BJCP CLASS – we were given a choice of presentation topics, and I chose Malt.  Turns out Malt is one of the very first presentations, so I’ve been scrambling through a very busy week (end of fiscal quarter at work, Baronial At-Home on Wednesday at my house) to get something [...]

Man, I love this braggot.  It was inspired by Ken Schramm’s Hefty Braggot recipe in The Compleat Meadmaker, though I used Hugh Plat’s The Jewel House of Art and Nature for my historical source.  Then I discovered killer bee honey, which is dark and caramel-y.  And now I have a [...]

Aqua Rubea sounded so pretty that when I was preparing for our SCA Royal Brewer competition (which I won that year) I just had to try to make it.  It is a medicinal tonic, commonly referred to as a cordial, but not at all sweet like our modern sipping cordials.  [...]

Aqua Composita is a tonic, a medicinal cordial; it was not sweetened in most versions I found.  The document linked here is my full-length competition documentation examining how I made a batch, the recipes I found and the redaction decisions I made (and what I’d do differently next time). I [...]

This is an example of retroengineering to create competition documentation.  I don’t recommend it.  It’s true that when I created this recipe, which has always done well in competition, I took historical recipes into consideration.  I did not, however, take notes.  Back then I didn’t even keep a notebook.  When [...]

I’ve been researching the history of alcoholic beverages in the Middle East.  Here’s a snippet of what I’ve found so far: Brewing as we enjoy it in the West originated in the Middle East – all of it: wines, beers, and distilled beverages all came to Europe from the Middle [...]

For a 5 gallon batch Ingredients FERMENTABLES: 6.6 lb. Special Dark LME, 1 lb. Amber DME SPECIALTY GRAINS:  6 oz. Roasted Barley; 8 oz. Dark Chocolate; 8 oz. Caramel 90L HOPS: .5 oz. Warrior Bittering; 1 oz. Fuggle Flavoring YEAST: Safale-04 first hydrated in dry malt and warm water OAK [...]

DNA studies by Ferdinand Regner indicates that one parent of the modern Riesling vine is Gouais Blanc, known in Germany as Weißer Heunisch , brought to Burgundy from Croatia by the Romans[1].  This was widely grown by French and German peasantry in the Middle Ages.  The other parent is a [...]

Tempranillo is a variety of black grape native to Spain.  It is called Spain’s “noble grape”, and is the main variety used in Rioja[1].  Spanish cultivation of vitis vinifera, the ancestor common to wine grapes, began in earnest in classical times with Phoenician settlement in the southern provinces.  Later, according [...]