[Sca-cooks] Beer for a Queen

[Jeff Gedney]

>So, the Alcohol Fairy (yes Charlie Brown, he is real) magically deposits 
>17 gallons of spiced wine in the kitchen for my next feast. Am I allowed 
>to make it available to the feast participants in general (if of legal age)?

As far as I know the SCA inc forbids such service because the Alcohol is provided as part of a pris fixe meal, which participants have paid for, and therefore risks running afoul of the US Code of Federal Regulations Chapter 27.

However "Small beer" may not be an issue, since made correctly it is made with a weaker sugar solution and drunk so soon after its innoculation with yeast that the alcohol has not had a chance to accumulate. 

If you look at the instructions for making home made soda, which is suitable for giving to kids, it is not that different form the making of small beer, except the soda is capped quickly to make it fizzy, and small beer is drunk quickly. IIRC, Digby says that if you small beer has stopped "being lively" to add more yeast. They preferred to drink it yeasty and sweet. The way I think of small beer is that it is the medieval version of sodapop. 

The notion that it an alcoholic beer, same as regular beer but just made with a diluted wort, is not proven by what I have read on it. 

So small beer might well avoid any alcohol problems.

Capt Elias
Dragonship Haven, East
(Stratford, CT, USA)
Apprentice in the House of Silverwing

-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas
- Help! I am being pecked to death by the Ducks of Dilletanteism! 
There are SO damn many more things I want to try in 
the SCA than I can possibly have time for. 
It's killing me!!!

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Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think
You stand upon the ravage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. 
  - Shakespeare - Henry V, Act III, Prologue