Hobbit Brew?

[lowtones84]

Just brewed a porter and split it into two smaller batches, one using yarrow and sweet gale and one using English hops. If they turn out well I will post the recipes

 

[hawaiianhunter]

Holy Crap! I posted this barely an hour and a half ago, and look at the responses! Thanks everyone, I had no idea this would go over so well. I think the general consensus so far has been a mild brown for the Hobbiton region, I think that opting for herbs rather than hops is a good way to go. Like someone mentioned, given the current shortage in some areas, this might now be a bad time to give this a try. I'm honestly not too up on my indigenous British herbs, but does anyone have any thoughts as to what might be appropriate? Also, I know it's generally not part of the style of a brown mild, but I was thinking about using a small quantity of oak chips in the secondary to simulate the casks they used, since I'm sure they didn't have glass or stainless fermenters Good idea, bad idea?

I did a cursory glance through Fellowship last night and I didn't see anything specifically related to beer, but I'll take a better look when I get home. I'll also consult some of the other materials, as someone suggested. Thanks again everyone, I'm glad this is going over so well!

Fh

J

 

[jimmydump]

Let me Resurrect this Thread like Gandalf did himself from Grey to White!

My research began about a month ago on the cusp of Peter Jacksons the Hobbit premiering December 13th, little over 2 months. My quest: brew a beer that has everything a hobbit would want. My recipe I brewed 2 days ago, containing numberous things I pulled from this very thread.

10# marris otter
5# wheat malt
1# victory malt
.5# 40L crystal
.5# cherry wood smoked malt
.25#flaked oats

1 oz. ekg @60 and @20 mins.
2oz heather tips and 6 oz candied ginger@20mins

I want to oak it as well. and not to mention im open fermenting. OG came out to 1060. Just measured it tonite 2 days after brewing and its at 1030. The malt is bordering to a light to golden brown, i initially wanted a dark brown, but its actually pretty appealing now. I really want this beer to be ready to drink Dec. 13. 6 weeks from brew day. The runnings and all samples ive taken of the wort are very good, but you know its not till you taste the final carbed product do you know. I have a lot of ingredients, almost to many, itll be a miracle if its drinkable in 6 weeks. Im so stoked for this movie and will probably see it many many times over a couple months, so I plan to break out multiple bottles over the next couple months.

-for frodo

 

[badlee]

Good bloody job there,I shall pop by the village green for a tankard in a few weeks

 

[cheezydemon3]

Worry not about the color in bulk.
My blond looks fairly amber in the fermenter. Worry not, for the color is darker, the larger the container.

 

[GabeSyme]

I'm amazed no one has mentioned John Palmer's Hobbit Mild (http://brewingtv.com/recipe/2011/9/23/belladonna-tooks-oaked-mild-john-palmer-recipe-for-btv.html)

I'm planning to make it without oak once I bottle my last batch but I was thinking of a small batch of braggot/metheglin inspired by the Rangers. Something they would make with what was at hand in the wild places esp. considering Aragon's knowledge of plants. Some malt and hops would set up a background for the rest well but some buckwheat honey and wild rosemary seem good to me, maybe some rye malt too. Planning to use English ale yeast. More of a tribute than an actual attempt at copying a specific style.

 

[oddjohnsonftw]

I'm amazed no one has mentioned John Palmer's Hobbit Mild (http://brewingtv.com/recipe/2011/9/23/belladonna-tooks-oaked-mild-john-palmer-recipe-for-btv.html)

I'm planning to make it without oak once I bottle my last batch but I was thinking of a small batch of braggot/metheglin inspired by the Rangers. Something they would make with what was at hand in the wild places esp. considering Aragon's knowledge of plants. Some malt and hops would set up a background for the rest well but some buckwheat honey and wild rosemary seem good to me, maybe some rye malt too. Planning to use English ale yeast. More of a tribute than an actual attempt at copying a specific style.

I did recreate that recipe that John Palmer put out for his Bella Donna Tooks Oaked Mild. I got a little crazy as a new brewer by adding 2# of honey as soon as the second krausen subsided. I tasted the beer prior to adding honey and it was as he described in the video, but after the honey was added, it tasted amazing. I am aware not much of the honey will be in the final product because of all the fermentable sugars, but it seemed right, also the honey addition bumped the gravity up to 1.035, but i did fail to take the grav reading prion to the honey addition. I also noticed the essex ale yeast was wonderful very active. I harvested from two krausen for a high yield of beautiful yeast. I will be using this yeast again, I also will be brewing this with no modifications again because i licked the spoon it tastes wonderful. Just to stay true to the recipe and John Palmer legacy I will keep this one going. Batch after batch will be made for my friends and I. I will post about the honey batch after bottle opening day. Until then i will follow the recipe to the letter while Honey Took is building carbonation in the bottles.

 

[beerbeerbeer123]

Okay, so I'm going to expose my dorkiness to all of you, but I think you might be able to help me. This was partially encouraged by a posting a saw for Butterbeer, from the Harry Potter books. I'm a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan, and when I was recently watching Fellowship two scenes got me thinking. In one, during Bilbo's birthday party, Frodo accuses him of drinking too much of the Gaffer's ale, to which Bilbo admits that he has. Later, at the Prancing Pony, the hobbits are delighted when they find they can get beer in pints.

Now my question is, what type of beer would hobbits drink? Would the beer they brew in Hobbiton be different from the beer brewed in Bree, since they are for different clientele, or would they be similar? I know there's not any sort of indication of what their preference in beer might be, but I thought it might be fun to come up with a recipe for either the Gaffer's ale or Bree ale, or both. I'm thinking something like a mild brown ale or bitter for the Gaffer's, and maybe a hearty brown ale or even a porter for Bree, since there are men there and its a bit rougher of an area. Any thoughts/suggestions would be welcome, but please keep comments about my nerdiness to yourselves

Like palmer said they would drink a oaked brown mild..actually john palmer and northern brewer are coming out with a kit called "belladonna took"..Thats john palmers recipe for what he thought was getting brewed up in the shire..the kit should be available this year at northern brewers

 

[brewbobaggins]

Just brewed a Bag End Bitter (ESB/English Pale Ale). Mainly 2-row w/ a little belgian aromatic and lots of British hops, fermented with Wyeast London ale III. Will post label soon.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Cool ideas!

Too bad the movie was such a disapointing heap.

 

[noblebrew]

I got my NB catalog today and saw this.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/john-palmer-s-oaked-mild-partial-mash-kit.html

I love the idea of lotr beverages.

 

[Hop_Hero]

I like palmer's recipe but I think Shire folk would use a good amount of adjuncts in their brews. They were farmers and had a lot of stuff to throw in. A pumpkin porter seems like something those trixy hobbits would brew.

 

[noblebrew]

I see Hobbits as always tinkering with their food and drink. Trying to out do each other in the quality and taste of their food. I can see them throwing the whole garden in the brew pot. As well as having jealously guarded family recipes and process.

 

[brewbobaggins]

Here's the latest version of the label for my Hobbit Brew...

 

[Dynachrome]

The Drizzle There has to be a morbidly obese mid-30's guy somewhere who will pry himself away from WoW and be able to answer your question.

Subscribe

Almost six months a thread at rest in the depths of Mordor and some 52 y.o. morbidly obese dude drags himself to this website and resurrects it.

"Me Precious Ale"?

 

[ealu-scop]

What a fantastic thread. I spent the morning reading it all.

Thought some folks would be interested in a couple of these tidbits:

This letter Tolkien wrote to his son regarding C.S. Lewis. (I have a feeling hobbit consumption might have had a tad bit of influence from Lewis and Tolkien's sessions together)

“Lewis is as energetic and jolly as ever, but getting too much publicity for his or any of our tastes. ‘Peterborough’, usually fairly reasonable, did him the doubtful honour of a peculiarly misrepresentative and asinine paragraph in the Daily Telegraph of Tuesday last. It began ‘Ascetic Lewis’–––!!! I ask you! He put away three pints in a very short session we had this morning, and said he was ‘going short for Lent’.”


Also, Tolkien created a club (pre-Inklings) called the "Koalbitars", a group that gathered to read the old Norse sagas. These sessions were popularly dubbed "Beowulf and Beer", so I think it's safe to assume more was going on than merely reading ancient Icelandic.


One of C.S. Lewis' favorite pubs was the Trout Inn (The Trout) when he and the Inklings would take walking tours. Purely conjecture, but one wonders if this wasn't on Tolkien's mind when he had Pippin claim that The Golden Perch had the best beer in the Eastfarthing.


The Inklings did meet at the Eagle and Child often, but enjoyed other pubs; The Kings Arms, The Mitre, The Eastgate Hotel. They'd meet at these places if there were beer shortages or merely for ease of location. But the Eagle and Child stopped being the pub of choice for the Inklings in 1960. Because they valued their privacy as much as their beer, the Eagle and Child had been a favorite because they were afforded a private room (The Rabbit Room), and in 1960 the Eagle and Child remodeled and incorporated their private room into a larger dining area. Because of this, they moved across the street to The Lamb and Flag, which became their main meeting place until Lewis' death in 1963.


And here are a couple of pictures of Tolkien with beer.

 

[Jako]

Hey guys... i married a hottie just want to talk about some hobbits and beer but don't get carried away i went to collage and never played wow.

just wanted to know if we figured this out. (sarcasm directed at the rage post in the first page)

very cool information happy that dudes rage hooked me into the thread.

 

[max384]

As a Tolkien nerd (and nerd in general, my wife likes to remind me), this may be my favorite thread ever on this forum.

Thanks to this thread, I just downloaded the Hobbit on the Kindle app to reread yet again, with plans to then reread the LOTR trilogy next, probably followed by binge-watching all of Jackson's six movies - which I actually very much enjoyed, contrary to most fans of Tolkien.

Anyhow, after reading through this whole thread, let me make a few observations:

1. I think whatever styles of beer Tolkien had imagined when writing the books would be the styles that would be commonplace in the pubs he frequented. Those would be milds, pale ales, and bitters. We also know that he specifically mentioned porters in the Hobbit (maybe in the LOTR books as well, I can't recall).

2. The beers served in England post-WWII until I think the fifties, maybe sixties, were much weaker than what is commonly drunk today due to government restrictions on average O.G. following the war. Plus, the hobbits are small creatures that Tolkien specifically mentions drinking "pints" in his books. I don't believe these hobbits could down pints of strong brew being as small as they were (though it's entirely plausible they had a natural tolerance to alcohol), which makes me further think beers in the shire would be quite mild in ABV.

3. I am going to say that there are definitely hops in middle earth. I'm sure gruit may have existed as well (I would imagine the ents' brew would be most likely to be a gruit), but I think the beer that Tollkien wrote about was most certainly of the hopped variety that he was used to drinking in the pubs. If he were imagining a different type of unhopped alcoholic drink, I'm almost certain Tolkien would have invented a name for the drink, and describe it in detail, rather than just calling it beer. He's much too inventive for that. And I'm not convinced he knew what a gruit even was. Furthermore, he specifically mentions oasts and garners in the farmlands in one of the LOTR books. Take this all together, and I think we have to assume the beer mentioned in the books are hopped.

4. I think porter is the dwarves' drink of choice. They mention it by name several times. Plus, can't you all just imagine a group of dwarves around a roaring fire in a cold cave/mine merrily drinking from a barrel of porter and dabbing off their lips with their beards (and yes, I know this is probably influenced by Peter Jackson in the films)?

5. I find it unlikely that the elves drink any type of beer at all. I imagine they strictly drink wine or mead.

6. I am nearly certain that any beer produced/consumed in middle earth would be a cask ale. I personally don't like cask ales, so although I concede that this would be most "realistic" to a middle earth beer, I'm not going to doing any cask ales.



So, I'd like to brew a couple of middle earth beers.

I'll eventually brew a "Gaffer's ale," which would be a mild around 3-3.5% ABV. It will be a simple grain bill of Maris Otter and a small amount of some crystal malt to get within the lower end of the style guidelines for SRM and I'll lightly hop with a single English hop. IOW, it'll be a low ABV, light, easy-drinking mild.

I'll also brew a porter. I'll honestly probably use an existing recipe I make that doesn't have a name and try to find something clever to call it such as "Gimli's Grist," "Iron Hills Mine Runoff," "Balrog's awakening," or something else.

 

[lowtones84]

Definitely brewed two versions of a Hobbit Porter when this thread wasn't being raised from the dead One was a fairly standard 5%ish porter lightly hopped but also with some ginger. The other was the same grist, but no hops, all gruit herbs. Of course I "dry herbed" with yarrow from a field and got a sour gruit porter on that one, but it was quite interesting nonetheless

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I started quite a long reply to this thread ages ago and lost it, but here's a shorter version :

I think whatever styles of beer Tolkien had imagined when writing the books would be the styles that would be commonplace in the pubs he frequented. Those would be milds, pale ales, and bitter

This needs saying over and over. As an Oxford academic, Tolkien would likely have spent a lot of time drinking in pubs, but wouldn't have known as much about beer history as we do now. He would have assumed that they would have been drinking the kind of beer he was drinking in the 1930s and 1940s when writing the Hobbit and LOTR respectively. The Oxford scene would have been dominated by Morrells and Morland, although the Eagle & Child seems to have been run by Halls (taken over by Allsopps in 1928 who then merged with Ind Coope in 1934) and Lamb and Flag seems to have been controlled by Ushers of Trowbridge.

As it happens, Ron Pattinson has found a price list for Flower's pubs in 1948, and matched it up with a brewing record from 1955 ( LOTR was published 1954-55). Flowers were only 35 miles away in Stratford and I think you can assume that their range was typical of what you would have found in pubs in Oxford at the time. There were two cask beers - a bitter and a mild, and the same in bottles plus a stout and an "Gold Top" IPA at more than double the price of bottles of the bitter.

Reading across to the brewing record, by 1955 the bitter (labelled as an IPA but only in the same sense as Greene King's IPA) was 1.034 OG and 3.3%, the mild was 1.032 and 2.96% - and they may well have been a bit stronger in 1955 than they were in 1948. Ron reckons the 1948 stout was weaker than the 1.040 3.35% stout of 1955, he thinks the Gold Top may have been the OB or Green Label which were both under 4.3% - so modern best bitter strength. If you want a recipe, take this modern clone of Morrell's Varsity Bitter and dilute it a bit, maybe replace some of the malt with adjuncts. Or Ron has a 1959 recipe for an Usher's IPA (effectively a 4.1% best bitter) which Tolkien might have had on special occasions at the Lamb & Flag.

Note the absence of barleywines and ESBs - we don't really drink strong bitter in Britain, ESB is just not a thing. Yes you get actual Fuller's ESB and Young's Special in their tied pubs in London, but in general you don't see much cask beer over 4.5%, certainly not outside city centres.

The Hobbit is about a romanticised version of the bourgeosie of rural England before World War I, it's essentially Jane Austen for boys. So if Tolkien had been a beer historian the Hobbits would actually have been drinking what English gentry of the late 19th century would have been drinking - small casks of AK as the house beer, and bottles of IPA for special occasions. See this thread for AK recipes - essentially Chevallier or Plumage Archer with 10-15% of invert and optionally 5% flaked maize, to 1.045-1.050 with 40-45 IBU of English hops (or Styrians, Willamette etc) across 60 min, 20 min and dry hop. At least it would have been that kind of strength pre-WWI, it dropped to 1.030-1.035 afterwards.

Porter had pretty much died out by Tokien's time, certainly in the provinces, but would have been half-remembered as an old-fashioned beer that one's grandfather drank in the same way as mild is now. Frankly the current Fuller's recipe is hard to beat but Ron has plenty of historical recipes to play with - you can mess about with aging some with Brett-C and then blending it with freshly-brewed beer if you want.

Personally I wouldn't take the reference to "the beer of 1420 malt" too literally, I'd read 1420 as 1920, representing the relative calm that came after all the traumas of WWI and the flu pandemic.