Historical Mead

[loveofrose]

I am in the process of recreating and modernizing ancient mead recipes. I thoroughly enjoy bringing history to the present - and making it delicious.

Here are the current recipes in various stages of completion. I'm wondering if you know of any ancient recipes that aren't on my list!

1. T'ej - 5000 years ago
2. Viking/Gruit - 900 years ago
3. Madhu Madya - 6000 years ago
4. Froach - 4000 years ago
5. Jiahu - China; 9000 years ago
6. Midas - 2700 years ago

I would be especially interested in an ancient middle or South America mead. It's a geographical hole in my brewing list that bothers me!

 

[Maylar]

Dunno if it'd be considered a mead, but the Incas had a cocoa based wine that they often added honey to. About 3200 years ago I believe. Dogfish Head makes a best-guess of it:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/64/41702/

 

[The_Professor]

I once bought some raw honey, added some water and let it spontaneously ferment. It came out kinda sour.

 

[loveofrose]

Dunno if it'd be considered a mead, but the Incas had a cocoa based wine that they often added honey to. About 3200 years ago I believe. Dogfish Head makes a best-guess of it:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/64/41702/

I looked this up. It definitely has potential. Thanks!

 

[AkTom]

Do you have a listing of your recipes? I think I should come over and try them.

 

[loveofrose]

Once the recipes are stamped with my approval (generally multiple batches to get it balanced), I post it on my site:
www.denardbrewing.com

Perfect T'ej and Viking BOMM are already up.

Froach and Madhu Madya will be brewed this week. Probably a few months out.

 

[bernardsmith]

I think the fraoch may be misspelled. (It's fray -och not froa -ch) but I wonder what reliable historical sources provide you with such an old recipe. The authenticity of a 4000 year old recipe aside I think fraoch was originally a beer brewed with heather rather than a mead... and I imagine the heather was added as a psychotropic, not so much because the heather has that effect ( I don't know that it does) but because a moss known as fogg grows on the stems of the heather does... The heather added to beer would help balance the sweetness of the residual sugars but that said, using a tea made from heather tips as the dilutant for the honey makes for a quite delicious drink... authenticity be damned.

 

[honeycon]

I think the fraoch may be misspelled. (It's fray -och not froa -ch) but I wonder what reliable historical sources provide you with such an old recipe. The authenticity of a 4000 year old recipe aside I think fraoch was originally a beer brewed with heather rather than a mead... and I imagine the heather was added as a psychotropic, not so much because the heather has that effect ( I don't know that it does) but because a moss known as fogg grows on the stems of the heather does... The heather added to beer would help balance the sweetness of the residual sugars but that said, using a tea made from heather tips as the dilutant for the honey makes for a quite delicious drink... authenticity be damned.

I have been contemplating brewing a mead or a beer with heather flowers for the past couple years. It does seem likely that both were once brewed in what is now Scotland. As mead is far easier to brew, and I have lots of honey, probably do that.
Bernard, have you made a mead with heather flowers? I have no idea what it would taste like. Doesn't grow here in the desert.

 

[loveofrose]

I think the fraoch may be misspelled. (It's fray -och not froa -ch) but I wonder what reliable historical sources provide you with such an old recipe. The authenticity of a 4000 year old recipe aside I think fraoch was originally a beer brewed with heather rather than a mead... and I imagine the heather was added as a psychotropic, not so much because the heather has that effect ( I don't know that it does) but because a moss known as fogg grows on the stems of the heather does... The heather added to beer would help balance the sweetness of the residual sugars but that said, using a tea made from heather tips as the dilutant for the honey makes for a quite delicious drink... authenticity be damned.

Hi Bernard. I always love seeing you post. A lot of thought go into it and I appreciate that. According to a fellow that brews Heather ale (Fraoch), the spelling is correct (http://www.williamsbrosbrew.com/beer/fraoch). Maybe that he is incorrect. I don't know. I'm running with it.

You are correct that the fungus that grows on Heather flowers is the source on an "increased high". I have no ability or intention to recreate this. I'm not against it. I just can't and professionally won't.

Some sort of grain was likely included. I'm not against this. My research is too early to make that call, but I will make a predominately mead version because someone in history did. There are no new ideas. Only old ones reborn.

Historical recipes always must be taken with a bit of interpretation. My goal is to bring the past to the future in a way modern day people will enjoy. I will take a few liberties in my interpretation. For instance:

Currently:
He: This Dogfish Retro is an accurate historical brew.
She: I never want this in the house again. Foot down.

Compared to:
He: This is based on a historical brew.
She: Where has this been all our life! Never lack stock of this!

*Actual conversation in my home *

 

[bernardsmith]

I guess I am a bit skeptical about the accuracy and the value of trying to "reproduce" historical recipes. Our technology is quite different, the very soil in which we grow crops is different, the environment in which we live is very different, the meanings and understandings of what we ferment is different. Heck! We cultivate a fungus we call yeast and sell and buy this as single strains (compare how we make cheese using either freeze dried cultures grown in labs (an analog of brewing or wine making) vs using the cultures living in the milk itself or in kefir grains - Think the use of wild yeasts and bacteria - an anathema to many/most brewers or wine makers).
Assume that folk were fermenting beers and meads four thousand years ago in Scotland. How did they understand fermentation? Did they add yeast or was the yeast living in the containers and vessels that were dedicated to this mysterious process and passed on within families from generation to generation? How many strains of yeast may have been in those vessels and spoons? How consistent were those magical drinks? How sweet, How sour, how alcoholic? When were they drunk? By whom? Under what circumstances?

 

[thm57]

Well the one thing I do know is that they were important. Archeological digs show that from the beginning of agriculture that brewers were rich, based on the fact that they accumulated stuff the fastest. Then again, they may have just run into our modern problem of not having enough fermenters...

 

[loveofrose]

I guess I am a bit skeptical about the accuracy and the value of trying to "reproduce" historical recipes. Our technology is quite different, the very soil in which we grow crops is different, the environment in which we live is very different, the meanings and understandings of what we ferment is different. Heck! We cultivate a fungus we call yeast and sell and buy this as single strains (compare how we make cheese using either freeze dried cultures grown in labs (an analog of brewing or wine making) vs using the cultures living in the milk itself or in kefir grains - Think the use of wild yeasts and bacteria - an anathema to many/most brewers or wine makers).
Assume that folk were fermenting beers and meads four thousand years ago in Scotland. How did they understand fermentation? Did they add yeast or was the yeast living in the containers and vessels that were dedicated to this mysterious process and passed on within families from generation to generation? How many strains of yeast may have been in those vessels and spoons? How consistent were those magical drinks? How sweet, How sour, how alcoholic? When were they drunk? By whom? Under what circumstances?

Lighten up a little, Bernard!
Brewing is supposed to be fun!

We will never know the answers to those questions because of a lack of written record. We can simply approximate based on what was available and some mass spec data from old pottery. I'm ok with that as I must employ the same type of creative ingenuity that these ancient people did. You use what you have to make the best drink you can. It's fun!

 

[bernardsmith]

No argument from me about making the most enjoyable and pleasurable drink.

 

[growlrr]

My guess is that we are doing the very same thing they did. Working with what was at hand at any given time. I think we tend to think in too much of a linear fashion as opposed to the people hundreds or thousands of years ago. Trying to find the "accurate" recipe is like asking 100 Italian grandmothers what the "correct" recipe is to make tomato sauce. You can count on 100 different recipes, 200 different opinions and maybe a good fist fight or two! Case in point - My recipe for glogg goes back at least five generations from my relatives in Stockholm. I absolutely know that for a fact because I have the hand written original. That being said, there are over a dozen variations I've seen that are all slightly different from what I use and make. Does that make mine any more or less "authentic" than any of the others? I don't know - It came from a Swede who would be over 165 years old by now - Good enough for me!

 

[maxnew40]

Look for the book at project gutenberg called The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16441/16441-h/16441-h.htm

It has some mead recipes from the 1600s and it is fun to see how they used an egg for a hydrometer and how they introduced yeast to the must.