[Sca-cooks] small beer

[Stacy Robinson]

Okay, as some one who is trying to learn as much as I
can about brewing, what would be the differences
between small beer and penny ale? I have came accros
refrences to both in my research and have often
wondered if they were the same thing.

Katren Fitzgerald
--- Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Phillipa asked:
> > Speaking of which... What is the alcohol
> content/percentage of regular beer and of small beer
> and would current day light beer be akin to small
> beer?
>
> There are likely to be other differances between our
> regular beer and the
> medieval small beer, than just the alcohol
> percentage. More experienced
> brewers feel free to correct me.
> Most of our modern beers seem to be highly filtered.
> Particularly for the
> lower classes, this is not likely to have been true
> in period. I suspect
> the small beer was fairly "chewy" with more grain
> particles and such.
> Perhaps thicker than say "Coors" or "Budweiser".
>
>
> Was this small beer, really "beer" or was it
> actually an "ale"? The
>
> former having hops added. Since I believe the hops
> and other herbs
> were added for lengthen the time the beer would
> last, as well as
> perhaps for flavor, I'm not sure this would have
> been added for small
> beer as that was drunk rather fresh. I believe the
> main reason the
> alcohol level was low was the short brewing time.
>
>
> Small beer seems to have been drunk like we do soft
> drinks and was often
> one of the boons given to peasants bringing in the
> lord's harvest.
>
> Stefan
> Small beer - it's not just for breakfast
> --
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad
> Kingdom of Ansteorra
>     Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:
> http://www.florilegium.org ****
>
>
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