Prohibition homebrewing notebook.

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JBOGAN

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The SWMBO mother brought this over to our house in hopes that I could maybe re create one of these recipes. It was her grandfathers notebook dating before prohibition and after which makes it all the more interesting. Looks like he was somewhat serious about it looking through all these test batches.

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Have you tried any of the recipes yet? If so, please advise what they are like. :) Might be interesting to make an "Old School" beer. :)
 
That's awesome...maybe post some of the more interesting sounding recipes? I'd be in for a Prohibition brew
 
Not yet. There are only two beer recipes in here, the rest are wine and brandy wine. Passed a few of the recipes over to my wine making buddy so we shall see.
 
Pretty cool piece of history, but I'll defer on replicating any recipes. Given the period of time (prohibition), quality ingredients were probably impossible to find and technique was probably improvisational at best, so I doubt there is a "hidden jewels" in there.

Would be cool to see what they were working with though...I won't be punching them into my brewing software just yet. :)
 
Given the period of time (prohibition), quality ingredients were probably impossible to find and technique was probably improvisational at best, so I doubt there is a "hidden jewels" in there.

I believe some of the breweries began producing and marketing malt extract during prohibition. Pabst sold Blue Ribbon hopped malt extract and as I understand it was easily available at most markets.

No longer available as of 2 years ago...
http://blog.eckraus.com/blog/wine-making-tricks-and-tips/find-blue-ribbon-malt

Looking at the first recipe posted, it reads something like....

8 1/2 gallons total
2 qts malt
4 lbs cane sugar
6 hops
3 cakes yeast

Boil water and hops for an hour, boil malt and water and combine, boil another 20 minutes and pitch yeast when warm....

I doubt you will win any medals, but still might be a fun project...
with enough aging, beers like this are pretty crisp, young they can be rather cidery w/ all the cane sugar IME.
 
Oooooohhhhhhhh...

So THIS is where Batch 19 found it's recipe...

All joking aside: I think this is awesome. During the prohibition breweries held on by producing and selling malt extracts. It was completely legal to buy all the parts to make beer, but not legal to make it. Fiorello H. La Guardia, 3 time mayor of New York City, was known for television ads in which he noted how combining water and malt extract was legal, but letting it sit a few weeks in your pantry made it illegal. He then sipped an extract-water mixture and commented how delicious it was.

I'd bet that the beer was pretty simple stuff and nothing mind blowing, but totally worth the effort. Recreate a part of history! This will give us all a better appreciation for what it means to be an American homebrewer.
 
The Ken Burns Prohibition documentary mentioned that the cans of malt extract or grape juice concentrate would have "warnings" that said something like "Whatever you do, don't add 4 gallons of water to this, don't put the mixture in a cool, dark place, and definitely don't add 5 grams of yeast to the mixture because that will cause it to ferment."
 
Pretty cool piece of history, but I'll defer on replicating any recipes. Given the period of time (prohibition), quality ingredients were probably impossible to find and technique was probably improvisational at best, so I doubt there is a "hidden jewels" in there.

Would be cool to see what they were working with though...I won't be punching them into my brewing software just yet. :)

:rolleyes:

In 30 years, some one just like you will be saying the same thing about us.
 
Pretty cool piece of history, but I'll defer on replicating any recipes. Given the period of time (prohibition), quality ingredients were probably impossible to find and technique was probably improvisational at best, so I doubt there is a "hidden jewels" in there.

Except he wouldn't be working with pre-Prohibition era ingredients. Updating these recipes with the higher-quality materials we have now (and maybe specializing beyond "6 hops" ;)) could yield something far superior to what the great-grandfather was brewing at the time.
 
It would be cool to have a go at the recipe with modern ingredients and then with lesser ingredients.

For the older ingredients, maybe malt your own 2-row or use extract from some of the cheaper kits out there. Hop lineages and the times they were available seem pretty well documented, you won't be able to use Citra but noble hops might be appropriate. Prohibition era yeast might come down to baker's yeast?
 
I think it is awesome. I would have loved to have a piece of my grandfather's history that was also a hobby of mine today. I like the idea of framing a scan of the recipe in a bar and such.

I'd brew the recipe as well. Looks like a light ale, nothing spectacular but worth scaling to a gallon and brewing.
 
I think it is awesome. I would have loved to have a piece of my grandfather's history that was also a hobby of mine today. I like the idea of framing a scan of the recipe in a bar and such.

I'd brew the recipe as well. Looks like a light ale, nothing spectacular but worth scaling to a gallon and brewing.
 
Except he wouldn't be working with pre-Prohibition era ingredients. Updating these recipes with the higher-quality materials we have now (and maybe specializing beyond "6 hops" ;)) could yield something far superior to what the great-grandfather was brewing at the time.

This is my point. Take an old recipe, make it with the high-quality ingredients and what do you get? The same thing we are making today. Depending on the ingredients you can predict the beer style.

As I said, its a cool bit of nostalgia, but I don't think there are lost beer secrets or forgotten styles in there. After all, looks like they were doing alot of extract batch...kinda hard to reinvent the wheel starting with a can of extract.
 
This is my point. Take an old recipe, make it with the high-quality ingredients and what do you get? The same thing we are making today. Depending on the ingredients you can predict the beer style.

As I said, its a cool bit of nostalgia, but I don't think there are lost beer secrets or forgotten styles in there. After all, looks like they were doing alot of extract batch...kinda hard to reinvent the wheel starting with a can of extract.

Of course not. I don't think anyone is expecting this notebook to contain the long-lost recipe for The Greatest Beer in the World. But like I said, brewing it again with newer, higher-quality ingredients will most likely produce a better, fresher-tasting version of the original. Even if it just tastes like a generic light lager, it might serve as a decent "house beer".

Plus, it strikes me as completely awesome to pour a beer for a friend and be able to say, "yeah, this recipe has been in the family for X years."



Or...it might be crap and he'd still be left with a cool memento and a good story.
 
Subscribing. This is very neat. A part of history around the prohibition era!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Looking at the first recipe posted, it reads something like....

8 1/2 gallons total
2 qts malt
4 lbs cane sugar
6 hops
3 cakes yeast

Boil water and hops for an hour, boil malt and water and combine, boil another 20 minutes and pitch yeast when warm....

I doubt you will win any medals, but still might be a fun project...
with enough aging, beers like this are pretty crisp, young they can be rather cidery w/ all the cane sugar IME.

I think I see an oz behind the 6 in the picture.
 
This has got to be one of the coolest finds I've seen here on HBT, if for nothing other than the historical aspect. Very nice!
 
I think it's amazing. I wish I had something like it from my own family. One of my great uncles made wine, but by all accounts it was bad.
I think if it were my book I might try to brew it straight, even if it were a small batch.
 
that is awesome. I'd brew it as close as possible to how the book calls for. good or not, you'd get a good sense of what he drank back in the day.
 
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