Coloniale
Discussed in this post:
Benjamin Franklin is famously quoted as saying that beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy. Since he fished the public domain like Hemingway fished the Gulf Stream, he probably wasn’t the first to say it. He certainly wasn’t the last to think it.
We had reason to think about Franklin and colonial-era beer recently at the Tate House’s annual Coloniale event. We enjoyed a brewing-themed tour of the house, led by docents in period garb, followed by a lecture and tasting event at Mast Landing Brewery.
Here in New England, most folks know that after landing on Cape Cod, the Mayflower sailed south into Long Island Sound, but turned back. After two months at sea, and with winter coming on, the captain realized that he lacked enough beer to sustain his crew on the voyage back to England. William Bradford complained that he and other passengers "were hastened ashore and made to drink water, that the seamen might have the more beer." Of course, in Europe untreated water was dangerous to drink, so everyone drank beer. It was a way of protecting people’s health in the colonial days. Even children drank small beer.
Brewing, then, was an important household chore, and usually among a housewife’s task. Such women were known as brewsters or alewives, we learned. Possibly assisted by servants and/or children, the alewife brewed a batch about every two weeks in cool weather. She used the same mash for multiple runs, leading to lighter, lower-alcohol brews (the small beer named above). Beer was stored in a cellar through the hot months of summer. A home with a skilled, consistent, and generous brewster might become a popular gathering place, and eventually a local tavern.
The beer they brewed was not much like what we drink today. Most importantly, they used no hops. Instead, all manner of locally-available herbs might be included. In Maine, spruce tips would have been a common addition (Banded Brewing makes a modern-day seasonal ale with spruce tips, the refreshing Green Warden).
The docents encouraged us to notice the evidence of beer or ale consumption in every room of the house. In the kitchen the fire poker spoke to drinking habits of the day. In the cold months ale was mixed with rum, molasses, cream, and eggs, then heated by plunging the hot poker into the pitcher to make a drink called flip (note to self: taste-test flip, perhaps for a future blog entry).
Upstairs, colonial attitudes toward beer and intemperance were displayed in Hogarth etchings of Beer Street and Gin Lane. Throughout the 1600’s and 1700’s colonists believed, with Cotton Mather, “beer is from God, drunkenness from the devil.”
As noted above, the tour was followed by a lecture by Emerson “Tad” Baker on the role of brewing and taverns in Colonial New England. He shared the story of Thomas Gorges. Sent by his father to oversee work in the colony, he constantly battled a lack of equipment and skilled workers, but managed to get a cellar built so the beer wouldn’t sour.
Much of the lecture was actually on the variety of early colonial-style beer Baker’s brewed in conjunction with Earth Eagle Brewing in Portsmouth. Among them, gruits made with foraged herbal ingredients. Traditional gruits are unhopped fermented malt beverages. The herbs added instead of hops often acted as stimulants. Check out Earth Eagles offerings on Untappd; one of their gruits includes reputed aphrodisiacs!
Fascinating stuff, as was Baker’s portrait of “the other New England,” a wild and lawless frontier far darker than conventional history portrays.
It was a highly educational afternoon, but our favorite part was sampling beer. Mast Landing gets better and better. We tasted the DDH Tell Tale (“Damn Good Ale”), Neon Sails (“Bitter finish reminds you that you’re drinking an IPA”), Seavey Island (“Totally inoffensive Blonde Ale”), Above and Beyond (“Light, tropical” but they make better beer), and the Gunner’s Daughter (“A world-class stout”).
The Coloniale Event fee also got us a commemorative pint glass, and a modern adaption of a colonial beer recipe (Poor Richard’s Ale, remember “God loves us and wants us to be happy”). We’re looking for a home brewer to collaborate with on brewing some so we can taste it. Tell us in the comments if you’re interested.