Poor Richard's Ale

[Charlotte 0'Neil]

January 17 is Benjamin Franklin's birthday, when homebrewers' fancies turn to thoughts of re-creating "Poor Richard's Ale", mentioned by Ben in his pamphlet, "Poor Richard's Almanack.

Unfortunately, modern craft brewers are so wedded to the German beer "purity" laws requiring all beers to be made of hops and barley, not to mention expensive equipment they need to justify the purchase of, and often a vested interest in turning out a product that they would have a proprietary ownership in, so that even though they know that hops and barley weren't available at the time and that corn and molasses were, they still make their tribute "Poor Richard's Ale" out of hops and barley, using a hop that was popular in England at the time, a barley that has a corny-sounding name (as far as I can figure out) and some molasses as an adjunct.

I have made a recipe for a PRA clone. No one knows for sure what it was made of, but anybody's guess is as good as anybody else's. Here is the recipe below or you can look at my website at http://yankeeharp.googlepages.com/poor_richards_ale.html for a version with pictures. The stuff I made isn't bad. Not fancy, but okay, bit of a root-beery finish. Needs more experimentation with different spices, but this does the job for an easy, inexpensive plonk made from corn. Ben would be proud. As he said, ""He that drinks his Cyder alone, let him catch his horse alone." :-)

My Rendition of Poor Richard's Ale
makes 1 pint

Ingredients:
• 3 tablespoons of cornmeal (polenta or maize meal)
• 2 cups or 450 mls warm water
• 1/4 cup sugar syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed spice
• 1 teaspoon molasses
• 1/4 cup of yeast starter

Mix 3 tablespoons of cornmeal in 2 cups of warm water.
Pour water and cornmeal into a baked enamel saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it comes to a boil and thickens and forms a thin gruel. Turn off heat.
Allow it to cool to lukewarm and then transfer to a glass jar.
Add 1/4 cup of sugar syrup into the water and cornmeal
Add 1/4 teaspoon crushed spice, a teaspoon of molasses and 1/4 cup of yeast starter.
Cover with an airlock and leave in a warm room-temperature place. Shake once a day to disperse sediment until it has begun to ferment.
After it has begun fermenting, allow it to ferment for 7 days, or wait until it has stopped fermenting.
Filter through a cotton flannel jelly bag (or a pillowcase will do).
To the strained liquid add 1 teaspoon of sugar syrup, honey or maple syrup. Reserve 1/4 cup to use as a yeast starter for the next brew, and then transfer the remaining 2 cups of liquid to plastic soda pop bottle(s) and screw cap(s) on tightly.
Ale is ready when bottle is firm to the touch and cannot be squeezed.

Peace and love,
Charlotte

[Charlotte_0'Neil]

Sorry -- the amount here should be 1 1/2 teaspoons of cornmeal. The 3
tablespoons amount is for the uncooked version. 3 tablespoons of
cornmeal cooked in 2 cups of water won't give you a thin gruel, it
will give you a thick sludge. I still haven't decided which version I
prefer and I think eventually I will just have to put both the cooked
and uncooked variety up on webpages and let people decide which they
want to make. I tend to suspect they cooked it back in Franklin's day,
but I think uncooked must be healthier.

[Charlotte]

I finally decided to go solely with the uncooked cornmeal version.
More and more, I am finding out that you can make ale with raw
vegetables and it turns out fine, not to mention a great way to
consume vegetables.