Skip to main content
Drink

Mangold-wurzel Beer

A beer brewed from mangold-wurzel roots, hops, mustard seed, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,424 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mangold-wurzel Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roots

  1. Wash, scrape, and pare the mangold-wurzel roots, then cut them into pieces.

  2. Fill a boiler with the roots and add enough water to cover them.

  3. Boil for about six hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a basket without pressing it.

  5. Measure the liquid back into the boiler.

Make the beer

  1. For every seven pails of liquid, add 3 lb of hops, 6 lb of coarse brown sugar, and 4 lb of mustard-seed.

  2. Boil the mixture together for two hours.

  3. Strain it through a brewing sieve.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool, then add yeast as you would for other beer.

  5. The next day, skim off any dark froth before transferring to a barrel.

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. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Hops + mustardtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    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

Mangold-wurzel roots
Provide the fermentable base that is boiled down into the liquid of the beer.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the brew.
Coarse brown sugar
Supplies sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol.
Mustard-seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour to the finished beer.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the cooled liquid, producing alcohol and carbonation.

The step that matters

Skimming the dark froth the next day. Dark froth that forms as the beer settles contains impurities and unwanted proteins; removing it before barrelling keeps the finished beer clearer and cleaner in flavour.

“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

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes