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Drink

Hop Beer

A fermented beverage made from hops, ginger, molasses, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hop Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil hops in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid.

Ferment

  1. Add ginger, molasses, and lukewarm water to the strained liquid.

  2. Stir in the yeast.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  4. Skim off any foam.

  5. Bottle for use.

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 + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Hops + molassestop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that flavour the beer.
Molasses
Provides sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and adds sweetness and colour.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that gives the beer its fizz.

The step that matters

Let it stand for 24 hours. Fermentation needs time for yeast to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Stopping early leaves the beer sweet, flat, or under-developed, and sealed bottles made too soon may not be safe to store.

“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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