SC - Small Beer?

[Cindy M. Renfrow]

From: "Jeff Gedney" <JGedney at dictaphone.com

> Is "small beer" a lighter, lower-alcohol version


[OF SMALL BEER] - 1631
This recipe uses the malt and hops left over from the following recipe, and
was very likely originally part of that recipe.

Now for your second or small drink which are left upon the grains, you
shall suffer it there to stay but an hour or a little better and then drain
it off also; which done, put it into the lead with the former hops and boil
the other also, then clear it from the hops and cover it very close till
your first beer be tunned, and then as before put it also to barm and so
tun it up also in smaller vessels, and of this second beer you shall not
draw above one hogshead to three of the better.  Now there be divers other
ways and observations for the brewing of ordinary beer, but none so good,
so easy, so ready, and quickly performed as this before showed:  neither
will any beer last longer or ripen sooner, for it may be drunk at a
fortnight's age, and will last as long and lively. (From The English
Housewife, etc., by Gervase Markham, 1631, pp. 205-6.)



(OF BREWING ORDINARY BEER - 1631
Now for the brewing of ordinary beer, your malt being well ground and put
in your mash vat, and your liquor in your lead2 ready to boil, you shall
then by little and little with scoops or pails put the boiling liquor to
the malt, and then stir it even to the bottom exceedingly well together
(which is called the mashing of the malt) then, the liquor swimming in the
top, cover all over with more malt, and so let it stand an hour and more in
the mash vat, during which space you may if you please heat more liquor in
your lead for your second or small drink; this done, pluck up your mashing
strom, and let the first liquor run gently from the malt, either in a clean
trough or other vessels prepared for the purpose, and then stopping the
mash vat again, put the second liquor to the malt and stir it well
together; then your lead being emptied put your first liquor or wort
therein, and then to every quarter of malt put a pound and a half of the
best hops you can get, and boil them an hour together, till taking up a
dishful thereof you see the hops shrink into the bottom of the dish; this
done, put the wort through a straight sieve, which may drain the hops from
it, into your cooler, which, standing over the gyle vat, you shall in the
bottom thereof set a great bowl with your barm and some of the first wort
(before the hops come into it) mixed together, that it may rise therein,
and then let your wort drop or run gently into the dish with the barm which
stands in the gyle vat; and this you shall do the first day of your
brewing, letting your cooler drop all the night following, and some part of
the next morning, and as it droppeth if you find that a black scum or
mother riseth upon the barm, you shall with your hand
take it off and cast it away; then nothing being left in the cooler, and
the beer well risen, with your hand stir it about and so let it stand an
hour after, and then, beating it and the barm exceeding well together, tun
it up into the hogsheads being clean washed and scalded, and so let it
purge:  and herein you shall observe not to tun your vessels too full, for
fear thereby it purge too much of the barm away:  when it hath purged a day
and a night, you shall close up the bung holes with clay, and only for a
day or two after keep a vent-hole in it, and after close it up as close as
may be.)

Regards,

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
cindy at thousandeggs.com
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"
http://www.thousandeggs.com