People have been turning grain, honey, and fruit into alcohol for thousands of years.
Turning grain into alcohol is as simple as:
- pouring boiling water into a vat of malted grain;
- putting a lid on the vat;
- covering it up with blankets and letting the grain soak a while;
- draining the resulting wort from the vat;
- letting the wort cool off;
- Pouring the wort into a barrel;
- Adding yeast.
Nature does the rest.
For lack of a better term, we will call this product ale.
Throughout the Middle Ages, this ale was basic sustenance. When people talk about beer being “liquid bread”, this is it. The product was normally consumed very young, because it tends to spoil quickly. It was common in the Middle Ages to consume ale before it was done fermenting.
This ale was also sweet and bland. People eventually discovered they could “improve” the flavor of ale by boiling the water drained from the grain with bitter and savory herbs (such as sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, and others) before letting it cool off. Ales made with these herbs are referred to as gruit ale or just gruit.
By the middle of the 8th century, someone in the middle of Europe (somewhere around modern-day Munich) decided to throw some flowers from a climbing plant into the boil. Thus, began the long, steady rise of hopped beer and the corresponding decline of ales and gruit ales on the European continent.
In addition to the flavor that hops provides, it also acts as a preservative making beer stable for relatively long periods of time (weeks, months, and even years in some cases). This enables large scale production of beer and the shipment of the beer to far-off locations. By the end of the 14th century, beer is being shipped all across northern Europe (primarily along coastal trade routes). Isn’t commerce a wonderful thing.
Unfortunately for the English, hops are not native to England so they are forced to survive for many more centuries with just ale and gruit while the Flemish, Dutch, and Germans are partying hard with real beer.
Ben, the two of us need look no more
Then, as now, moving goods across the sea is the most cost-effective way of getting products from producers to consumers. In the 14th century, ships are moving products all around Europe through the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the North Sea. Life is good.
There is one minor problem though. Ships bring rats; rats bring fleas; and fleas bring the plague. Over the course of four years spanning 1347 to 1351, the Black Death kills 30% to 60% of the population of Europe. England is not spared.
But remember to Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.
If you had skills, your position in life got a big boost from the lack of competition.
By the 15th century, there were immigrants from all over Europe living and working in England. This included farm laborers, inn-keepers, bakers, doctors, priests, weavers, tailors, and brewers.
Ah yes. The brewers.
Many of the skilled workers to settle in England, in general, and London, in particular, were Flemish, Dutch, and German. These immigrants apparently found the traditional English ale to be unappealing. So, they began to import beer from mainland Europe (fortunately, there was already a well-established trade in exporting and importing beer along the ports of the North Sea). But then, as now, the cost of shipping anything depends on how big it is and how much it weighs. Barrels of beer are large and very heavy.
At some point, immigrants realized that all the grain they needed to make beer was in England. What they didn’t have was hops, because it is not native to England. So, they begin to import hops, build breweries, and brew beer.
The English production methods for making ale are far less efficient than the Dutch/German methods for making beer – it takes more grain to make a gallon of ale than it does to make a gallon of beer. Thus, immigrant breweries had a significant cost advantage over ale producers.
And ale production does not scale well. While monasteries did have the ability to make large quantities of ale, most ale was produced in small scale alehouses or in homes (where large households would sell about half of their output to bring in funds to underwrite household expenses). Beer production, however, does scale up well and breweries were quickly making large quantities of beer.
To make things worse for ale producers, the Assize of Bread and Ale passed in the 13th century strictly tied the price of ale to the price of grain. Cheap bread and ale keep the masses from rebelling, so the price of bread and ale was regulated to keep the price of ale barely above the cost of ingredients. Regulations also stipulated the minimum amount of grain that could be used to make ale (to keep ale producers from selling “weak” products to the detriment of consumers). Thus, ale producers were being simultaneously squeezed by minimum required costs; maximum allowed prices; and competition from beer producers.
What does any well-established industry do when it is getting its ass kicked by upstart competitors? Well, it pleads for protection from “The Powers That Be”. In April of 1481, the Ale Brewers of London petitioned the Mayor and the Aldermen calling for a clear and legal separation between ale and beer, stating:
No maner of persone of what craft condicion or degree he be occupying the craft or fete of bruyng of ale wtin the saide Citee or libertie thereof from hensfurth occupie or put or do or suffre to be occupied or put in any ale or licour whereof ale shalbe made or in the wirkyng and bruyng of any maner of ale any hoppes herbes or other like thing but onely licour malt and yeste, [under penalty prescribed].
Be careful what you ask for. The ale brewers get when they want; their petition is granted. Now ale and beer are two separate products under the law and in the eyes of the guild. Note that this does not prevent immigrants from brewing beer. What it does is guarantee that no ale producer can lawfully make both ale and beer. Ale housed are limited by law to making high-cost, low-profit products that consumers are less and less interested in. We call this a win/win scenario.
The friction between ale and beer brewers is not just the native English versus immigrants. Large-scale immigrant breweries are run by men. However, English ale production is tied to households – either the large households of the well-to-do or the public houses for the working class. And brewing falls squarely in the wife’s work as part of the kitchen duties. As immigrant breweries win market share from English ale houses, income produced by the women of the household drops. This lost income cannot easily be replaced by any other work that is “appropriate” for the women of the household.
While working men in England were increasing choosing beer over ale, the well-to-do continue to prefer ale, because beer is actually bad for you, but ale is good. Thus, true Englishmen should only drink ale. Andrew Boorde, an English traveller, physician and writes in one of his books – Here foloweth a Compenyous Regiment or Dyetary of health, made in Mountpyller {1542}:
Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or goddesgood, doth sophysticat there ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drinke. Ale muste haue these properties, it muste be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy, nor smoky, nor it must haue no wefte nor tayle. Ale shulde not be dronke vnder .v. dayes olde …. Barly malte maketh better ale than Oten malte or any other corne doth … Beere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water; it is a naturall drynke for a doche man, and nowe of late dayes it is moche vsed in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men … for the drynke is a colde drynke. Yet it doth make a man fatte, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the doche mennes faces and belyes.
In short, Ale is made from malt, water, and yeast. It is the natural drink of Englishmen. Whereas, Beer is made from malt, hops, and water. It is the natural drink of the Dutch. Beer is bad for Englishmen and makes a man fat and inflates his belly as can be seen in the Dutch men’s faces and bellies.
A hundred years later, learned men are still whining about the Dutch and their beer. In 1651, John Taylor presents Ale ale-vated into the ale-titude: or, a learned oration before a civill assembly of ale-drinkers at what is basically an industry dinner party where everyone gets up and talks smack about the competition, but in reality, that competition is actually kicking their asses.
Beere, is a Dutch Boorish Liquor, a thing not knowne in England, till of late dayes an Alien to our Nation, till such time as Hops and Heresies came amongst us, it is a sawcy intruder into this Land, and its sold by usurpation; for the houses that doe sell Beere onely, are nicknamed Ale houses; marke beloved, an Ale-house is never called a Beere-house, but a Beere-house would have but small custome, if it did not falsly carry the name of an Ale-house; also it is common to say a Stand of Ale, it is not onely a Stand, but it will make a man understand, or stand under; but Beere is often called a Hogshead, which all rationall men doe know is but a swinish expression:
Here we are 300 years (and 15 generations) past the Black Death, yet the English uppercrust still can’t accept that Englishmen drink Beer. But it’s all over. Beer is an integral part of English life. In another 100 years, IPAs come into being. And another 100 years later, William Younger gives us XXS Stock Ale with ~10% ABV and 137 IBUs {thanks to robc for that link}.
So, remember folks – without rats; IPAs wouldn’t exist. And the world just wouldn’t be the same.
Turning grain into alcohol is as simple as – you forgot the essential part of aging 18 years in ex sherry casks
goddamnit I forgot to add after distilling
This ale was also sweet and bland. – also very low in alcohol. small beer it was
Many of the skilled workers to settle in England, in general, and London, in particular, were Flemish, Dutch, and German. – just like the anglo saxon invasion
the Assize of Bread and Ale – bloody government regulations
I was ready to call you sexist for not mentioning women but you did.
So you’re saying that beer is a product of colonialism? Beer is now cancelled.
We must never forget this travesty and mourn every time another can of hoppy swill rolls off the assembly line.
Like I needed more reasons to hate rats.
Don’t blame me. I hate IPAs.
My muscadine has more grapes starting than ever before. I am guessing I will soon have 100 bottles or so of wine.
wine – allegedly
Just because it’s Chateaux D’Bayou doesn’t make it less winy.
That is one of the things I was looking forward to when I moved down here. I like the tart taste of it.
You can balance that with the sweet, but delicious, strawberry wine they make down in Ponchatoula for the Strawberry Festival.
Seems like some things never change.
While working men in England were increasing choosing beer over ale […] Here we are 300 years (and 15 generations) past the Black Death, yet the English uppercrust still can’t accept that Englishmen drink Beer. – still is the case, with peopley people like Brendan O’Neill praising the Stella Artois drunk by young working class lads and immigrants like Kristian Niemitz praising hipster IPAs. Sneer beer to use old KN’s own terms.
because beer is actually bad for you, but ale is good – I mean even now it is said that hops are estrogenic and make men weak. Ale is like the roast beef of old england.
Very interesting bit of history, thanks for write up!
you are welcome
Qu’ils boivent du vin.
frogs do
Well, there gose the neighborhood.
Seriously, a great piece of history.
your attempt to start a pun thread will fail
Don’t let it wither on the vine.
Hop to it and help.
I’m all tapped out.
At yeast it can cure what ales him.
Quit fermenting strife.
I’m tapped out…
I also can beerly read.
A tun of puns would be fun.
Careful, Swiss is likely to come and mash down on us for this.
You’re right, it’s not wort it.
I can barley keep up with you guys!
C’mon, stay on your maltose!
Not a barrel of laughs.
Reading these bad puns is like taking it in the bung.
We can’t just bottle all of this up. We’re liable to foam at the mouth.
Could only have been improved by some pictures, with malt text, of course.
You win!
*rushes in*
What’s all this then?
*narrows gaze*
Sometimes you just need to grin and beer it.
My favorite Gose.
Good article.
thanks
Agreed – fun and informative. Thanks, kinnath!
You are welcome
Agreed. Fun read.
Good read! I was unaware of the history of hop dissemination. I knew that they replaced gruit as flavoring agents and served as preservatives, but not the legal BS about ale and beer in merry olde England.
thanks
Enjoyed the write up.
The only thing I knew about the history of hops was the extra ones put into the British beer so it could survive the trip to India gave us IPA’s.
I’ll have to see if I have a source on hand, but I also seem to recall that some of the local lords would tax the herbs used in the gruit as a way to lock in a monopoly on the “legally allowed” flavoring blend, which also helped to push production to using hops.
Yup.
At least one full article could come from just looking at the regulation of gruit herbs.
Also, note, that many of the gruit herbs were psychoactive. You get high as well as drunk.
And, I seem to recall that at least one of them was an abortifacient.
Experimental archeologists need to be careful.
One of the theories behind the believed existence of lycanthropy had to do with the use of rye in breads and ales.
The ergot fungus that forms on rye would distill into lysergic acid, a precursor to LSD.
Isn’t that believed to be the cause of mass delusions also?
Yep.
Church versus state was part of the issue too.
Thanks, this was interesting and I learned some things. Unlike most other things on the Internet, which normally make me feel like I’ve gotten dumber after I read them.
you are welcome
I’ll pile on with the compliments.
thanks
So in merry old England, ale and beer only differed by the type of grain used to make the wort and the addition of hops to beer vs no hops in ale. I take it modern ales are essentially beer but with specific grains and yeasts that are specific to ale?
Modernly, there are ale yeasts and lager yeasts. All are used to make “beer”. Lagers are fermented cool and then aged cold. Ales are not.
That’s pretty much the difference.
In further reading to increase my comprehension, I see that the grain doesn’t matter as much as the addition of hops and the German/Dutch methods of production. What was so different in the production methods between the Germans and the English?
What was so different in the production methods between the Germans and the English?
Another article’s worth of stuff.
Ales would have been made with a single infusion of hot water. The resulting wort was drained from the grain. It would be very high in sugar (high-gravity). This is allowed to cool and then yeast is added. Note that there is no boiling of the wort.
This process leaves a lot of sugar in the grain, which gets fed to the livestock.
Dutch/German beers would start the same way, but the grain would be rinsed with hot water (sparging). This gets a lot more sugar out of the grain, but dilutes the sugar content of the wort. The wort would be boiled with hops (which helps to concentrate the sugar a little bit). The resulting product is lower in sugar, therefore lower in alcohol, but has much more intense flavors from the hops.
So, the Dutch/German process makes more wort from the same amount of grain.
Then you get into the multi-step mashes, which increased the brewhouse efficiency at a time when you couldn’t get mass produced malt.
Mostly the modern distinction is in the type of yeast used for fermentation in ales vs. lagers. Additionally, the mineral constituents of the water distinguish how the various flavor profiles develop from beer to beer (beer in the general sense, here, not as specifically used above).
I’m assuming that in the cases above, ales were made with open fermentation, using ambient yeast strains, whereas beers were brewed with cultivated yeasts, but that might be my mistake based on the lack of “yeast” in the ingredients list for ales, above.
Brewers would reuse the yeast from batch to batch — either by scrapping the foam from the top fermentation vat or by collecting the sludge from the bottom of the fermentation vat. This was common all over Europe and English by the middle ages.
Cider and Wine were still wild fermentations.
Note that some places (e.g., Flanders) were doing wild fermentation beers and this is the origin of some really fine sour ales.
Brewers and bakers would swap yeast all the time. Someone always had a source of active yeast.
Thanks!
I played around with a wild fermentation once–I took some wort from a batch I was making, and let it sit out for a couple of days in an open wide mouth jar until fermentation began, then covered it loosely. The result was interesting. My house at the time was located in a forest, and we had all kinds of interesting stuff floating around, I’d bet. Not sure I’d ever want a full batch of the stuff, but it was a decent wild fermentation.
Good stuff, Mr. K!
The Mesopotamian civilizations compensated their workers in beer. I imagine that it was similar to the ales you discuss in your piece.
imagine that it was similar to the ales you discuss in your piece. – I would expect much worse. and warmer.
thanks.
Ancient beers would have been ales without hops.
There is a youtube channel The Past is a Foreign Pantry, and she made some ancient “beer”.
She said it was good, but it did not resemble modern beer at all.
I’ve worked my way through all of the Dogfish Head Ancient Ales series; some were far better than others. The Kvasir was my favorite; while the Birra Etrusca Bronze is one of only two beers I’ve poured down the drain.
Two booze articles in as many days, who’da thunk it?
SP was having fun with the scheduling.
I should say.
Kinnath knows his history and speaking for the HH Glibs, knows his mead as well.
Keep this article from the kids, otherwise there’ll be a lot of “sciency” projects going on out in the garage.
Thanks, Kinnath, very interesting and entertaining.
You are welcome.
The Zulu beer that won the war.
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/food/recipes/how-to-make-umqombothi/
So rats are responsible for IPAs? Now I really hate them!
Thanks! This was a fun read, perfect length for lunch.
You are welcome.
This took months of editing (duration, not effort) to get it down to a lunch-time read.
Thank you for putting in the effort.
You are welcome.
I started it a year ago when I was doing other brewing articles. The rough draft was totally out of control, so I walked away from it for most of a year.
It finally started making sense as a history of culture and regulations. Then it got short enough to post.
Ditto what UCS said
Ditto back at you.
Listening to my voice on a recorded meeting – can’t tell if I sound more nasal or congested. Makes me self-conscious about talking again. 🙁
Own it. Go full Gilbert Gottfried.
Aflac?
/not doing that.
We all sound more nasally when we hear our recorded voices. You just get the sound through your skull, sans the resonance that your nose ads.
I don’t just sound worse than my head voice, but worse than normal people :/
Nah, your voice IRL sounds completely normal.
Manly, even.
Cool bit of research and article. Thanks!
You are welcome.
I used to brew every couple of weeks, scratched the both the rigorous and artistic itches. Alas, though keto be good to me, it destroyed that pastime.
Thanks for the article – it’s always nice to see how things we take for granted evolved to the state they are in now.
Typical anti-Dutch bigotry! Later on the English snobs would blame the Dutch for gin. Geneber is a perfectly fine beverage without making it all high powered into gin.
Outside my area of studies.
Totally consistent behavior from the English elite.
Thanks Kinnath, good read! Combined two of my favorite things: history, and alcoholic beverages.
You are welcome
What WTF said. Thanks for the lesson.
Fantastic article, Kinnath. A great, informative read.
Thanks
Hey Neph, this just opened up down the street – https://www.rockawaytikibar.com/
I’m gonna go check it out in few minutes.
Good deal, hope you enjoy it.
Read that as Rockaway Titi Bar… a couple of times in a row.
That would be interesting too.
So it’s not just me.
That looks interesting.
Something to listen to along the way.
HELL YEAH!!!! They were my very first punk rock show, back in ’84 or ’85, at Janus Landing in St. Pete, FL. I ended up not going to the tiki bar. I remembered I had a couple tuna steaks in the fridge that needed to be consumed, so I crusted them with sesame seeds and seared them for about 45 seconds on each side, then sliced ’em, drizzled them with wasabi, made a dark & stormy, and stayed in the air-conditioned house.
Thanks, rats!
Excellent history lesson, kinnath!
thanks
In short, Ale is made from malt, water, and yeast. It is the natural drink of Englishmen. Whereas, Beer is made from malt, hops, and water.
You’re using definitions from Ye Olden Days right? Because today the difference is in the type of yeast used. And Guinness Stout is an ale, and that is mass-produced.
I should have read the comments before commenting. I see Timeloose above asked basically the same question I did.
Oops.
Nice article Kinnath!
thanks