Cheap Small Beer

[Carbon 6]

It's not uncommon that they would drink it "green". Although they lose the advantage of the small beer by not boiling it, but maybe that was what we call today a "given" ???

I have seen reports where in Canada, British troops started drinking the spruce beer immediately after it went into the barrel, and it started top fermentation as they were drawing it by tap from the bottom over the following week. That was molasses based too.

OH and don't bother trying spruce beer, military fashion...it's tasty when it's aged a year, but military fashion it tastes like a 50/50 mix of Diet Pepsi and original flavor Listerine mouthwash. It did keep away scurvy in winter though....

So much of what we think of as "beer" today is derived from the German beer traditions that it is sometimes difficult to imagine what beer back then was like.

Another thing to consider is that this recipe is for "Small Beer", fit for man, woman and child. So, flat molasses water might be on par.

 

[DaveC]

I'll tell you what: Norwegian farm house "kvek" yeast is the absolute bomb yeast I use!
It'll ferment in temperatures too high for other yeasts, so I can brew longer into the Texas "Super-summer" using it. And the beers I've made with it are superb, or at least to my taste.

 

[Carbon 6]

I've been wanting to try Kviek yeast. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Carbon 6]

George liked this one.

George Washington. "To Make Small Beer."
From his 1757 notebook.

Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your Taste -- Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gall. into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working -- Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.

Spence

I found another similar recipe.

COLUMBUS [GA] ENQUIRER, April 29, 1862, p. 2, c. 3 Bran Beer. Editor Enquirer: Severe imitations of coffee and tea have been proposed, and they make a beverage pleasant to the taste and in this respect much resembling our common table
drinks before the war. But it is not pretended that they have the invigorating properties of real tea and coffee. It is my purpose to suggest not an imitation, but a substitute for tea and coffee, which, if once fairly tried, I think will be adhered to by those giving it a trial. It has the stimulating effect of coffee, and is exceedingly palatable and wholesome in its effect. The article to which I allude is bran beer, which can be made quite strong and very cheaply, thus: Take three quarts of wheat bran (costing three cents), pour on cold or hot water enough to soak it thoroughly, let it stand until the bran sours and rises (which will be about twenty-four hours), then pour on one gallon of boiling water and let it steep in a covered vessel until cold enough to strain through a cloth; strain it through a thin cloth, and let it stand in a pan or pail until the fine flour in the bran settles to the bottom; pour off gently, and to a gallon of water thus expressed add half a pint of molasses, bottle, and set it away until it ferments. It will have all the life and pungency of ginger pop, and is the most palatable beer I have ever drunk. It will take two or three days to prepare beer in this way; but by starting the process daily a daily supply can be kept up. It will not cost more than six cents a gallon when molasses costs fifty cents. The fine flour settling at the bottom of the vessel after the water is strained from the bran can be mixed with flour in making bread; and the beer made as above will make bread rise fully as well and as light as soda or yeast. The sour bran will be greedily eaten by pigs.