This time is a little different approach. Instead of attempting to find a recipe in the sources, redacting it, making it modern, etc. I’m going the other way. I asked myself, “What modern ingredients would make a reasonably authentic period tavern ale?” What I’ve discovers is, although we have the same plants as they did, ours are so modified as to be different in almost every way. With that in mind, I went searching for what I believe a medieval ale/beer might taste like and build one with what’s available to me today.
I picture a sweet ale, where the primary flavor profile is that of the malt and almost zero bitterness. I also considered the preservation qualities of the beverage. Hops were coming into vogue, but the tavens’ clientele ppreferred the sweeter gruit of the time. What I’ve created is really a beer, but therein lies a subtle distinction with reasons.That reasoning is twofold: As a tavern owner/businessman, I want the product to last more than a few days.Ingredients are expensive, as is the time and effort put into the brewing. Also, I want to bring my customers along into the new world of beer, and get away from the gruits of old. I want to show them that my establishment is on the leading edge and quite “continental”, and serving hopped beer does that (maybe!)
So here’s my historically informed reconstruction of a plausible late-15th-century hopped ale. Comments are welcome.
Brewer: Carrick MacSeáin
Recipe Source: A historically informed reconstruction of a plausible late-15th-century Irish hopped ale using Maris Otter malt and locally grown hops
Recipe Name: Carrick’s Maris Otterwoman Ale
This beer is based on the idea that not all recipes survived Medieval England, and a local taverner wouldn’t necessarily have all the ingredients that a manor house brewery would have access to. I’ve determined that Maris Otter malt would be a close representation of what a period barley cultivar might have been. Maris Otter provides an English/Irish traditional-malt flavor profile. It’s bready, biscuity, nutty, somewhat rich, without the overtly modern character of very highly modified continental-style pale malts. That the hops were obtained from a local source adds to the authenticity of the recipe, even though the resultant product has minimal bitterness, which might have been disfavored by the medieval populace in the tavern.
Original Recipe:
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration
This beverage is an attempt at an authentic Anglo-Irish taverner’s ale.
My persona is an ex-pat Irishman living in England in the mid 15th century. He runs a tavern that has a brewhouse alongside its kitchen, so he specializes in beers and ales rather than wine. He also produces meads.
What we’re going for is Irish traditions coupled with English malt availability, a touch of sweetness, and well traded continental hops.
The recipe for this ale yields 5 gallons.
10 lb two-row Maris Otter malt
2 oz locally grown hops for bittering at the boil
2 cups ale barm
8 gl Spring water
1 oak spiral
Redaction:
Related category: Authenticity.
This entire experiment is an interpretation of what may have been plausible in the 15th century England. The intention here is to create an authentic beverage, not necessarily accurate on all points.
Ingredient Sources
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
Grains
Barley Malt – Maris Otter was selected as a reasonable approximation of the flavor profile of medieval barley malt. “Maris Otter is a premier English two-row heritage base malt celebrated for its rich, complex flavor profile. It delivers a distinctively bready, biscuity, and nutty sweetness paired with a warm, toasted bread-crust character and a clean, subtle malty sweetness.” [Northern Brewer]
Barley cultivation in Ireland, as elsewhere, is dependent on weather and soil conditions. “Barley appears to have been the chief grain for malting and brewing in Ireland, although there is some evidence for spelt and oats – especially in areas that were not favourable for barley cultivation.” [Hornsey, p264]
Hops
The intent is not to gain aroma or bitterness, which might not be favorable to the tavern’s clientele used to a sweeter gruit based ale. We are looking for the preservative qualities of the hops, with a subtle bitterness to ease them into a true beer.
Some justification for hops in 15th century English brewing comes from passages in The History of Beer and Brewing by Ians S. Hornsey,
“In the absence of any firm evidence to the contrary, we must assume that hops used for brewing in England were either collected from the wild, or imported from the Continent. The first bona fide record for the importation of hops is dated 1438, immediately following the cessation of the war with Holland, when a merchant from Middelburg conveyed five sacks of hops to the important Devon town of Dartmouth.” [Hornsey, p317]
Yeast
Period recipes often call for the use of barm from pervious batches. This was done here. The original source was Nottingham ale Yeast from Lallemand Brewing Company.
“LalBrew Nottingham™ is an English-style ale yeast selected for its high performance and versatility. Neutral flavor and consistent performance across diverse fermentation conditions make LalBrew Nottingham™ and ideal house strain for producing a wide variety of beer styles. ”[lallemandbrewing.com]
Water
Local spring water was selected as it contains no modern chemicals from the water treatment plant. Carrick wouldn’t know the chemical make up of the water in late 15th century England.
This water has a TDS of 640ppm and a pH of 5.8
Oak Spiral
Used in the storage keg to simulate an oak barrel.
Period processes
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
The mash water was heated to 167℉ to achieve a strike temperature of 153.2℉ The mash water was added to the grains to avoid clumping. The mash sat for 60 minutes. Only a single infusion was used.
Sparge water was heated while the grains were mashed. It was then used to rinse the grains to extract the liquor.
The liquor was boiled for 60 minutes. Hops were added 2 oz for bittering at the boil.
The resultant wort was chilled to 85℉ then moved to a glass carboy for fermentation.
Yeast was pitched directly into the carboy.
After primary fermentation of 10 days, the ale was moved to a steel keg.The oak spiral was added at this point. A spunding valve was used to allow CO2 pressure to only reach a maximum of 1 bar during primary fermentation. This simulates the “stop it loosely” instructions given in many period recipes.
Equipment
Related category: Complexity, Exploration
Period Equipment
Wooden spoon
Modern Equipment
Stainless steel brewpot
Aluminum pot for the sparge water
Cornelius keg equipped with a floating dip tube and a spunding valve.
Igloo cooler mash tun
Presentation
Related category: Aesthetics
This beverage is to be presented in a period container as depicted below.
After the Roman occupation of Britain, pottery continued to be made using the terra sigillata technique introduced by the Romans until the Medieval period(after the Norman conquest) when lead glazing and slip trailed pottery began to be produced. These 4 jugs depicted below, from SE England are typical of pottery of the period. During this period, potters had little social status and pottery was little more than utilitarian. Pottery was not widely used for eating, as wooden plates and bowls were preferred. Pots were used for serving, storing, or preparing foods, and large pitchers for ale, beer, milk and water were common household staples. [GCC]
What to do next time
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration, Complexity
Thee resultant beer was a bit cloudy, so a longer boil and the addition of finings such as Irish Moss could be used to enhance clarity.
Additional Information
Related category: Authenticity, Exploration
A “gallon” of Water
“In the British Isles a major problem adding to metrological proliferation was that the same measuring units had different standards in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Chief among these units were the acre, pint, ell, furlong, gallon, mile, and tun; all immensely popular measures. As seen earlier in another context, those of Scotland were often double, triple, or quadruple the size of their English equivalents, while those of Ireland were usually slightly smaller.” (Zupko) Trying to determine what exactly is a “gallon” or a “pint” is tricky. In this case we went with a gallon of water being the same as a gallon of ale in period. That is, “in England and later Great Britain, at least as early as 15ᵗʰ century – 1824, a unit of liquid capacity used for ale, = 282 cubic inches.” (Wybard)
A modern gallon is 231 cubic inches.
So a medieval gallon (ale) is 282/231 or 1.22 modern gallons, or about 5 quarts/4.75 litres.
Bibliography and Glossary
Related category: Exploration
Northern Brewer, Maris Otter, https://www.northernbrewer.com/products/english-maris-otter?srsltid=AfmBOopcoYcPuz_BqcNxQcHkhNn982F7OGtRXT2wJtVoDLuYSNDON-y3
I. S. Hornsey, A History of Beer and Brewing, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. https://books.rsc.org/books/monograph/416/A-History-of-Beer-and-Brewing
Glendale Community College – Art 198 – History Of World Ceramics – http://www-01.glendale.edu/ceramics/medievalpitchers.html
Zupko , Ronald Edward ,Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science, Internet Archive, https://dn710106.ca.archive.org/0/items/bub_gb_uYCNFkRgXCoC/bub_gb_uYCNFkRgXCoC.pdf
Wybard, J. “Setting Forth the Quantities of the Wine and Ale-gallons.” From Tactometria… London: Robert Leybourn. 1650. Web. PDF. Accessed 19 May 2911. <http://www.sizes.com/library/British_law/Wybard1650.pdf>.
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