From: Bryan J. Maloney (jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu)
Date: Fri 05 Aug 1994 - 14:21:46 EEST
Okay, I'm a brewer--strictly amateur, but I've done a good deal of reading on pre-19th century brewing and beers and I intend to extend my brewing into pre-19th century techniques as soon as I can.
Whoever said that beer without hops is brewed only to be drunk "the next day" doesn't know diddly about beer, brewing, or the brewer's/brewster's craft.
"English Ale, good and stale" was regularly brewed and laid up for a minimum of five weeks before drinking--this was in the pre-hops days and in the days when "beer" had a legal definition of "ale that has hops in it". Real ale--the non-hopped stuff--could be laid up as long as a year or two without it going bad. In fact, ales weren't considered to be worth that much if they hadn't had 5 or six months to age.
As for a "thick soup"--again I cry "male-cow-excrement!" Ale is always laid up to settle. "Five days stale, settle your ale." Sediment floating around in the brew was certainly considered a flaw throughout all medieval and later ales, in both pre-hops and post-hops days. Unhopped ales could also be shipped--although not overseas, it is true. A bishop of the thirteenth century in England records having been given the gift of several barrels of ale from a different part of the island. (Some of this ale was in the form of malomel, a beverage consisting of ale, unfermented wort, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices.)
As for alcohol content--you can get a pretty darn good level of alcohol from a high-malt wort, and that has NOTHING at all to do with your hop content.
Ever try mulled ale with a hopped ale? It just don't cut it.
(Mulled ale later became mulled wine after hops entered all English brews.)
Mulled ale was a very common and popular Yuletide drink--it was also
called "Wassale" or "Wassail". The ale used for it had usually been made
the preceding spring--early on, before the weather got too warm for
healthy ale yeasts. Wassail became a wine drink after hops invaded the
ales.
Although a porter flip isn't too bad. (What's a flip? Simple, heat an iron spike in a fire and stick it into a mug of your favorite brew. I'd suggest a porter or maybe a brown ale, since any lager would just be too wimpy and insufficiently malty for the experience--a doppelbock might make a good basis, though...)
So, why did hops end up becoming so popular? They do act as a preservative. They permit brews to be shipped long-distance. They cover up for some lack of cleanliness on the part of the brewer/brewster (disinfectant). Without hops or refrigeration, I'd surmise that bad batches would be more common.
However, anybody who tells you that unhopped brews cannot be stored and would only be drunk "the day they were made" is either lying or ignorant.
If you have a happy, strong yeast culture, and you keep dust and grime out of your brews, you can have strong, potent, unhopped brews that store for months--even a year or more. If you have a natural refrigeration source, even longer.
As for somebody saying "they didn't know about germs 'back then'", I have to say this: From the writings they seemed to know that you shouldn't brush off your shoes into your brew vats...
Maybe they didn't know "germs" but some brewers understood that a pure brew needed clean implements, for some unknown reason.
PS: Does anybody besides me realize that all beers violate the Rheinheits- gebot? After all, that law only permits a beer to have "water, malt, and hops". It makes no mention whatsoever of using yeast as an ingredient or agent.
PS: Guinness violates the Rheinheitsgebot, too, as does any Weiss, Kriek, or Lambic. Rheinheitsgebot is no guarantee of quality. Undrinkable swill can adhere to that law just as well as the finest Pilsner.
Anyway, that's enough rant for now.
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