18 replies to this topic

[Buzz Buzzard]

I've been back home deep in the isolated backwoods of southern Indiana for the last couple days. Tried to mine some of the old ways knowledge of brewing as this is a very deeply swiss german immigrant town. My mother is mid 80's and remembers her father brewing his daily beers. I talked to several of the old timers with similar memories. Very little survived the memory loss of time. They used a canned malt extract with the face of a fat man on the paper label of the can. Their yeast came in little foil sachet. They had a crock to ferment in kept by the stove covered with a "bonedust" cloth. And somewhere in the process a potato came into play. This is an around 1940s river town no electricy etc. They kept the beer cool for drinking by tying a rope on it and dropping it down in the cistern.I would love to recreate that one day. I know it wouldn't be great, but just a thing I aspire to do.

[positiveContact]

I'm not sure how you'd recreate what was likely a very inconsistent product.  what I'm saying is you'd have a giant target to shoot for.  it probably ranged from okay to barely drinkable.  I can't imagine dry yeast was that good back then.

[Buzz Buzzard]

Its just nostalgia

[positiveContact]

Its just nostalgia

 

but you aren't that old right?  i assume you never drank the stuff.  I get that it would be cool to do things the old way.  i think my grandfather made beer in a similar manner although I don't know how I'd determine his process since he died when I was about 4 or 5.  I might have even been at his house when it happened now that I think about it.  holy shit I think I forgot that or maybe I'm dreaming it up...

[Buzz Buzzard]

Yeah true. I wonder where the potatoes came in.

[Big Nake]

BB: I agree that this stuff is very cool. I like to hear stories about how people went about making their own beer, what the ingredients were, how much knowledge there was or if it was just "by the numbers because my grandfather told me to do it this way!", etc. To be in the US between 1920 and 1933 and make your own beer must have been awesome especially if the beer was passable. I hear stories about people who made beer in the 1960s and 1970s and how it generally wasn't very good. It's probably not fair to say that because some of it may have been excellent. But it's a reminder that we, as modern-day homebrewers have an unbelievable amount of information coupled with an almost limitless number of different grains, hops and yeast. Add to that the great tools we have (ph meters, refractometers, hydrometers, brewing software plus all the great gadgets) and we are really making high quality beers as hobbyists... which is AWESOME! Cheers and keep us posted. Maybe you can find some information online about how it was to make beer in the 1930s and 1940s and then try to duplicate it.

[positiveContact]

but you aren't that old right?  i assume you never drank the stuff.  I get that it would be cool to do things the old way.  i think my grandfather made beer in a similar manner although I don't know how I'd determine his process since he died when I was about 4 or 5.  I might have even been at his house when it happened now that I think about it.  holy shit I think I forgot that or maybe I'm dreaming it up...

 

well just to keep the grandfather thing going I do recall some journal entries he had where he would get back from his military whatevers and crack open some homebrews he made before he left and would say, "just got back and had some homebrew and it was damn good."  I know the feeling

Edited by Evil_Morty, 11 December 2014 - 04:05 PM.

[Mynameisluka]

what about hops...part of the extract?

[positiveContact]

what about hops...part of the extract?

 

I would guess so.  I don't think people could get hops easily.

 

eta:  I take it back.  I guess they did sell hops.  httpss://byo.com/brown-ale/item/839-homebrewing-during-prohibition

 

I'm not sure under what guise they were selling them

Edited by Evil_Morty, 12 December 2014 - 01:08 PM.

[Big Nake]

Aren't there stories about places where hops just grew wild all over the place? That doesn't mean people knew that or could always get their hands on them but I would think that if you tried hard enough, you might find some Cluster or something.

[positiveContact]

Aren't there stories about places where hops just grew wild all over the place? That doesn't mean people knew that or could always get their hands on them but I would think that if you tried hard enough, you might find some Cluster or something.

 

oh it was a cluster alright

 

but yes, I'd guess most wild hops would be more miss than hit.

oh wait - from that link I posted above I guess some syrups were hopped:

 

Manufacturers also omitted the words "hops" and "hop flavored" from their labels.

 

[Big Nake]

oh it was a cluster alright  but yes, I'd guess most wild hops would be more miss than hit.oh wait - from that link I posted above I guess some syrups were hopped:

Yeah, I just read that. I'm sure that most of this stuff was awful. Cleaning and sanitizing must have been problematic, I'm sure that yeast was pretty much baker's yeast and there were little-to-no tools or equipment. I'm also sure that "good information" was very sparse. The beer was probably very much bleh.

[positiveContact]

Yeah, I just read that. I'm sure that most of this stuff was awful. Cleaning and sanitizing must have been problematic, I'm sure that yeast was pretty much baker's yeast and there were little-to-no tools or equipment. I'm also sure that "good information" was very sparse. The beer was probably very much bleh.

 

I know you wouldn't have liked it but probably making sour/wild beers would have been the best choice.  I wonder if some beers had viable yeast in them back then.  that probably would have been the best possible source.

[Buzz Buzzard]

I would suspect they had a lot of wild things going in the beer.  If you pitched enough you may have gotten a unique and decent flavor from the local infections.

 

Maybe because as in say my grandfathers case, and well just maybe sure, the guy who had a little plot of land that he raised 95% of his 2 children and wives food on with out modern farm equipment in had some kick ass wild yeasts.  His wifes brother had a vineyard 1 hillside over..

 

100+ miles to a any real towns population wise.  

 

Some enjoy a bit of the wild in the beer.

 

Not that that is actually my cup of tea.  I am actually quite boring in my beer tastes.

But a geek for the how it can be done part of brewing.

[Buzz Buzzard]

I bet this is pretty darn close to what they used.

 

Crock

 

[Beerbecue]

I'm sure that an able brewer could make some fine grog in a crock like that,

[MyaCullen]

I bet this is pretty darn close to what they used.

 

Crock

 

my LHBS has a huge one with the stores logo from the 1950s, they've been a HBS since 1955

 

 

I have a recipe card my Grandma gave me that she was given by one of my uncles father's in law

 

it reads 

 

scour out and rinse a big crock

 

take 1 can of Blue Ribbon Extract, mix with warm water and 1 Malt can full of honey

 

add water in a crock to 5 gallons, you can use yeast, but I prefer to use a Quart of homebrew, 

 

cover with cheesecloth, stand in a cool room until it stops working, then bottle and cap

[neddles]

scour out and rinse a big crock

 

take 1 can of Blue Ribbon Extract, mix with warm water and 1 Malt can full of honey

 

add water in a crock to 5 gallons, you can use yeast, but I prefer to use a Quart of homebrew, 

 

cover with cheesecloth, stand in a cool room until it stops working, then bottle and cap

And some people think brett beers are a recent fad.

[Brauer]

And some people think brett beers are a recent fad.

Wouldn't that be a Brett Braggott?