Historical Brewing/Beer References (& recipes)

[Cape Brewing]

I have a close beer nerd friend who's been asked to do a cartography lecture at a fancy schmancy college here in Mass. The lecture is about beer/brewing/breweries' influences on maps throughout history. (I know... kind of obscure but don't look at me, I didnt pick the topic).

I've been asked if I would be interested in brewing a few "historical" beers to go along with the lecture and I would really like to find a few historically accurate recipes to replicate... Ideally, from the eras and regions to be covered.

I've done some light google-fu and haven't come up with much and figured I would toss the topic out there in case anyone had any solid references to any material that would be helpful.

Thanks and cheers.

 

[alexnova]

First thing that comes to mind is the grape-grain line through Europe, which explains why Italian beer is about as good as British wine.

Maybe you could do an older IPA or "export" beer since it had to be strong enough to survive the long trip to the far reaches of the British Empire. Maybe a gruit or kvasr, which were brewed before hops were widely traded.

Two beer historians here in DC have a nice blog called Lost Lagers. Might be able to find some inspiration or recipes there.

 

[lawle102]

Check out this website. I found some really old brewing books on it and it's free.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

 

[Cape Brewing]

Very cool. Thanks to both of you!

 

[deere322]

http://www.unholymess.com/blog/lets-brew

Loads of English historical recipes, if it helps.

 

[dmtaylor]

Shut up about Barclay Perkins (Ron Pattinson) has tons of old recipes:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/beer recipes

 

[catdaddy66]

I know a member on HBT was researching and writing a book or two on historical brewing and had a few threads on the subject (dampfbier was one style). I haven't seen him post in a while, but his handle was 'unionrdr'.