Name: Strong Beer, or Ale
Ingredients: 12 bushels of malt; 14 bushels of malt (for a very good body); 8 bushels of water (hot, but not boiling); ¾ pound of hops (for strong beer); ½ pound of hops (for ale); 2 quarts of yeast; 1½ pounds of dried hops

Why it works: Malt and beer work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Strong Beer, or Ale

Ingredients

12 bushels of malt
14 bushels of malt (for a very good body)
8 bushels of water (hot, but not boiling)
¾ pound of hops (for strong beer)
½ pound of hops (for ale)
2 quarts of yeast
1½ pounds of dried hops

Directions

Mash and boil

Pour 8 bushels of hot water over the malt and let it infuse for 3 hours.
Run the mixture over the hops previously infused in water.
Boil the hops with the wort for 2 hours once it begins to boil.

Ferment and bottle

Cool a pailful of the mixture and add 2 quarts of yeast.
Prepare the casks and add the dried hops before sealing.
Ensure bottles are well-prepared and use high-quality corks.

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.

Malt + beertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Hops + beertop 42% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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 fermentable sugars for the yeast and gives the beer its body and sweetness.
Hops: Add bitterness to balance the malt sweetness and contribute aroma to the finished ale.
Yeast: Ferments the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

“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.