How did the old timers do it?

[Ineedaride2]

I mean the REAL old timers. Anywhere from 200 to 5,000 years ago.

Specifically, how did the brew process go with no sanitation, when the cardinal rule these days is sanitation, sanitation, sanitation?

Was every beer they made infected, and they made do? Was some good and some bad? How repeatable and consistent were the fruits of their labor?

I haven't bought a "history of beer" type book yet, but I have read some on the web (wikipedia and other places). I haven't really seen this topic covered well.

Anybody know much about this?

 

[doctorRobert]

5,000 years ago they didnt know what yeast was, they didnt santize and probably drank soury skunky beer and might not even have used hops at all.

200 years ago I think they probably on to sanitation and yeast.

 

[JetSmooth]

They all went blind and blew up their houses.

 

[Reelale]

It couldn't have been very good. 5.2 hadn't yet been invented.

 

[Fritztheelephant]

I read somewhere that each tribe would have a special "mash paddle" that unknowingly to them would contain the yeast to ferment the beer. I'm sure it also contained many other things as well. I doubt the beer would be very palatable by our standards.

 

[BigEd]

Was every beer they made infected,

By modern standards, yeah they probably were. Contemporary sanitation techniques are fairly recent, an outgrowth of the beginning of microbiology in the 19TH Century with people like Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister. You've heard of them? Like was posted earlier, prior to the late 1800s when modern techniques and pure yeast cultures began to be common most beers were probably at least a little sour, cloudy and funky from bacteria and wild yeast.

 

[carnevoodoo]

5,000 years ago they didnt know what yeast was, they didnt santize and probably drank soury skunky beer and might not even have used hops at all.

200 years ago I think they probably on to sanitation and yeast.

No hops 5,000 years ago. They are really a more modern addition to beer. Something like 1200 years ago.

 

[Edcculus]

Most beers probably had some sour edge to them. They probably unknowingly did a lot of things, like boiling and possibly transferring the hot wort to barrels that helped sanitize. I know I've read specifically that all Porters at one time were somewhat sour. If you read anything about old English brewing and beer drinking, it was popular to mix different beers in the pub. Pubs would sometimes cut older (and thus more sour) beer with fresh beer.

5000 years ago, you probably wouldn't recognize what they drank as beer. The Egyptians drank what I've only heard described as some sort of grain/bread mush, which was innocculated with a wild yeast and fermented. Once fermented, they drank it with large straws that had a sort of filter on the end to keep from sucking up the gunk floating around.

Another way they skirted the problem was to brew in the cooler months. Some literature describes the beer being "sick" or "ropy" when the temperatures got too warm. They really had the idea in Germany where they found cold caves to store beer, and accidentally discovered lagering!

 

[Mermaid]

I would guess some cultures brewed a variation of tej or mead, there was the cider that was made from apples via the wild yeast /bacteria that grows on the apple skins, and probably some fermented drink made from grains that were native to the area.

Yeah, some sour, cloudy, funky stuff. I'll have to ask my archeologist pal about this.

 

[Revvy]

Here's a discussion/argument from several years ago. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/sanitation-old-days-73146/?highlight=sanitization It has a lot of source material in there.

 

[Airborneguy]

They really had the idea in Germany where they found cold caves to store beer, and accidentally discovered lagering!

Actually, they accidentally created lagering.

There's tons of great beer history books out there. I've actually be going through them lately. If you are into history, beer is a great topic to research.

 

[Ineedaride2]

Here's a discussion/argument from several years ago. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/sanitation-old-days-73146/?highlight=sanitization It has a lot of source material in there.

Ha! He almost used my exact title, and yet I didn't find it in the first few pages of search.

 

[Ineedaride2]

Actually, they accidentally created lagering.

There's tons of great beer history books out there. I've actually be going through them lately. If you are into history, beer is a great topic to research.

Do you have a favorite? I've got a kindle that has tons of space I've yet to fill....

 

[bob1852]

It couldn't have been very good. 5.2 hadn't yet been invented.

I lolz

 

[johnnyspade]

I do know that ale was a staple of the table in early Britain because the water was too polluted to drink on its own.