Not really sure of the how and why. Just what I remember being told at school.
At one time small beer was drunk by most - including kids. Very low alcohol content but safer than the water available then.
Not really sure of the how and why. Just what I remember being told at school.
At one time small beer was drunk by most - including kids. Very low alcohol content but safer than the water available then.
It is my understanding that heating the water to scalding, before mixing up the brew, is what made it safe(r) to drink, as the heat killed off many disease organisms.
Yes.
I think communion wine at 15% is supposed to make it OK to use a common chalice.
Ah. OK. So why go to the bother of making small beer - especially for the kids?
You certainly can't brew at those temperatures - you'd kill the yeast. It works best at warm room temperature.
Not always if you believe this tale.
One of the Brewers who served the area mentioned was called Strongs, they pinched the inscription off the gravestone to promote their beer at one time.
Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,
Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer, Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall
And when ye're hot drink Strong or none at all.
G.Harman
Hmmm. One supposes they let it cool. But then why would they have known to boil it in the first place. Hmmm again.
No need to empty it down the sink. You collect it all in the "spoilt beer" barrel and send it back to the brewery. They can then have HMRC assess the alcohol content of it and issue a refund on the duty paid.
No, you heat the water to about 60C, then pour it over the malted barley to extract the sugars, and *then* boil it to sterilise. Then you have to cool it down to fermentation temperature before adding yeast (via heat exchangers to recover heat).
Tied pubs pay 80p/pint according to a recent BC1 programme
Not sure what you mean by that, but to have diluted cleaning fluid sold as beer twice in a pub I only visit occasionally when holiday in UK is more than incompetence.
There was a recent court case involving undiluted cleaning fluid being served to somebody as beer recently.
Ah, that starts to make more sense. But how did beer makers know to do that before bacteria were known about? Did they just discover that step of the process by accident? Or did they *not* know about it and their beer tended to spoil? Or did they do something else entirely?
You're both right...
The boiling water is put on the malted barley to extract the sugar and other components.
That's cooled and the yeast added, then fermented.
That's the first wash, leading to the strongest beer as there's plenty of sugar. IIRC that would be the men's evening beer. Too strong to be drinking that on a hot day in the fields.
The more boiling water is used on the barley to get a 2nd beer. This is something that could be drunk throughout the day being a lot weaker (less sugar, less alcohol).
Once more and you have the small beer - think of using a tea bad 3 times. I have no idea how string that was - probably not very - hence suitable for kids.
I have no idea why noone realised that it would be sufficient to just boil the water and drink it after cooling (or perhaps they did!).
To extract the contents of the malted barley :)
In message , Martin writes
I believe that was one of Father Jack's favourite tipples (Harpic?).
Where on earth was this? I've been pubbing it large since 1973 and have never in all that time seen such a thing.
You're getting confused with gin.
He votes Labour so that tells us everything we need to know about his intelligence level.
You presumably went to one of those crappy Labour-run secondary moderns, Plowperson.
However, simply being silver helps to kill many bacteria!
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