SC - Small Beer?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
> 
> More questions for my Breakfast class:
>         I taught my new "Breaking the Fast, or, What Did They Eat For
> Breakfast?" this weekend, and it went very well.   We started talking
> about the references to beer and wine in many of the listings of what
> people were allotted for breakfast, and the question about the SCA not
> giving out alcohol came up.  What I am wondering is, what kind of beer
> would have been served?  Is "small beer" a lighter, lower-alcohol version
> of what would have been drunk later in the day?

As Brandu sez, small beer is often made from the second running of
liquor (i.e. water) from a batch of malt, usually by boiling the malt
(since the conversion from the original mashing has already taken place)
with freshwater and any spent hops or other gruity herbs (and how come
nobody on this list warned me valerian stinks so bad???). It can also be
made in the more standard manner, in weaker form, but it's probably more
economically feasible, in terms of things like fuel usage, to make
regular ale or beer, then use the spent malt for a smaller brew. It is
smaller, by the way (and here's where the name comes in, I believe)
because you get less of it than of the original brew. I believe Gervase
Markham speaks of two grades of ale from one batch of malt used to make
regular ale, but from the ingredients used to make strong ale, you can
get both a second-grade and a third-grade ale, in decreased quantities.  

> I have a recipe for a
> lemon-beer, three days, 10 lemons, some sugar, a package of baking yeast,
> water, and voila!, you have a fizzy lemon drink, not enough fermentation

You know I'm really tired and in pain (tooth problem) when I look at the
above and start wondering why Mistress Christianna is asking about fizzy
lifting drinks, stolen or otherwise...

> to have much alcohol (and just how much is another question, when does it
> cross that line and become too much to be used for our purposes) but just
> enough to be fizzy.  I don't think this is a period recipe, but it is a
> very simple, easy to make beverage.  I am wondering if we are dealing
> with something similar when the sources refer to these as morning
> beverages.  I know that wine was often drunk watered, and again, I wonder
> at what point the alcohol level is low enough to be considered null and
> usable.

Okay, rather than tell you again all about SCA funds, let's try another
way to put this in perspective. You know drinks like Malta Goya, or the
various near-beers, which are theoretically non-alcoholic, at least for
practical purposes? Once upon a time, these beverages (before
pasteurization of beers) logged in at under 1% alcohol. Modern, crappy
American beer, that awful pseudo-pilsener made with lovely stuff like
unmalted rice and corn, measure in at something like 5-6% or less. I
would guess, very rough estimate, y'unnerstand, that small beer gets you
something like 2%. Of course it varies greatly depending on how the malt
was mashed, for example, if it was a hot mash and there are a lot of
dextrins, and therefore fewer fermentable sugars, the ale is lower in
alcohol, and a second running will be commensurately lower.

>         I'm not interested in getting anyone in trouble for breaking SCA rules,
> but Iam interested in getting a better idea of exactly what strength of
> beverages we're talking about here.
> Christianna
> 
> "Breakfasts in Lent:
> My Lord and My Lady -- a loaf of bread in trenchers, 2 manchets, a quart
> of beer, a quart of wine..."
> 
> "...THE KYNG for his brekefast, ...dim' gallon of ale. " (A demi-gallon?)
> 
> "Queen Elizabeth's breakfast was 'manchet, ale, beer, wine and a good
> pottage made of mutton or beef'."
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- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com