I'm looking to brew a very early English ale.
Specifically, I'm looking at one documented in the Domesday book, brewed by the monks of St. Paul's Cathedral in London in the late eleventh century. The beer is strong - OG has been estimated at 1.113 - and the grist is mostly oats, with some wheat and barley as well.
The documentation is silent on the rest. It's a tax ledger, so all it documents is how much of the grains the monks used and how much ale they produced.
I've never brewed an un-hopped beer before. This would have been. I have seen it asserted, without documentation, that un-hopped beers of the middle ages were literally just malt, water, and (usually wild) yeast. I've also seen it asserted that they were all gruit ales with gruits we would recognize as such today - again, with no documentation. Anybody have any primary sources (or respectable secondary ones) that even come close to hinting at what if any herbs would have gone into an English brew in the 1080s?
For yeast, I'm assuming this was wild fermentation and was planning to go with Wyeast's Roselare Ale Blend, but I'm quite willing to be talked out of this assumption.
Specifically, I'm looking at one documented in the Domesday book, brewed by the monks of St. Paul's Cathedral in London in the late eleventh century. The beer is strong - OG has been estimated at 1.113 - and the grist is mostly oats, with some wheat and barley as well.
The documentation is silent on the rest. It's a tax ledger, so all it documents is how much of the grains the monks used and how much ale they produced.
I've never brewed an un-hopped beer before. This would have been. I have seen it asserted, without documentation, that un-hopped beers of the middle ages were literally just malt, water, and (usually wild) yeast. I've also seen it asserted that they were all gruit ales with gruits we would recognize as such today - again, with no documentation. Anybody have any primary sources (or respectable secondary ones) that even come close to hinting at what if any herbs would have gone into an English brew in the 1080s?
For yeast, I'm assuming this was wild fermentation and was planning to go with Wyeast's Roselare Ale Blend, but I'm quite willing to be talked out of this assumption.