Hobbit Brew?

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sleepystevenson said:
Yeah, really..... just when you think HOPS are getting expensive by the ounce for a bittering herb...
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Yeah - I mean, we're talkin' 120 bucks per ounce of "bittering herb", and I would think we need at least a 2 oz bittering addition... Then at least a 1 oz aroma addition at flame out.

Maybe I should go find the link to those "holistic hops" someone bought that you can get for $4 a pound :D
 
Ó Flannagáin said:
Hey Cheezy, I don't want to run this really, but I would like to participate. I setup a temporary forum on my server if you'd like to run it there people can sign up and you can manage it and all. There is no email verification for new accounts so you can sign up and start posting immediately. http://www.yellowforks.com/hbswap/
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Seems like an extrordinary measure to circumvent what is a sound policy that seeks to protect the privacy interests of our members.
If you think people will go for that...
 
I'd just rather not run it. I'm not really good at such things. I think the swap is a good idea though.

I'm not gonna fight the forum rules, it took me 5 minutes to setup the forum, so its no biggie. I completely understand the rules of the forum, except the ones that try to control what people can do offline. /shrug. Is there a policy for setting up brewdays with others as well?
 
There are many reasons that the exchange rules have been developed and put in place as official policy. First of all, there are legitimate privacy concerns. Supporting members have proven themselves to be, well, supporters of this community and are almost inevitably very well-known and established among this group.

Is there a list of people who ARE planning to participate in this swap? I'm sorry, I just haven't been following. Maybe we should start with a quasi-sign-up-sheet and then figure out how to handle the logistics from there.
 
No interest in the swap...

But I'd bet this is a good base to start with for an Old English Ale...

And why the heck hasn't Orfy chimed in here???

Hobgoblin.jpg
 
I'm up for the swap, if someone else is willing to organize it. I think I've said it like five times, but I had no idea this would get this big-I'm really glad it has though. :)
To confirm what other people have found, I checked the Hobbit, LOTR, Tolkien Companion, and even the 1970's "Tolkien Companion," and although there are several mentions of beer, ale, or occasionally mead, I couldn't find anything regarding styles or descriptions. Maybe digging through some of Christopher's published notes would yield something? Thanks again everyone for putting a smile on this overgrown hobbit's face!
 
I think that the only things we have figured out are:

1) Green dragon sold "beer so brown".
2) Hobbit beer was barley, no wheat beer.
3) Tolkien used 1935ish England as a model for the Shire
4) Tolkien's favorite tavern probably had several English bitters on tap
5) Bilbo offered a glass of porter to the dwarves
6) Pracing pony served ales and porters

I vote for: an English bitter/ESB and a porter.

Then again, i'm not aware of the existance of hops in middle earth, so some type of gruit would make sense as well.
 
I have a list of interested people, I am guessing that they will not all be willing to go to O'flan's offsite area and I wish they didn't have to.

The reason, and I respect it, is not that supporting members are more "well known " than me, it is that they have financially supported the site. Fair enough.

I appreciate it O'flan, but is some other supporting member willing to take names?(so far as I can see, that is the only requirement)

This doesn't have to be so complicated.
 
Lets not let this kill the idea!

I have become set on brewing a Dwarvish black porter:

MORIA DARK PORTER

"Black as the mines"
 
cheezydemon said:
The reason, and I respect it, is not that supporting members are more "well known " than me, it is that they have financially supported the site. Fair enough.
Click to expand...
I don't believe is is so much the financial support rather that to provide support you have to provide a billing address and name rather than the anonymous account that non-supporting members can use. With beer swaps you are shipping items to members so it is good to have verified addresses and names.
That does not stop you from setting up your own swap but it becomes a little bit more of an "at your own risk" type swap.
I recently became a supporting member so that I can exchange my newbie brew for experts brew. What's great is that many members strongly encouraged me and other to do so despite the fact that I am unlikely to match their quality.
Craig
 
CBBaron said:
I don't believe is is so much the financial support rather that to provide support you have to provide a billing address and name rather than the anonymous account that non-supporting members can use. With beer swaps you are shipping items to members so it is good to have verified addresses and names.
That does not stop you from setting up your own swap but it becomes a little bit more of an "at your own risk" type swap.
I recently became a supporting member so that I can exchange my newbie brew for experts brew. What's great is that many members strongly encouraged me and other to do so despite the fact that I am unlikely to match their quality.
Craig
Click to expand...

PayPal does a similar thing - To qualify for their Buyer Protection, you must be shipping to a Confirmed address, that is to say, one that you have a credit card registered to, and that they have verified with the C.C. company is accurate.

In our situation, I think it's a great privacy/security measure. Plus it helps Tx pay the bills.
 
Good to know. I don't think however that we should discuss that aspect any longer. The parties involved(including mods) have sorted it out with no bad feelings. And so....with the power vested in me...by..........me.

Get Back on topic please!!! lol
 
Ask and ye shall recieve, cheezydemon. To bring us back to the task at hand, here's what I'm planning on brewing. It's in the style of an English Brown Ale:

3.3# Amber LME
3.0# Light DME
.5# Crystal malt (40L)
.5# Crystal malt (starting with 40L, toasted by me)
.25# Black Patent
1.25 oz. Fuggles
1.5 oz grated Ginger
.5 tsp Irish Moss
Oak chips in secondary for five days

I'm deciding to go with the Brown Ale because to me it seems like the best choice. That's not to say they didn't enjoy/brew bitters, porters, etc., this is what I'm going to use. The recipe makes it a bit stronger than a traditional Brown Ale, but I figured, why not? I'm using hops only for bittering, and not much at that, because I would think that the hobbits would have hops given the climate and the culture, but I don't think they would have used them exclusively-that's where the ginger comes in. I'm hoping the ginger will add to the aroma and give the taste a little zip to balance the malt. Also, the oak chips, also not generally associated with a brown ale, are to simulate the wooden barrels the hobbits almost definitely kept their beer in. How does this sound to everyone-pretty reasonable, or way off base? Any ingredients on my list that I should increase/decrease? Thanks all!
 
hoffmeister said:
Ask and ye shall recieve, cheezydemon. To bring us back to the task at hand, here's what I'm planning on brewing. It's in the style of an English Brown Ale:

3.3# Amber LME
3.0# Light DME
.5# Crystal malt (40L)
.5# Crystal malt (starting with 40L, toasted by me)
.25# Black Patent
1.25 oz. Fuggles
1.5 oz grated Ginger
.5 tsp Irish Moss
Oak chips in secondary for five days

I'm deciding to go with the Brown Ale because to me it seems like the best choice. That's not to say they didn't enjoy/brew bitters, porters, etc., this is what I'm going to use. The recipe makes it a bit stronger than a traditional Brown Ale, but I figured, why not? I'm using hops only for bittering, and not much at that, because I would think that the hobbits would have hops given the climate and the culture, but I don't think they would have used them exclusively-that's where the ginger comes in. I'm hoping the ginger will add to the aroma and give the taste a little zip to balance the malt. Also, the oak chips, also not generally associated with a brown ale, are to simulate the wooden barrels the hobbits almost definitely kept their beer in. How does this sound to everyone-pretty reasonable, or way off base? Any ingredients on my list that I should increase/decrease? Thanks all!
Click to expand...

I like that, and I'd probably use the hops because I think beer requires hop and ales doesnt require it, no? That's what I was getting from an article I was just reading: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/15-12/ps_ale ... so when they talk of beer so brown, it must've had hops in it.

I think I will go a little more traditional though, I doubt they had a very advanced malting process. Here's what I'm thinking:

Old Gaffer's 1420

10lbs Marris otter
2lbs lightly toasted marris otter
.25lbs well toasted marris otter

1oz ginger
1.5oz fuggles 60 min
.5oz fuggles 10 min

English Ale yeast

.. I will leave 24 ounces in of the wort in a bowl with a few crushed grains and let it sour for a week then boil it and add it back to the fermenter. I did this with a stout once and it worked really well. I want to do this because the hobbits were not able to cleanly cultivate yeast and probably had a slight sour bite when the beer was young. I suspect they drank it fast before it got too sour, or mixed with new beer if it did get too sour.

On a side note, I don't think they are checking every address witht he address paypal has on file. I don't even think they are allowed to look at our info on paypal.
 
I want to do the porter, (read a little of the Hobbit last night.."some asked for ales, and some for porters")

I will have to ponder it. I am thinking extract since I think they would have had 10% ABV or so in their hearty draughts!

I am thinking:
12 lbs Dark DME
1 lb black patent
.5 lb 2 row pale - burnt over a fire.

.5 oz fuggles hops

Irish Ale yeast

Both of your recipes sound great Hoffmeister and O'flan.

I am thinking that those sound like Green Dragon Ales.
 
Hi my name is Jens and I to am a beer brewing LOTR dork ...


Any Body Doing an Ent-draught or Miruvor ? And who do I need to contact to get in on the LOTR Brew in the hat ? I had a silly Idea for an Ent-Draught aka Treebeard's Tree beer ...

"They felt its power coursing through their limbs and it felt like the hair on their heads was curling and growing. There was a taste or scent like a breeze from the woods."


Treebeard's Tree Beer

2 lbs Crisp Maris Otter.
2 lbs birch syrup
2 lbs Basswood honey
2 lbs golden light DME

1 oz fuggles hops 1/2 at 60min 1/2 at 10min
1 oz heather tips
0.5 oz juniper berries
0.25oz spruce tips

Munton's Ale Yeast

2 oz med toast French oak cubes in secondary



Skal!

Jens
 
Jens, welcome. I don't think anyone has started planning an Ent Draught, so by all means, go for it!

O Flannagain's and Cheezydemon's recipes look good to me too. I'd be all for the more "natural" route (in other words, all-grain), however, I have neither the equipment nor know-how to do it. I hope to tackle all-grain at some point, but I'm pretty happy with extract. I really like the idea of using some soured wort, it's a great touch. Definitely a good ale worthy of the Green Dragon. The porter sounds pretty intense, but I'm interested to see how that turns out with that much dark malt in there. If I may make a suggestion though-with that much DME in the wort, I might use a touch more hops. I know porters aren't supposed to be hoppy, but half an ounce of Fuggles is going to be completely lost in 12 lbs of DME. Just a thought, but otherwise it looks great.

Any others participating? When is everyone getting started? Thanks for the feedback!
 
Not to throw a wrench in the mix, but... The use of hops and the use of the name porter would not be historicaly correct. that is if the Tolkien story is ment to be a lost and forgotten past. Remember that hops were not commonly used or reffered to untill the eleventh century AD. And the term Porter did not come into use until the 18th century.

My 2 cents: it needs to be a type of gruit.
 
Dinbin said:
Not to throw a wrench in the mix, but... The use of hops and the use of the name porter would not be historicaly correct. that is if the Tolkien story is ment to be a lost and forgotten past. Remember that hops were not commonly used or reffered to untill the eleventh century AD. And the term Porter did not come into use until the 18th century.

My 2 cents: it needs to be a type of gruit.
Click to expand...

Bilbo uses the term porter though, so it might be "forgotten past" but Tolkien also modelled a lot of their practices after his current culture in England. So, if we were going for an ancient beer, than yea.. we may need to do gruit, but we are going for a Tolkien brew, so using his terms "porter" (Bilbo offered the Dwarves) is ok and "brown beer" (song of pippen) = use of hops.
 
Oakwoodforge said:
Hi my name is Jens and I to am a beer brewing LOTR dork ...


Any Body Doing an Ent-draught or Miruvor ? And who do I need to contact to get in on the LOTR Brew in the hat ? I had a silly Idea for an Ent-Draught aka Treebeard's Tree beer ...

"They felt its power coursing through their limbs and it felt like the hair on their heads was curling and growing. There was a taste or scent like a breeze from the woods."


Treebeard's Tree Beer

2 lbs Crisp Maris Otter.
2 lbs birch syrup
2 lbs Basswood honey
2 lbs golden light DME

1 oz fuggles hops 1/2 at 60min 1/2 at 10min
1 oz heather tips
0.5 oz juniper berries
0.25oz spruce tips

Munton's Ale Yeast

2 oz med toast French oak cubes in secondary



Skal!

Jens
Click to expand...

Hi, cheezy is runnin the brew swap over at: http://www.yellowforks.com/hbswap/
 
Right you are hoff, but I am with dinbin in that I don't think that the dwarves would have used much if any hops. I am hoping that the burnt malt will add some bitter to the mix.
 
cheezydemon said:
Right you are hoff, but I am with dinbin in that I don't think that the dwarves would have used much if any hops. I am hoping that the burnt malt will add some bitter to the mix.
Click to expand...

I suspect the dwarves used heather or something else for the bittering. Like someone said earlier, Tolkien based the dwarves on the early scotts. I suspect the men wouldn't be using hops either, I think just the hobbits were... and maybe the elves because they were so wise in what herbs and plants did what.
 
But, hoping to add a little anyways...

quote from Gimli: Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarves. Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone.


I'm also thinking there was a drinking song that mentioned 'beer so brown'...


If these were mentioned already...nevermind! ;o)
 
DarinB said:
But, hoping to add a little anyways...

quote from Gimli: Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarves. Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone.


I'm also thinking there was a drinking song that mentioned 'beer so brown'...


If these were mentioned already...nevermind! ;o)
Click to expand...

The gandalf quote is new! But we've got the beer so brown down ;)
 
cheezydemon said:
Right you are hoff, but I am with dinbin in that I don't think that the dwarves would have used much if any hops. I am hoping that the burnt malt will add some bitter to the mix.
Click to expand...

Not a bad idea. Now that I think about it, I did a similar beer about a year and a half ago that had no aroma hops and barely noticeable hop bitterness, but because of all the chocolate malt and black patent I used it turned out really bitter. It was initially a little much, but after a few months in the bottle it mellowed very nicely, a good balance of malty sweetness and bitterness from the grains. Too bad there's not a way to measure grain bitterness. Still looks good to me though.

BTW-That book is something else. Wish someone had come across it earlier. Thanks olllllo!
 
To the gent who mentioned elves before: weren't the elves more into wine than beer? After all, wine is often perceived as being more "cultured" than beer, and the elves certainly fit that description. Plus with their whole immortality thing they could wait around for a while for the stuff to get really good :D. In the Hobbit at least I distinctly remember the elves in the forest having wine.

I'm intrigued by the soured beer concept as well, but hesitant to commit a full batch to it. Please do let us know how it turns out!
 
RadicalEd said:
To the gent who mentioned elves before: weren't the elves more into wine than beer? After all, wine is often perceived as being more "cultured" than beer, and the elves certainly fit that description. Plus with their whole immortality thing they could wait around for a while for the stuff to get really good :D. In the Hobbit at least I distinctly remember the elves in the forest having wine.

I'm intrigued by the soured beer concept as well, but hesitant to commit a full batch to it. Please do let us know how it turns out!
Click to expand...

WIll do! But like I said, I've soured part of a batch before for a stout and it was awesome. I just tapped it a week ago and I'm still drinking it. Really good stuff.

Are you saying cultured folks don't drink beer?!?!?! ;) Nah, i suspect you are right, but I bet the elves had beer too. I mean, what's classier than a trappist ale in the appropriate glass? The biggens need to age as well. I bet the elves knew how to culture yeast strains too, so they probably made all sorts of killer beers.
 
More comments:

What are you going to use as the secret ingrediant in Ent Wash that makes you grow taller? Human Growth Hormone? I'll pass.

Pip's drinking song:

"Oh, you can search far and wide
You can drink the whole town dry
But you'll never find a beer so brown
As the one we drink in our hometown

You can drink your fancy ales
You can drink 'em by the flagon
But the only brew for the brave and true
Comes from The Green Dragon"

So, I'm down for a simple brown ale recipe. Something with pretty dark color for a brown ale.
 
BeerAg said:
More comments:

What are you going to use as the secret ingrediant in Ent Wash that makes you grow taller? Human Growth Hormone? I'll pass.

Pip's drinking song:

"Oh, you can search far and wide
You can drink the whole town dry
But you'll never find a beer so brown
As the one we drink in our hometown

You can drink your fancy ales
You can drink 'em by the flagon
But the only brew for the brave and true
Comes from The Green Dragon"

So, I'm down for a simple brown ale recipe. Something with pretty dark color for a brown ale.
Click to expand...

That's what mines gonna be.
 
Oasts are mentioned in passing in the Rings trilogy. It's not in the movie. I recall that it was where Tolkien was describing the land of Gondor, or some other place. And where there are oasts, there are hops...
 
RadicalEd said:
To the gent who mentioned elves before: weren't the elves more into wine than beer? After all, wine is often perceived as being more "cultured" than beer, and the elves certainly fit that description. Plus with their whole immortality thing they could wait around for a while for the stuff to get really good...
Click to expand...

Or a mead. Meads and honey are reputed as increasing peoples longevity.

I still contend that seeing as how the dwarves are supposedly based on the pictish people of Scotland a dwarf beer should be like a something the picts brewed and drank. Namely a heather beer. Heather and sweet gale for bittering. No Hops.

Consequently I read somewhere that the english government had banned the use of heather and other ingredients long ago as an attempt to "destroy" the culture of Scotland. This went along with banning of kilts, bagpipes, etc. Likewise even earlier the pictish peoples were killed off. I cannot recall but weren't the dwarves in lotr also extinct or nearly so?
 

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