Historically Correct Brewing

That's a pretty neat idea. If they brew good beer to boot, then it is an amazing idea.

 

Pretty Things should brew their next historical beer there http://www.oldbeers.com/

 

Seems like a lot of extra work and inconsistency. Good for them though. It's not easy standing out in craft beer.

 

The Genesee (no relation) Country Village and Museum in NY state has a historic brewery (don't think it's licensed, however). http://rochester.twcnews.com/content/news/509134/19th-century-beer-brewery-opens/?ap=1&MP

And Phila. beer historian, Rich Wagner, also does colonial era brewing exhibitions.
http://www.odessabrewfest.com/photo-gallery/rich-wagner-colonial-brewer
...but, again, not a commercial enterprise.

 

I want to watch people in Babylonian garb brewing historically accurate beer whilst praying to Ninkasi.

 

The big problem in recreating past brews is getting hold of the ingredients. Modern malt for example is probably quite different from ancient strains and few old hops are still grown (Goldings dates back to the 1700s) , also the way the malt was made is not like it is now.Here's how Fuller's approached the subject.
See patto1ro in a cameo appearance

 

I just want to echo what @checktherhyme posted: brewing via old methods add a lot of work and introduces the aspect of potential inconsistency to the brewing process.

An intriguing idea but it is really a good idea?

Cheers!

 

It's a very cool story, but like @JackHorzempa and @checktherhyme point out, there's a lot of problems associated with these kind of methods. I'm all for being fun and creative, but I'm more for making good beer. Let's hope they can do both.

 

Another person who brews via historical brewing methods is Frank Clark at Williamsburg, VA. As you see below he cooperates with a commercial brewery (AleWerks) in making larger scale batches of historical beer.

Cheers!

 

Tivoli in Denver CO will be moving into the old building where Tivoli use to be brewed.

http://blogs.westword.com/cafesocie...house_inside_the_historic_tivoli_building.php

 

A brewing buddy of mine brewed a Colonial Carolina ale with molasses and licorice root and aged it in Madeira barrels. He researched all the ingredients that would have likely been available to folks in SC at the time. And while he made it to the final four of the Sam Adams Longshot competition with his recipe, he didn't win. When he was out in Denver on SA's dime, Jim Koch basically told him that while he loved his beer, it wouldn't make it into the pack because "historical beers don't sell."

http://beerpulse.com/2011/08/samuel-adams-longshot-finalists-receive-label-approval/

 

Another person who brews historical beers (on the homebrew level) is Bob Grossman. Bob’s day job is as the librarian for the Philadelphia Orchestra (he knows A LOT about how music was played hundreds of years ago).

Bob gave a presentation at the 2013 National Homebrewers Conference about historical beers which included tastes of beers he made. A quick summary:

A presentation that Bob Grossman gave at the recent NHC in Philly entitled Colonial Brewing Practices and Beers with the Influences of Historical British Styles. Within the presentation, Bob discussed 6 different historical beers:

· 1750 Porter

· Sage Ale

· Parsnip, Pumpkin & Walnut Ale

· George Washington Small Beer

· Ben Franklin Spruce Beer

· Master Webb’s Braggot

Bob brewed all of the above beers and provided samples. All of the beers were tasty but my favorite was the 1750 Porter. He actually made some Essentia Bina (Essentia Bina is made from sugar boiled until thick and syrupy and black and extremely bitter) to make that Porter. It was very tasty with a slight tanginess to it.

You can read a bit about Bob here: https://www.philorch.org/about/musicians/robert-m-grossman#/

Cheers!

 

Thank you for posting this. Dayton is in my backyard and I've always been intrigued as to what a truly historically accurate brewed beer would taste like. I know it won't be 100% the same, given changes in barley and hop cultivars, but this sounds about as close as it can get.

 

Do they use 1850s sanitation?

 

I wanna swing thru Ohio now. Sounds cool.

 

Small batches fermented in oak barrels sounds like a pretty great way to make salad dressing. But we both agree with your last sentence!

 

I've been through their brewery, it's a pretty cool enterprise, but they're not allowed to sell the beer on they brew on premises, due to sanitation issues, as far as I know. It's in an old-fashioned house where anything from the air, bugs or otherwise, could easily get in and contaminate the beer. They send the recipe to a local brewery, Custom Brewcrafters, who brews the beer for them, and sends it back to be served at the Museum. The beer waste that is produced at the actual historical brewery is re-used in the village as compost and animal feed.