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Drink

Lemon Beer

A fermented beverage made with cassia, chamomile, cloves, sugar, lemon juice, yeast, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cassia and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 194 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemon Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Steep cassia, chamomile flowers, and cloves in 2 quarts of water for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture into a barrel.

Make the drink

  1. Dissolve 80 lbs of crushed sugar in the mixture.

  2. Add the juice of 8 lemons or 8 oz of tartaric acid.

  3. Fill the barrel with water.

  4. Stir in 2 cups of yeast.

  5. Beat the whites of 6 eggs to a froth.

  6. Add the froth to the mixture.

  7. Let the mixture stand for 1 hour.

  8. Bottle the mixture 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. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cassia + chamomiletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cassia + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chamomile + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves to feed the yeast and provides sweetness and body in the finished drink.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbonation and alcohol as the drink works.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports the fermentation.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth and added to help clarify the drink by binding particles.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand before bottling. Fermentation is still active after the yeast is added. Bottling too soon can trap gas and build pressure, so the drink needs time to settle and stabilise before it is sealed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cassia, chamomile, clove, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cassia, chamomile, clove, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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