Bitter Beer Recipe

[Amber Fluid]

I was going through some really old recipes of my Grandmother's yesterday and come across this I thought I would share. However, I think I will give it a miss myself:

Bitter Beer

Place in a bag 6 ozs of hops and 4 ozs of English barley. Put into 4 gallons of cold water and boil for 3 hours. Remove the bag containing hops etc. and let drain and squeeze a bit.

Add sufficient water to make up the 4 gallons after mins remove from the fire and add 4 lbs of white sugar, 3 x 1 lb tins of extract of malt, oz. or powdered gelatine. Then add a breakfast cup of burnt sugar.

Stand contents in warm room where the liquid is blood heat and add cup of yeast. This must be done within 12 hours, otherwise good results will not occur.

After ten hours, a creamy foam will come on top. Skim 2 or 3 times a day for 9 days, when it will be ready for bottling etc.

Don't disturb contents for 9 days. Ready for drinking in 3 weeks.

 

[peaky]

Sounds delicious! But I think it needs some Cascade at flame-out after boiling the grain for 3 hours

 

[RdeVjun]

Sound like a precursor to today's kit & kilo, perhaps more along the lines of today's extract brewing. I can't say the recipe appeals to me, however I'm sure it had its place in households of the time and drinkers knew what they were getting.
Thanks for sharing your Grandmother's historical documents with us too BTW, can you estimate a date it was in use? :icon_cheers:

 

[Amber Fluid]

can you estimate a date it was in use? :icon_cheers:

Having a guess I would say more than 50 years old. My Grandmother passed away 34 years ago and I can not remember her ever making it so I can only assume it is way before my time. It may even have been a recipe handed down to her.