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Strong Beer, English Improved

A strong English beer brewed with malt, brown sugar, hops, yeast, and water, fermented for 18–20 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Strong Beer, English Improved

Ingredients

Directions

Mash

  1. Grind the malt coarsely.

  2. Pour 3½ gallons of water at 170°F over the ground malt in a tub with a false bottom, then stir well.

  3. Let it stand for 3 hours, then draw off the liquid.

  4. Add 7 gallons of water at 180°F and stir.

  5. Let it stand for 2 hours before drawing it off.

  6. Add 1-2 gallons of cold water and stir.

  7. Draw off the liquid again.

Boil and ferment

  1. Mix 2 lbs of coarse brown sugar with an equal amount of water.

  2. Boil with the wort for 1½ to 2 hours with the hops.

  3. Cool the mixture to 80°F.

  4. Add the yeast and cover with a sack.

  5. Let it work for 18 to 20 hours in sound iron‑hooped kegs or porter bottles, bung or cork tight.

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. Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Malt
Provides the sugars that yeast ferments, and the main body of the beer.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma, balancing the sweetness of the malt and sugar.
Coarse brown sugar
Adds extra fermentable sugar, boosting alcohol and contributing a rich, caramel-like flavor.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, producing the beer's character.

The step that matters

Cooling to 80°F before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed or stressed by very hot liquid, so the wort must cool sufficiently before pitching. Adding yeast too early can stop fermentation or cause off-flavors.

“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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