New Beer TV show on Discovery! "How Beer saved the world"

[tjpfeister]

They also neglected to mention what exactly the pilgrims bittered their acorn beer with when they specified that they had neither hops nor barley, but I'm not worked up about this nor their lack of product diversity as the show was intended to give an overview of beer's effect on history. And I think it was pretty good. Obviously some liberties were taken, but hell, who doesn't like being entertained?

 

[McKBrew]

The ancients didn't invent beer, Momma invented Beer!

 

[davesrose]

I have a thing for wanting to try brewing ancient beers. If they were good enough for ancient gods, well, heck, I wanna get me some o that

After reading George Washington's porter recipe, I'm not so enamoured with trying out "ancient" brews: since getting somewhat clean water was a rarity, making really good drinks was even less likely. I've tried some commercial breweries interpretations of ancient brews: I've noticed they didn't strive for total authenticity, but try to interpret it for modern ingredients and palates. Beverages are like anything else in that they change with the times.

As for the show...darn, I didn't hear about it until now. Looks like I didn't miss anything though! It's kind of like Brewmasters....if you're already a beer nerd, there's nothing new to learn about the beer specials on Discovery.

 

[Revvy]

After reading George Washington's porter recipe, I'm not so enamoured with trying out "ancient" brews: since getting somewhat clean water was a rarity, making really good drinks was even less likely. .

I know, Washington's mollases beer does sound a bit bland. I'm sorry it turned you off on ancient brews, but I can gaurentee that this recipe has much more "flavor." Though just what kinda flavor is debatable.

COCK ALE (circa the 1500's) A real recipe from some obscure text found in the Scottish Highlands... Enjoy....

Procedure:
"Take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken (you must gut him when you flaw him). Then, put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it five pounds of raisins of the sun - stoned; some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has been working, put the bag and ale together in vessel.
In a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottle just above the neck and give it the same time to ripen as other ale."

Alternate recipe:
Brutal, eh? I was also given a modern recipe written by some guy named C.J.J. Berry.... Here goes this one...
"Take a few pieces of _cooked_ chicken and a few chicken bones (approx one tenth of the edible portion of the bird) well crushed or minced.

Also take half of pound of raisins, a very little mace, and one or maybe two cloves. Add all these ingrediants to half a bottle of string country white wine. Soak for 24 hrs. Then make on gallon of beer as follows:

1 lb Malt extract
1 Oz Hops
1/2 lb demerarra sugar
1 gallon water
Yeast and nutrient


Add the whole of the chicken mixture to the beer at the end of the second day. Fermentation will last six or seven days longer than usual and the ale should be matured at least one month in the bottle. This cock ale is of the barley wine type.