Skip to main content
Drink

Treacle Beer

A fermented beverage made from treacle, ginger, barm, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Treacle Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. In a pot, bring the water and ginger to a boil.

  2. Add the treacle and boil for a few minutes until dissolved.

  3. Remove the pot from heat and let it cool until lukewarm.

Ferment

  1. Stir in the barm, then cover the pot with a clean cloth.

  2. Let it sit for 12 hours.

  3. Skim off the barm that rises to the top.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the liquid and cork well.

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

What each ingredient does

Treacle
Provides sugar that the yeast ferments, and a dark, rich sweetness.
Whole ginger
Adds spicy aroma and flavor to the liquid as it boils.
Barm
Yeast that ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and alcohol.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool until lukewarm before adding the barm. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid. Cooling it to lukewarm keeps the yeast alive so it can ferment the sugars once added.

“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