-brewer here: before hops was introduced, beers used a variety of herbs to give the beer a bitter note, and offset the sweetness a bit. This was called 'gruit''. The exact recipes were often a closely guarded secret, and most gruit recipes are lost to time.
@@Vidar33 "before hops"
and since. some modern beers still use some of those flavourings.
Beers still a household drink forcme