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Drink

Ale-berry

A beer-based drink flavored with oatmeal and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beer and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Ale-berry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the oatmeal groats in a little water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the liquid and add it to the boiling beer or porter in a saucepan.

  3. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Grate a little ginger into the mixture and add your preferred seasoning.

  5. Sweeten to taste.

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. Beer + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Beer + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal groats
Soaked liquid adds starch and a soft, slightly thickened body to the drink.
Beer or porter
Forms the main liquid and supplies malty, roasted flavour.
Ginger
Adds a warm, sharp, aromatic spice note.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the beer.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, sugar):

  1. Gingerthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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