Asking for speculations

[Muddbug]

My grandfather passed in 1963 when I was five years old.

He lived in Opelousas Louisiana, which is in south Louisiana, Cajun country.

He was a long time home brew guy going back to prohibition time and maybe before, he was a WWI vet and was deployed to the battle fields of France.

So anyway my older sister told me that a few weeks after his death some beer bottles stored in the detached garage expolded due to the hot Louisiana weather.

I'm a recent HB guy, for a couple of years now, and was wondering what home brew people did back then for ingredients and recipes. I'm sure there wasn't a home brew store and no Amazon or other resource available.

Anyone who would have knowledge of how he brewed are gone and my knowledge is limited on brewing in general.

Does anyone have any speculations or knowledge of what recipes and igredients would be available to a home brew guy in the early 60's in that area of the country?

Thanks

 

[Wrendelar]

May guess and a quick google search for that period. The most popular crops were sugar cane and corn as well as cotton. Since cotton is out I would say it was a high sugar brew made with primarily corn and sugarcane. He probably had access to 2 row and maybe 6 row.

My guess is he made American style cream ales with the temperatures that are consistent with that region of the country.

This is entirely speculation though.

 

[ba-brewer]

This was made for a long time, I think I seen a can at a grocery store in the 80s or 90s.

There were also hopped version. A can of that and a bunch of sugar and you got beer.

 

[MaxStout]

Not sure if it was prevalent in Louisiana, but my dad used to talk about eating sorghum syrup as a kid growing up in Memphis in the '20s and '30s. It was sold in stores and cheaper than maple syrup. Maybe that was a fermentable used in homebrew in those days. During prohibition, people got creative.

 

[MicroMickey]

Steen's Cane Syrup has been around since 1910. It's in Abbeville which isn't very far from Opelousas. However, just about every community back then had someone with a cane mill powered by a mule. There are still thousands of old cast iron pots that were used for cooking the cane juice into syrup.

On the other hand, maybe he used malt syrup which was certainly available in your grandfather's time. Perhaps you could secure one or two of the remaining bottles and give them a taste-test. You don't need to be a Ciscerone to make a few rough guesses to the ingredients.

 

[rallenhall]

View attachment 824833
This was made for a long time, I think I seen a can at a grocery store in the 80s or 90s.

There were also hopped version. A can of that and a bunch of sugar and you got beer.

That is the way I started back in 1971. The baking aisle of a local grocery provided 3.3 lb. cans of malt (hopped or plain), bags of sugar and packets of bread yeast. Always got a wink from the check-out lady and a comment about my cookies. Fermented in an old pickle crock covered with a towel ... it made something like beer.

A local farmer was tearing down a shed and found this catalog in the wall. It's from the Purity Extract Co. in Chicago from sometime in the 1920's. Has malt syrups, hops and all sorts of equipment listed (including lead shot for shaking in an empty bottle to remove sediment). I guess the laws then could have been a bit like the former Ohio fireworks regulations .... legal to sell fireworks, legal to buy fireworks, but illegal to light fireworks.

 

[hotbeer]

Do you know any old people down there that brew? Ask them what they were using then. If you don't you might can find some if you look for them and ask around.

However much of the stuff we use now is basically the same stuff used for beer back then. Just the techniques and other things determine the taste and aromas.

And by purists standards beer is only malted barley, water, yeast and hops. Nothing else.

 

[camonick]

.

 

[camonick]

Fermented in an old pickle crock covered with a towel ... it made something like beer.

 

[huckdavidson]

Most likely they would've used the Blue Ribbon Extract recipe with sugar being a commodity readily available in most areas:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/premier-malt-extract.69019/#post-714868
Blue Ribbon malt extract became Premier malt extract which is now MaltRite extracts

https://maltproducts.com/maltproducts/
The book is still available - used:

https://www.amazon.com/Tested-Recipes-Blue-Ribbon-Extract/dp/B000LF2GH4
If you're interested in making similar pre-hopped beer kits you might try Coopers or Muntons

 

[MrClint]

Sounds like a fool's errand. No way to know exactly what Pappy was brewin'. I recommend perfecting a really good American Pale Ale recipe, using as many local ingredients as possible, and then dedicating the brew to him. Pappy's Pale Ale, has a nice ring to it. Has a good backstory too.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Don't underestimate the sophistication of what happened in the past. Even (especially!) during Prohibition you could buy cans of LME, often hopped, with instructions emphasising how it was a food product, with instructions for making cookies etc with it. Sometimes you would even get instructions on what *not* to do, in case you accidentally made illegal beer!

So if he learnt to homebrew during Prohibition, he would probably have been using that - a 3lb can of malt extract, the same again of sugar, lightly hopped with either Cluster (the only hope that was really grown commercially in the US at that time), or maybe imported European hops, or possibly (on the East Coast) feral European landrace hops - Goldings, Saaz etc. But start with Cluster. And bread yeast. See this thread for an idea of how he started :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/prohibition-ingredients.638355/

 

[MrClint]

See this thread for an idea of how he started :

Best takeaway from that link: Give it a try, but it will probably taste like poverty.

Pappy was a homebrewer, pay homage by being a good homebrewer and brew some beer that would truly make him smile.

 

[Muddbug]

Thanks for all the replies, it gives me some insite.

I don't think I will try to recreate his brew.