Skip to main content
Drink

Beer Lemonade

A chilled or hot beverage made from beer, lemon rind, dried currants, rye nuts, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beer Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the currants or raisins.

  2. Boil them with water, rye nuts or black toast, cinnamon, lemon rind, and sugar for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the beer and boil for 1 minute.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Keep it in a cool place.

  6. Serve hot or cold.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rye + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Currants or raisins
Add fruit sweetness and body to the simmered liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the tartness of the lemon rind.
Munchener's spatenbrau beer
Adds malty flavour and a light fizz to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Adding the beer and boiling for 1 minute. Beer is added after the long simmer and only boiled briefly, because prolonged boiling drives off carbonation and alcohol and can make the malt flavour harsh.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, cinnamon, lemon, 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.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesBlack Currant CordialBlack Currant Cordial11 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipes