I don't wont to pump up the beer here exhibition but I have this beer recipe from the 18th century form hops package. I wonder how relevant that's a beer recipe its now days ?
Thank you for sharing this. 3 things that got my attention. How simple they describe the process. Any non-beer person could understand and imagine it clearly. No geeky or technical terms, just simple easy to follow instructions. Unfortunately, they don't have an ingredients list, but still, how simpler can you describe this process? I noticed they didn't have a complicated hop schedule. No bittering or aroma additions, rather a simple flavoring of 30 minutes boil. A mild beer, in other words. The most fascinating part is the ingredients. Adding molasses, sassafras and lemon juice to the fermentation? I wonder what style they were shooting for? Isn't sassafras used in root beer? IMO, this demonstrates a British tradition, for if this had been from German immigrants, the Reinheitsgebot wouldn't allow it. Again,... thanks! I'm still trying to imagine brewing this... great work.
How did you date that package as being from the 1700's? I don't know much about packaging history but I'd have supposed that in that era hops would be either grown and picked by the consumer or sold bulk by the pound for home use. Also, the use of "hop yeast" suggests to me the mid-19th century or later since many older recipes often don't list yeast, and would often call for adding bread or were just fermented with airborne yeast, etc. I've seen dozens of recipes for such early homebrews and they often added flavoring like those, as well as ginger, bay leaves, licorice, etc. The Reinheitsgebot would be pretty meaningless to most German immigrants to the US in the 1700-1800's when making a homebrewed beverage like "hop beer". Remember that it only became the law throughout Germany in the early 1900's. Previously it was only in effect in Bavaria and only for commercial brewers - brewers in other parts of Germany often used ingredients not allowed in Bavaria (including rice, since corn/maize was more expensive in Europe). Also, it was European immigrant brewing scientists like the Bohemian Anton Schwarz, and German-born brewers like Busch and Best who first started brewing "Pilsen-style" beers in the US using corn and rice to "lighten" the brew using the locally available 6-row malt. The Reinheitsgebot meant little to them.
You're so right. I stand corrected. It's only today where modern German brewers try to hide behind the marketing straight jacket of the RHG as a way of selling mediocre beer. BTW... if anyone reading this is interested in the topics of the problems, travails and debates of the modern German beer industry, come over to the Germany forum, we have raging debates as a matter of course... no "what did you drink today" or "what did you find in the supermarket today" that I often read in another forum... hehehe. The German beer scene is partially where the USA was prior to the craft beer revolution; however, what makes it depressing (for me) is that they still produce a semi-quality product but not bad enough to jolt people to demand more TASTE and a speck of CREATIVITY. You're welcome to join our debates. They're getting rather insular hearing from the same folks again and again... we could use new blood in the debate. Also, this package/recipe looks more like it's from the 19th, not 18th century.
