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Ale

A traditional ale brewed with honey, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beer and honey work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Pour the second portion of water into a vessel and let it mash for one hour.

  2. Boil the first wort with ½ pound of hops for one hour.

  3. Draw off the second mash and boil it with ¼ pound of fresh hops for half an hour.

  4. Mix the two liquors and cool to 60°F (15°C).

Ferment and cask

  1. Stir in 1 pint of good thick yeast.

  2. Once fermentation is complete, draw off into a rinsed cask.

  3. After slow fermentation ceases, loosely bung the cask for two days, then fasten the bung.

  4. For table beer, make a third mash.

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 + honeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  2. Honey + hopstop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Beer + hopstop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the sugars that the yeast ferments into alcohol and gives sweetness.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, balancing the sweetness of the honey.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the brew.
Flat ale or beer
Supplies the base liquid and early fermentable flavor for the brew.

The step that matters

Cool to 60°F (15°C) before adding yeast. Yeast is killed or stressed by hot liquid, so the wort must be cooled before the yeast is stirred in to ensure healthy fermentation.

“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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