Scary what you can find out there:
Cheap and Agreeable Table Beer.
Take 15 galls. of water and boil one-half, putting the other into a barrel; add the boiling water to the cold, with 1 gall. of molasses and a little yeast. Keep the bung-hole open till the fermentation is abated.
To make Molasses Beer.
For small beer, put 9 lbs. of molasses into a barrelcopper of cold water, first mixing it well and boiling it briskly with 1/4 lb. of hops or more 1 hour, so that it may come off 27 galls.
To make a Butt of Porter, Stout.
Insert 4 galls. of molasses and some finings; stir it well. In a week draw off the cask by a cock inserted half way down.
Spruce Beer (molasses)
Boil 8 galls. of water and when in a state of complete ebullition pour it into a beer barrel which contains 8 galls. more of cold water; then add 16 lbs. of molasses, with a few tablespoonfuls of the essence of spruce, stirring the whole well together; add half a pint of yeast, and keep it in a temperate situation, with the bung-hole open for two days till the fermentation be abated, when the bung may be put in and the beer bottled off. It is fit to drink in a day or two. If you can get no essence of spruce make a strong decoction of the small twigs and leaves of the spruce firs.