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Drink

Hop Beer

A fermented beverage made from water, hops, ginger, sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Hop Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the hops

  1. Boil 5 quarts of water with 6 ounces of hops for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the liquid.

Add the ginger

  1. Add another 5 quarts of water and 4 ounces of bruised ginger root.

  2. Boil this mixture for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain again.

Add sugar and yeast, then ferment

  1. Add 4 pounds of sugar to the strained liquid.

  2. When lukewarm, stir in 1 pint of yeast.

  3. Let it ferment for 24 hours before bottling.

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

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

  2. Hops + gingertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the beer.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the food that yeast turns into alcohol and carbonation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Ginger root
Adds a warm, spicy aroma and flavor to the brew.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast only when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must cool to lukewarm before the yeast is added. If it is still hot, fermentation may fail or never start.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, 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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