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Drink

Small Beer

A low-alcohol beverage made by boiling water, bran, molasses, corn or oats, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and corn work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 644 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Small Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Brew

  1. Boil the water, bran, molasses, corn or oats, and hops together once.

  2. Remove from heat and sweeten with the molasses.

  3. Transfer to a tub to cool until it's slightly warmer than milk.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add the yeast and cover with a blanket until the next morning.

  2. Bottle the mixture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + hopstop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Molasses + hopstop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sugar that the yeast ferments, adding sweetness and flavour to the finished drink.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which gives the drink its fizz.
Hops
Adds bitterness to balance the sweetness and gives a light aroma.

The step that matters

Cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must be cooled to a warm, safe temperature before the yeast goes in. If it is still too hot, the yeast may die and fermentation will not start.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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