[Sca-cooks] Birch beer? (Likely OOP)

[Mark.S Harris]

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa said:
> > > Any hints, idea or recipes for birch beer?
> >
> > I'm not sure if this beverage was proved to be period or not,
>
> "Birch Beer" brewed from the sap of the birch tree, which is highly
> alcoholic, is period. No clue about low-alcohol birch beer.

I was going to question the comment that birch beer was highly
alcoholic, since very few tree saps would seem to contain enough
sugar to create a highly alcoholic beverage. However, in checking
through my beverages-msg file I found the following message. This
both provides some evidence of birch beer being period as well as
clarifying the "high alcohol" comment. The addition of other
items containing sugar, such as honey would certainly increase the
ability to create a higher alcohol content beverage.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net

> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 11:35:21 -0800
> From: "Crystal A. Isaac" <crystal at pdr-is.com>
> Subject: Re: SC - Sugar Maples
>
> Par Leijonhuvud wrote:
> > On Mon, 23 Mar 1998, Tim & Dee wrote:
> > > Is/are there any sugar maple trees in Europe?  And what is Sweet
> > > Water?
> snip
> > You *can* get a sweet syrup from birches, but I don't know if it was
> > done in the middle ages.
>
> There is some precedent in using tree sap as a fermentable sweetener. In
> her text, A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink: Production &
> Distribution (page 229), Ann Hagan notes "Saps were apparently
> fermented: Bartholomew Anglicus observes that birch and honey would make
> a strong drink, and sycamore saps could be fermented with ale or yeast."
> C. Anne Wilson further comments, "Birch tree wine was fermented from the
> spring sap tapped from tree trunks in Sussex and in the Scottish
> highlands. The sap could also be brewed as ale with only a quarter of
> the normal allowance of malt." in Food and Drink in Britain from the
> Stone Age to the 19th Century (page 383).
>
> I will cheerfully make beer/mead/nonalcoholics for anybody who has
> *primary* documentation for tree sap in medieval drinks (other than
> Bartholomew Anglicus, I've already found a copy of him).
>
> Crystal of the Westermark