Most “Historical-Tasting” AAL?

Well.... not to be too pedantic, but Franklin and Jefferson pre-dated the American cowboy by a few years. Maybe they looked down on those rogues Roger's Rangers?

 

Yeah, no doubt both developed a fondness for wine dating to their time as US reps in France but ol' TJ did have a brewery built at Monticello, with the brewer being Sally Hemings' brother, Peter.

 

Wouldn't it have been more efficient for the Caribbean colonies to turn that molasses into rum before shipping to the American mainland colonies? (i.e. reduce shipping weight and volume) Or was rum production/shipping one of the [many] trades England imposed restrictions on to insure goods and money kept flowing back to the kingdom?

 

Duties might have been a factor (I didn't check). My quick calculation estimates the volume of rum would be about half that of molasses, so it would have reduced shipping costs. However, alcohol is volatile and might be evaporated in a ship's hold during transit. Also, the Americans might have preferred a locally made product (craft brewing and distilling?). There can be issues with poor practice in the fermentation and distilling processes.

 

Not really my field but according to RUM (Ian Williams, 2005):

It did not take long for producers to discover how to concentrate the molasses to the point that (spontaneous) fermentation was impossible without diluting it, which also reduced the bulk and hence the shipping costs... the value added was considerable.

It made commercial sense to distill in New England*, with its superior technical and metalworking skills to make the stills and its ample supply of timber for fuel and cooperage...Local rum's biggest advantage was that it was much cheaper. For example, in 1740 in Philadelphia, the local spirit cost one shilling and eight pence a gallon compared with two shillings and five pence a gallon for West Indies rum.

Rum distillation soon became the colonies biggest manufacturing industry and a major export as well.

*Between 1700-1750, Massachusetts boasted 63 rum distilleries and Rhode Island 30... --- RUM AUTHORITY

 

Well to be fair the hypothetical situation WAS a tasting...so there were likely some clunkers in there...

 

Let's hope that it didn't include that aforementioned Washington dude's small beer:

"Say, George - exactly how much of this supposed "small beer" did you consume before writing out this recipe?"

 

Well, in all fairness George wrote down that recipe in 1757 (he was 25 years old) when he was stationed at Fort Loudon, PA during the French & Indian War. I suppose when you are in the 'middle of nowhere' and in the midst of fighting a beverage like this small beer is better than nothing.

Cheers to George Washington!

https://www.mountvernon.org/library...l-encyclopedia/article/recipe-for-small-beer/

 

To your taste?

Yeah, I can see real consistency problems there, so no -- I won't be making an attempt at recreating THAT recipe.

Besides, I think the wife took my siffer to Good Will with some other kitchen equipment.

 

Jesskidden, Jack of All Alcohol History Trades.

Thanks once again for doing my research for me!

 

Concerning the story of Wagner and the first lager beer, and the story of lager beer and schenk beer in America, I thought this excerpt below was interesting. It's taken from Philadelphia and its manufactures from 1858, page 196:


So as per this excerpt the lager beer made by Wagner was "a lighter article" and the first to make "the real lager" was Manger. It is noted that the beer used in the winter is lighter and tapped after 5-6 weeks while "the real lager" is made in cold weather, has more body, i.e more malt and hops, and is tapped around May first. One can easily see that the author is describing on the one hand winter beer, i.e schenkbier (brewed with less malt and hops, stored for a few weeks after primary fermentation) while calling that same beer lager beer, then calling the beer brewed in cold weather and tapped around May first, i.e summer beer, i.e lager beer, i.e Märzen beer, i.e "the real lager beer". The author thus displays a solid understanding of Bavarian brewing at the time, although he does not call the beer brewed by Wagner schenkbier or winter beer, even if this is the implication of his wording.

A thought provoking excerpt I thought, and for me who has spent the last few years reading about Bavarian brewing it hardly seems controversial that a brewer would start with schenkbier, brewed when the weather was more forgiving and accomodating, requiring less investments in time and storage facilities, a quicker return on that same investment. After all. the legislation in Bavaria said that the brewer which wanted to brew winter beer, must also brew summer beer. Brewing summer beer was the price the brewer had to pay in order to be allowed to brew the winter beer, which the government attempted to compensate for by setting the price higher for the summer beer.

The idea that a new brewer in America, excercising the freedoms granted to him in his new homeland, would test the waters so to speak by brewing winter beer, and perhaps even sticking to the brewing of such beer as the excerpt suggests, seems entirely logical to me.

 

Altes Original Detroit Lager. I don’t know if they use the 1910 recipe, but I enjoy it in 2021.

https://frommichiganwithlove.com/2020/07/31/altes-beer/

 

With emphasis in bold by me:

“Altes Reborn

Locally craft brewed and owned, Altes is Back! In 2016, three local beer lovers, Eric, Carl, and Pat, launched an effort to restore the beer to its original glory. They wanted to emulate the original refreshing European style Altes lager that Detroiters loved. So they turned to their friends at Traffic Jam & Snug, the original Detroit brewpub, to perfect an approach to creating a full bodied but perfectly balanced German Helles lager. The resulting recipe cuts no corners. We use 100% barley malt and 100% German imported hops to create a supremely drinkable local Detroit style lager that honors the city's beer heritage.”

https://altes.beer/about-us

May indeed be a tasty beer but it is by no means a historical American Adjunct Lager.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, looks like another "revived" brand with little to no connection to the original. The owners aren't even too familiar with Michigan brewing history or that of the brand's.

Michigan instituted state Prohibition in 1918, at the same time when so-called "Wartime Prohibition", which limited beer to 2.75%, had been enacted by Pres. Wilson under the Lever Act during WWI.

The Tivoli Brewing Co. did not resurrect the brand until two years after Repeal.

Also, one of the articles implied Heileman moved the brewing of the brand back to Michigan but that was done by Carling National in the late 1970s.

National had bought Altes in the mid-50s and closed the Detroit brewery in the early-70s but continued to brew the brand elsewhere until their merger with Carling, which was coincidentally operating the large brewery in Frankenmuth (< not to be confused with the smaller Frankenmuth brewery originally operated by Geyer Bros.) A few years later, the merged CN was purchased by Heileman, which ran the MI brewery until 1990.

But here's something I didn't know. The brand is pronounces "ALL-tuss".

Yeah, pretty unlikely that Altes in the post-Repeal era was either All-Malt or brewed with 100% German hops.

 

Cocerning the topic of common beer vs schenk I came across another example which was interesting. In an excerpt from "American Breweriana Journal" on the Lemp brewing company it is noted that:

Another misspelling of schenk, this time as schlenk instead of schnek, while also calling it common beer. Clearly both authors must have had access to sources which use the German term, perhaps also misspelled there. As per the list below the Western brewery made 4800 bbls of lager and 3500 bbls of common beer in 1859.


Considering also the other sources discussed earlier in the thread I'm feeling more confident now that behind the common beer terminology in that list hides schenk beer instead, showing a similar relationship in sales of each as would be typical in Bavaria at the time. To establish this is I think important for two reasons. Firstly because it connects the brewers of Bavarian beer in the US at the time more closely with the brewers in Bavaria at the time. It allows us to see the transfer and adoption, or retention rather, of methods and practises from the old world over to the new world. Secondly because it allows us to "see" and acknowledge the existence of two different kinds of beer in the market (within the context of Bavarian type beer), it's not all simply lager beer, just as there wasn't only lager beer brewed in Bavaria at the time.

Without this understanding I think the history becomes less interesting, less three dimensional in a sense, since there are fewer working parts to the story. So that is why I'm still harping on it .

On the same topic though from a slightly different era I found these excerpts from a court case in 1877 in New York, concerning the Catherine Diehl brewery, to be interesting (pages 81-83).

They then discuss the period of September 1874 to April 1875.

 

“Q. Did you sell all the Schenk beer you manufactured?

A. No, about 50-70 barrels per week ; I got none dollars per barrel for it.”

Amazing that Catherine Diehl brewery could stay in business just giving away beer!?!

Cheers!

 

Patrik (@Crusader), have you read the below linked article entitled “WHAT IS SCHENCK BEER?” published in the The New York Times in 1879?

https://www.nytimes.com/1879/05/16/archives/what-is-schenck-beer.html

Is there a ‘version’ available on-line for people like me (i.e., non-subscribers)?

Cheers!

 

Hah, good catch. For the record it should say nine dollars.

I'm not a subscriber either so I have not read that particular article.

 

You have excellent web-searching skills so I figured I would ask.

Cheers!