Historic Brewing / Tudor Ale

[WGT_59]

Ok, I love beer and I love history so in honor of Shakespeare's birthday coming next month along with a couple gallons of Mead, I wanted to do an Ale that would recreate the flavor and character that would have been traditional at that time while utilizing modern ingredients and methods.

In the time of the Tudor Dynasty, which ruled England from 1485 to 1603, there was a very great difference between Ale and Beer. Ale was a sweeter drink and didn't use hops in the making while Beer was in the beginnings of what we know today. Just take a look through "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers" by Stephen H. Buhner and you'll get an idea of what all has been used throughout history in the making of beers before hops came along. One of the things I found particularly interesting while I was figuring out how to make a Tudor Ale is that the people in Tudor times were either Ale People or Beer People; they loved one and hated the other.
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So, I found a recipe that was used by Summit Brewing in a collaboration project they did with Minneapolis Institute of Arts for a Supper with Shakespeare. They allowed Northern Brewer to post a 5 gallon home brew version:
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5 Gallon Batch Size (scaled for 70% efficiency)
O.G: 1.046
F.G: 1.012
BUs: 15
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MASH INGREDIENTS
7.25 lbs. Crisp Maltings Floor Malted Organic Pale Malt
1.2 lbs Simpson’s Crystal Medium
0.5 oz Simpson’s Black
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MASH SCHEDULE: SINGLE INFUSION
Sacch’ Rest: 154° F for 45 minutes
Mashout: 172° F for 5 minutes
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BOIL ADDITIONS & TIMES
60-minute boil
0.5 oz East Kent Goldings (55 min)
2.5 oz Honey (50 min)
0.1 oz Fresh Sage, chopped (5 min)
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YEAST
Wyeast 1028 London Ale
Fermentation Temp: 68° F
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FERMENTATION SCHEDULE:
One week primary fermentation
“Dry-hop” with 0.5 oz dried sage for one week.
Two weeks bottle conditioning
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I showed this to a buddy of mine who is a professional brew master and asked a couple questions about changes I was thinking of making and came up with this modified version:
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[m5 Gallon Batch Size (scaled for 70% efficiency)
Estimates by Beersmith
O.G: 1.039
F.G: 1.010
BUs: 6.4 (This is so low because Beersmith has no numbers to go on for estimating Sage. I would think it'll be the same as the original at 15.)
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MASH INGREDIENTS
8.0 lbs. Maris Otter
12 oz. Crystal Malt - 60L
0.5 oz Black Patent
2.0 oz. Peat Smoked Malt
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MASH SCHEDULE: SINGLE INFUSION
Mash In: 154° F for 1 hour 15 minutes
Mashout: 172° F for 5 minutes
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BOIL ADDITIONS & TIMES
60-minute boil
0.5 oz East Kent Goldings (55 min)
2.5 oz Honey (50 min)
0.1 oz Fresh Sage, chopped (5 min)
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YEAST
Wyeast 1028 London Ale
Fermentation Temp: 68° F
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FERMENTATION SCHEDULE:
One week primary fermentation
“Dry-hop” with 0.5 oz dried sage for one week.
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I tend to be a very out of the box kind of thinker. So I’m really excited to be using Sage in this brew. Sage actually has a very grand history in brewing. It has tremendous antibacterial, antimicrobial, and antiseptic properties and has been used medicinally since ancient times. In fact there was a saying of the ancients: Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? – “Why should a man die whilst sage grows in his garden?” It is a relative of Wormwood and as such contains thujone but on a lower level but it still had the reputation for increasing the inebriating effects of ales.
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Cheers

 

[madscientist451]

Ok, I love beer and I love history so in honor of Shakespeare's birthday coming next month along with a couple gallons of Mead, I wanted to do an Ale that would have been traditional at that time.

In the time of the Tudor Dynasty, which ruled England from 1485 to 1603, there was a very great difference between Ale and Beer.

That's an interesting project, but can you really call your ingredients and process "traditional"?
Did they have crystal malt back then? The first thermometers were just being developed in what today is Italy, the literature suggests thermometers weren't used in beer until the mid 1700's. So your mash procedure isn't "traditional".
Google books has "A history of beer and brewing" available. Lots of information about how to brew a traditional beer. It wouldn't let me copy and paste, but page 425 has the method for determining mash temp without a thermometer.
The book has a chapter about brewing in Tudor times, the whole book isn't in the Google preview, but page 358 does have a description about the process they used.
They probably used an open fermentation, so that would be interesting, WLP 022 and 023 are supposed to be good for open fermentation, there are several others available, but we have no way of knowing if they saved their yeast. Its more likely that wild yeast did the job.
Lastly, the beer should not be carbonated in a bottle or a keg, but could be cask (barrel) conditioned and served from the cask.
Ok, so maybe you want to use modern ingredients, methods and equipment to make your "Tudor" beer, that's great, all we want is a good brew after all; but I think it would be interesting to make a beer using the most traditional methods and ingredients we can and see how it comes out.

There was a discussion on Brew talk about this back in 2012, and a recipe from BYO magazine (may 2012) was included. This recipe may be closer to "traditional".



Link to the BYO article on Tudor Brewing:
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2476-tudor-beer
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Posted by mgortel 11/25/12
Wondering if anyone has tried this recipe that was in BYO Magazine May-June 2012 Issue. Supposedly based on "First known English Beer recipe from 1503".

5 gallon batch
7.8 lb Briess 2-row pale malt
1.6 lb Fawcett Oat Malt
1.6 lb Wyermann pale wheat malt
0.25 Weyermann smoked malt (rauchmalz)
4.5 AAU Golding hops (70 mins, 1oz @ 4.5% alpha)
WLP002 or Wyeasy 1968 (w/1 litre starter)

Mash 152-154, 60 mins

Ferment 65-70 F

 

[WGT_59]

Awesome, thanks for the link.

Perhaps the use of the word traditional from the aspect that I didn't use the methods that were used in those time like boiling my wort over an open fire, nor is the recipe I used from Summit really a traditional one, they used hops in it and as stated above in Tudor times hops would not have been in an Ale.

The word traditional as I intended it was more as trying to recreate the flavor of a traditional ale from that time would have while using modern ingredients and methods. I've modified the first paragraph to better indicate that and apologize if I've offended you with the original post, it wasn't intentional.

 

[WGT_59]

Brew Day was actually 2 weeks ago and it's currently sitting in the secondary, this is how I got here though.
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This was my first go at AG Brewing and it was a lot simpler than I had expected it to be. Brought my strike water up to 165 dF expecting to get a mash temp of 154 but it only got me to 150. Added a little heat to warm it up and then wrapped the pot in Beach towels to keep it toasty.
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Mash in
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All warm and toasty
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Since all my grains were in a bag it was simple to transfer them to the Lauder/Tun. Placed a salad plate on top of the grain to pour onto so it would bother the grain bed very much and ran the wort through the grain bed 3 times, lost a gallon of water to the grain. Sparge water was at 172 dF and 1.25 gallons. Rinsed it through 2 times.
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Adjusting for temperature my OG out of the mash was 1.081
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Ready to boil
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At Hot Break I started my 60 time and added the Hops. 10 minutes later the Honey and 5 minutes from flame out the Sage. Once the boil was done it was into a big sink of water and 5 frozen 2 liter bottles of water. Whirlpooled for 5 minutes and when it was down to about 100 dF into the 3 gallons of Cold water. I'd had an air stone going in the cold water all morning. The OG after mixing it the 3 gallons of cold water was 1.046
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Pitched yeast
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Into the fermentation chamber for a week at 68 dF (20 dC and shown in the picture)
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Then I cleaned up, had a cold one and made the house smell even better by making homemade Red Sauce and Alfredo for the crew, Game Club coming over tonight.*