SC - Spanish beer

[Jeff Gedney]

> The latter.  He says, "La cerveza es aqua cocida con trigo, cebada, 
> avena y lupulos..."  which translates as "Beer is water cooked with 
> wheat, barley, oats and hops..."  He goes on to say that there are two 
> forms: with more hops and with fewer hops; the latter is healthier, in his 
> opinion.

That matches up with the English usage of the period. "Beere" was usually 
a reference to "Flemish Beere" which was a standard indication that Hops
are a part of the recipe. The English Ale at the time was unhopped.
 
> I can see where wine might have been more common than beer/ale, even for
> the lower classes, in Spain than say in England but to be little known?

Spanish Ships of the period (1530) were provisioned with wine as a general 
beverage, So the notion that wine was the drink of the "common man", in 
Spain, is a valid assuption. Ale was the common drink in England. 
Both wine and beer/ale keep longer than water in storage, and also tend to 
remove many of the more common contaminants and microorganisms in 
the general water supplies, and so these were the basic beverages of period
IIRC.

Also interesting is that at the time that the book in question appears to 
have been written (1530), Spain and England were cautious allies against 
France (either was like to turn on and attack the other, the resulting brouhaha
would then be patched over by the Governments), and their Navies had 
regular communication in Spanish and West Indian Ports, as well as English
Ports. so it was quite likely that enough communication existed to make 
the cook of a well to do household aware the need to keep of beer and ale
on hand for the entertainment of English (and German) nobles.

(FWIW, It was not until the Armada Years that there was an outright state
of war between the two, and even then there was a major diplomatic
initiative to patch up the affairs of the countries, to the point that both 
the Spanish and English Navies were regularly understaffed and poorly
supported with intelligence and supplies. The English admeral John Hawkins 
overcame the habit of Queen Elizabeth to start building a navy, and then 
withdrawing funding (at the request of the pro Spanish factions in her court), 
by making externsive use of conscripting merchant vessels, and licensing 
privateers.)


Brandu