SC - butter beer recipe

[Stefan li Rous]

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu gabe a recipe for buttered beer:
> I just came across this & I remembered someone here was looking for a
> Butter Beer recipe.  This is from the Good Huswifes Handmaide for the
> Kitchen (undated, probably mid 1600s), ed. by Stuart Peachey, Stuart Press,
> 1992, p. 62.
> 
> To make Buttered Beere.
> Take three pintes of Beere, put five yolkes of Egges to it, straine them
> together, and set it in a pewter pot to the fyre, and put to it halfe a
> pound of Sugar, one penniworth of Nutmegs beaten, one penniworth of Cloves
> beaten, and a halfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take
> another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fire againe,
> and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fire, and put a dish of
> sweet butter into it, and brewe them together out of one pot into an other.

Anyone have an idea how much a "penniworth" of Nutmeg or Ginger or cloves
is?

Also, this sound awlfully wastefull of pots. Sugar, eggs, beer and spices
is one pot, then put this into another pot and then boil with sweet butter
and then put into another pot. Or is this just the way it is written
and the same physical pot could be used for all steps? And why does it
specify a "pewter" pot? Why specify what the pot is made of? Are they
leaching some of the lead out of the pot for flavor? Or just using
a thick pot, rather than copper, to moderate the heat?

- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
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