Tofi Scribblings

Medieval (13th--14th C.) English Ale

(A work in progress)

I've recently been experimenting with recipes to produce 13th and 14th century English ale. For the Arthurian Idyll event, held here in BMDL on Sept. 26th, 1998, I brewed a 13th century English Ale. This turned out pretty good, and somewhat different than one might expect. An experimental second version for the Sunderoak Celtic New Year event (10/31/98) wasn't as good, but the version I presented at the East Kingdom Brew U. event (12/05/98) was very good indeed.

I have two sets of documentation available. A single recipe for making Clare Household Ale, which is about 4 pages long, and the complete treatise on Medieval English Ale which is some 19 pages. The Clare recipe includes directions on how to do a period English all-grain mash. For the arguments on why I've done the particular things that I have, please see the longer version.

Other things I've written

• The handout from the Elizabethan Homebrewing class I tought at Pennsic XXV.
• Some thoughts on various techniques used in Homebrewing, the handout from my class at the Robledal, A.S. 32, session of the AEthelmearc AEcademy.

Some Recipes for things I've brewed

• NEW! Medieval English Ale and the shorter Clare Household Ale recipe
• Raspberry-Lemon Melomel
• Black Raspberry Melomel
• Dark Sweet Mead
• Dry Strawberry Melomel

(Also check out the Debatable Brewers' Page).

Other things of possible interest to brewers

• Here are some notes on how to turn a cooler into a mash-lauter tun. I have had great success using a 10 gallon Rubbermaid (formerly Gott) water cooler, with an EasyMasher (Gott version) as the manifold, hooked up through a shut-off valve.

(My mundane web-page is here.)

Last modified Dec. 31, 1998