Recreating Medieval English Ales
 

As a history lover (B.A. History), I find researching older beer making methods and recipes very interesting. I wish I could find more on the subject. I'd LOVE to brew a beer based on an old recipe. On my search I found the following article and thought I'd share it.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pwp/tofi/medieval_english_ale.html

Question: Do any of you have information on older recipes?

That is an awesome article, thanks for posting it! The author presents some great info for anyone trying to recreate the old style ales in their most basic forms. I might have to try this soon after reading that.

subscribing .. holding-on for posted recipes.

There's recipes in the article...

I would think medieval ales would use some type of spicing or gruit to substitute for the hops.

I just finished a recipe based on an old medieval recipe but I used hops, after tasting a carbed bottle, next time I am going to go traditional and use proper medieval spices (cinnamon, mugwort, licorice or star anise, juniper berries and dried nettles is what I have planned)

I used White labs begian trappist as it provided the fruity yeasty flavors I thought would make sense in a Medieval brew.

where did you happen to find this recipe? post it!

thats great info, id love to try to brew something like that

I find it ironic that they tell you to sanitize.

Thank you. Very interesting article.

You should check out Ron Pattinson's blog. He is not quite as far back as Medieval, but quite the historian.

Also you might be interested in Sacred Herbal and Healing Beers (Amazon link). A lot of info about using stuff that's not hops in beer.

I think it's all so interesting but I never got up the guts to risk a whole brew day on any of them. I'd like to one day make one with yarrow or nightshade or some sick poisonous thing like that.