Category Archives: Series: Beer

The Long Boil: Recipes for Ale and Beer in late Seventeenth-century England

By Elaine Leong

I read Marieke’s recent post on beer as medicine with great interest. Like many of you out there, I’m a lover of all things ale and beer and was cheered both to learn about medicinal beer and to find ever more reasons to visit our local biergarten. Coincidentally, I have also been spending my time learning about early modern beer brewing. My entry into this adventure was via a recipe found in the correspondence of Edward Conway, second Viscount Conway and Colonel Edward Harley. In 1651, Harley send his uncle a recipe to brew ale which requested the maker to boil water on its own for three hours.

Intrigued, I embarked on a journey to try to understand why any early modern householder might utilise their resources in such an um… interesting way. My research took me a number of different directions from learning more about drinking water and water quality to mineral spas and baths to iatrochemical theories. Along the way though, I also read recipe after recipe after recipe for home brews.

The brewery at Charlecote Park, Warwick. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons.

The seventeenth century was, of course, the heyday of English country house brewing.[1] Like the production of medicines and foodstuffs, the brewing of ale and beer was seen to reside firmly within the purview of the early modern English housewife. Indeed, Gervase Markham, one of the most frequently quoted early modern conduct book writers, devotes an entire chapter to the art of brewing in his The English Housewife.[2]

Given that many of the surviving manuscript recipe books were produced within the homes of well-off landed gentry, many of whom resided in large countryside estates, it is not perhaps surprising that recipes of ale and beer are common features in these texts. From ‘cock ale’ (on which Joel Klein so engagingly wrote last year) to ‘heath beer’ to ‘laxative beer’ to ‘Doctor Ffryers beere for ye Scurvy’ to an ‘Ale by Dr Willis when sharp Humours in the Blood cause convulsive motions in the joynts’, instructions to make all kinds of ales and beers abound in early modern English household recipe books. In general, these can be separated into two groups.

The first deals with the actual brewing of ale and beer. That is, it offers readers suggestions for the proportions of malt to water to hops and instructions on the different steps of brewing. The second group of recipes involve boiling or seeping a variety of herbs in ready-brewed ale or beer. Willis’ recipe mentioned above is good example. There, the compiler (in this case, Johanna St. John), advises the maker to boil in 4 gallons of ale 4 handfuls of fur or pine tree and 6 orange peels and ¼ of a pound of yellow dock roots if brewing in the winter or male peony roots and 2 ounce of chine root if brewing in the summer. The ale here serves a dual function – both as medicine and as a liquid carrier for the herbs infused within.

The other group of recipes for ale and beer concern the brewing process itself and provide fascinating insight into ‘brewing science’ in the early modern household. Thanks to James Sumner and Otto Sibum, we are well aware of the range of knowledge and techniques required of commercial or common brewers.[3] As with recipes for other medicines and foodstuffs, there is a great deal of variation in the ‘recipe archive’. Two recipes particularly stand out and I aim to share both with you over my next two posts.

The first recipe is for strong beer and is recorded in at least three contemporary manuscript recipe books (here, here and here). This version, to make two hogsheads of beer, uses malt, wheat, dried ‘pease’, oates and hops. Interestingly, the recipe suggests that the ‘brewer’ boil the liquor for two hours – revealing both who is actually doing the brewing (unlikely the recipe compiler) and the country gentry’s preference for the ‘long boil’ which so irked later writers such as Thomas Tryon and Jeffrey Boys.[4]

Johanna St. John, a frequent subject of posts on this blog, also preferred the long boil. In a letter to her steward, she gave very specific instructions for the stocking of her cellar. This included the preparation of two sorts of strong beer and an ale which she ‘would have it boyled for 4 to 5 howers at the least’.[5] There might be many reasons for seventeenth-century gentlemen and gentlewomen opted for the ‘long boil’. Given that this step might have been performed in an open-copper, this step must have affected both the taste and the strength of the finished drink. The fashion for the ‘long boil’ faded by the eighteenth-century when brewers preferred shorter boils of around an hour. An example can be seen in Joseph Boys’ Directions for Brewing in which the recommended boil lasts only an hour or an hour and a half, depending on the kind of beer brewed (p. 15).

All this talk about beer has weakened my resolve to write, lured by the early summer sunshine and some good German heiferweizen, I think that I might just go visit that local biergarten. I haven’t, though, forgotten about the second intriguing beer recipe. It’s one to make strong ale and I promise to talk more about it in my next post.

[1] Pamela Sambrook, Country House Brewing in England 1500-1900 (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1996).

[2] Chapter 8, Of the Office of the Brew house, and the Bake house, and the necessary things belonging to the same. Gervase Markham, The English House-wifes in The Way to get Wealth (London 1631), 243.

[3] Heinz Otto Sibum, ‘Reworking the Mechanical Value of Heat: Instruments of Precision and Gestures of Accuracy in Early Victorian England’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 26.1 (1995): 73-106 and James Sumner, Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880 (London, 2013).

[4] Thomas Tryon’s A New Art of Brewing (London 1690) and Jeffrey Boy’s Directions for Brewing Malt Liquors (1700)

[5] Brian Carne, Some St. John Family Papers. Reproduced, with corrections and additions, from the Report of the Friends of Lydiard Tregoz, 27, 28 and 29 (1994-6), 95.

Bottoms up: beer as medicine

Over the years, I have encountered quite a few early modern recipes based on or consisting entirely of a drink still commonly used today, such as medicated wines and tea. In 2013, I heard James B. Sumner speak at ICHSTM Manchester about his excellent book, Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700–1880, on how beer brewing rapidly developed from an oral culture derived from home-based skills, into an industry with an extensive trade literature, based increasingly on the authority of chemical experiment in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland. My curiosity was sparked, especially as beer was often seen as a safe alternative for contaminated drinking water, and I asked Dr. Sumner on Twitter whether he had encountered any recipes for beer as a medicinal drink, to which he replied he had not.

Front page of Van Lis's 1747 Pharmacopea
Front page of Van Lis’s 1747 Pharmacopea

As medicinal drinks are not the prime topic of my research, I forgot about this until last week, when I was skimming through eighteenth-century Dutch apothecary handbooks for mineral-based recipes. Suddenly a paragraph caught my eye: not a mineral recipe, but one for beer! Wouter van Lis, who gained a doctorate in medicine from Utrecht University in 1745, in his 1747 apothecaries’ handbook, Pharmacopoea Galeno-Chemico-Medica… = Meng- Schei- … / Wouter van Lis Meng- Schei- En Geneeskonstige Artseny-Winkel, describes various ways to prepare medicinal beers, similar to medicinal wines. The first way consists of simply letting some mashed herbs soak in beer for two or three days. According to Van Lis, this way the full powers of the herbs would be used, much more efficiently than in meads (fermented honey-herb brews), as ‘nature in these Lands is more used to such drinks [beers], the stomach will receive them with more lust, and digest them fully.’

Cheers! Photo © theNerdPatrol, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
Cheers! Photo © theNerdPatrol, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.

Another option was to add the herbs during the brewing process, either when boiling the malt, or just slightly heating them in the beer after the boiling has taken place. Van Lis mentioned over fifty kinds of herbs to prepare medicinal beer, ranging from ginger, lavender, cardamom, hyssop, cinnamon, aniseed, rosemary, nutmeg, gentian, juniper and lemon grass to plants such as absinth leaves, sweet flag, germander sage, and eye worth. He does not advise which kind of herb-infused beer should be used for particular ailments; this was after all supposed to be at the discretion of physicians. However, Van Lis does advice that ‘Joopen beer’ (which he says literally means ‘juicy beer’ in old Dutch) heats, moistens, and nourishes the body, but causes infected blood, bad digestion, sore eyes, fevers, and gout when drunken in excess.[1]

It might seem strange that I have only found one reference to medicinal beer so far, but it makes much more sense when we look at Van Lis’s career. Before he gained his medical doctorate in 1745, he already ran an apothecary shop in Rotterdam, and also owned… a beer brewery. Apparently it ran in the family: his mother ran a beer trading company, and in the year Van Lis graduated, he also published a treatise on beer brewing, dedicated to his promotor, the Utrecht professor Oosterdijk Schacht. However, beer consumption was decreasing steadily in the eighteenth century, and in 1748 Van Lis sold all his property in Rotterdam, including his brewery with a loss, and moved to Bergen op Zoom to make a career as city physician and apothecary and doctor of the diaconate.[2] As far as I can tell medicinal beer never really took off – although I do remember older female family members telling me that a glass of dark beer should be given to women after giving birth to stimulate the flow of breast milk.

Please do let me know if you have encountered other examples of medicinal beer!

 

[1] There is still a Dutch brewer called Jopenbier, which advertises with ‘recipe 1407’. Although they use a recipe from 1407, as their own website states, this beer was called Koyt back then; the current name has been given to the beer in 1994 and refers to the 112 litre tuns in which beer used to be transported, which were called ‘jopen’.

[2] Peeters, F.A.H., ‘Wouter van Lis: Apotheker, Bierbrouwer En Stadsmedicus’, Kring Voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie in de Benelux. Bulletin, 73 (1988), pp 1 – 21.

Beer soup: The Breakfast of Early Modern Rulers

By Molly Taylor-Poleskey

As a young ruler, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, the Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia began each morning with a beer soup. He then dutifully locked himself away and attended to the day’s business until the midday meal.

This simple anecdote is recounted by almost every biographer of Friedrich Wilhelm. I was intrigued by the historiographic implications of this (what did biographers think it reflected about the ruler that he consumed this rather modest fare?). Beyond this, though, I became curious: what actually was beer soup? And, what it might have been like to start every day with it?

Engraving from title page of 1604 edition of Marx Rumpolt cookbook. Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id313700877
Engraving from title page of 1604 edition of Marx Rumpolt cookbook. Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id313700877

Although foreign to contemporary German cuisine, beer soup was very common in central Europe in the medieval and early modern period. As such common fare, it had a wide number of permutations. The most basic definition of beer soup is a “soup of brown (probably dark) beer, cream, fat and flour or egg yolk.”[1]  Various other recipes called for slightly different ingredients (such as costly spices), or onions and cheese to make a more substantial soup to accompany a roast.

After reading about various beer soups in early modern cookbooks, though, I still could not wrap my head around what a beer soup was. So, there was only one thing to do: perform “experiential research” and try beer soup for myself.

The Experiment

Somewhat surprisingly, my friends Steve and Noria enthusiastically agreed to join the experience. We gathered at my apartment one Saturday afternoon (we couldn’t bring ourselves to perform the experiment first thing in the morning) and decided to attempt two versions of the recipe. We selected the recipes for their clarity and because they used a representative mix of commonly-mentioned ingredients.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOur first recipe was inspired by a recipe in an eighteenth-century encyclopedia for “a really good beer soup.”[2] We translated it thus:

  • 1 Bottle of dark beer
  • Sweet cream
  • Three egg yolks[3]
  • Mace
  • 3 ½ Tbs. Butter[4]
  • Raisins[5]

Thoroughly stir mixture, boil it and serve with toast.

“a really good beer soup”
“a really good beer soup”

The result? “Repulsive,” said Steve, “I don’t want to eat it anymore.” I had to agree, the egg-drop soup consistency combined with the taste of day-old beer was nauseating. Noria had a more descriptive response: “it’s weird that it tastes sweet; I would have never guessed it since it smells like feet.” The toast was unquestionably the highlight of that attempt.

Modern taster, Noria, thinks otherwise
Modern taster, Noria, thinks otherwise

The second attempt was, thankfully, slightly more palatable. For this, we used the following recipe from the 1604 edition of Marx Rumpolt’s cookbook:

  • 1 Bottle of white beer (we used Erdinger Weißbier)
  • Cloves
  • 3 ½ Tbs. butter
  • 2 slices of rye bread cut into small chunks
  • Salt to taste

Combine beer, cloves and butter. Heat in a pot, but don’t let it boil. When it’s ready, add bread and salt and this makes a tasty soup. [6]

Although this attempt was not completely successful, we all agreed that it was much better than the first. Perhaps with fewer cloves and less salt, it was conceivable that someone (other than us) might enjoy this soup.

Reflection

Title page of 1604 edition of Marx Rumpolt cookbook. Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id313700877.
Title page of 1604 edition of Marx Rumpolt cookbook. Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id313700877.

In following these recipes, I did not presume to recreate the experience of an early modern diner. The gulf between our palates, ingredients, cooking tools and methods is just too wide. But there’s no doubt that the exercise helped me realize some things about the habits and tastes of the people I study. For example, beer soup was more a hearty drink than a soup that might constitute a meal. This fits with the description of daily habits from an early eighteenth-century court advice manual, which described beer and bread for Früh=Trunk, or “early drink” (instead of using the word for breakfast, Frühstück). The records of daily food distribution at the Berlin residence also only refer to two meals: the midday and evening meals. The elector’s beer soup, then, was more likely meant as a restorative broth. Other absolutist rulers, such as King Charles II of England, are known to have drunk such a restorative during their morning levée when they were ceremoniously washed and dressed.

The practical application of the recipes made me pay much closer attention to the details of the instructions than if had I just read them. I could not follow the author’s instructions to the letter. In the end, I had to make decisions about what modern ingredients to substitute for early modern ones, such as whipping cream with sugar for sweet cream. Most likely, my Calphalon pot over an electric burner also produced different results than an iron kettle or a raised hearth.

But, even Rumpolt allowed some room for improvisation: “each cook prepares food as he pleases … in my opinion, there are no absolute rules in cooking, otherwise it would be impossible.”[7]


[1] Sabine Bunsmann-Hopf, Zur Sprache in Kochbüchern des späten mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit-ein fachkundliches Wörterbuch. (Würzburg: Verlag Koenigshausen & Neumann GmbH, 2003), 29.

[2] Johann Georg Krünitz, “Bier=suppe.” Oekonomischen Encyklopädie Oder Allgemeines System Der Staats- Stadt- Haus- Und Landwirthschaft, 1773, http://kruenitz1.uni-trier.de/.

[3] Presumably the egg whites would have been turned to more elegant purposes elsewhere in the early modern kitchen.

[4] Measurement taken from a beer soup recipe at the website: www.how-to-live-like-a-German.com

[5] We only had dried cranberries on hand—a New World food that only entered German cuisine in the 21st century!

[6] Nimb weiß Bier/ thu Kümmel und Butter darein/ laß nur damit warm werden/ und nicht affusieden/ und wenn du es wilt anrichten/ so schneidt Ruckenbrot darunten/ unnd salz es/ so is ein wolgeschmackte Biersuppen. Rumpolt, Marx, Ein new Kochbuch (Franckfurt am Mayn: Fischer, 1604), 164.

[7] “ein jeder Koch seine art und weise/ eine Speise seines gefallens zubereiten … Ist auch meine meynung ganz und gar nicht/ gewisse Regeln un Praecepta/ nach welchen sich einer/ der kochen wil lernen/ eben richten solte un müßte/ als wer es sonst unmüglich kochen …” Rumpolt, Marx, Ein new Kochbuch, 63.