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Strong Beer, or Ale

A strong beer brewed from malt, hops, water, yeast, and dried hops, fermented for 24 months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

Directions

Mash and boil

  1. Pour hot water over the malt.

  2. Let it infuse for 3 hours, mashing it in the first half hour.

  3. Add hops to the mixture.

  4. Boil for 2 hours once it begins to boil.

Ferment

  1. Cool a pailful of the mixture.

  2. Add 2 quarts of yeast to it.

  3. Combine the yeast mixture with the rest of the wort when ready, preferably the same night.

  4. Cover the bunghole with paper after fermentation is complete.

  5. Add 1.5 pounds of dried hops into the bunghole.

  6. Seal the bunghole.

Age

  1. Let it stand in casks for 12 months.

  2. Let it stand in bottles for another 12 months before drinking.

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. Malt + beertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Hops + beertop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. 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 the sugars that yeast ferments, and the body of the beer.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the finished beer.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars from the malt into alcohol and carbonation.
Dried hops
Added to the cask after fermentation to contribute aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Combine the yeast mixture with the rest of the wort when ready, preferably the same night.. Yeast must be added while it is healthy and active. Waiting too long weakens it, which can lead to slow or incomplete 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.

More strong beer recipes

English 4 See all 14 →

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