gallons & gallons of FREE BOOZE!

[Dirigible-Al]

I thought that heading  would get your attention

100 years ago in Western Europe the thousands of service men and women there would have by now realised that they were in for the long hall. The war was not over by X-Mas, lines were static and things were not about to make any significant change any time soon.  In all but the very active parts of the front with so many people amassed in such narrow strips of land with little to do boredom sets in. From this many wonderful things came, not all the Great War was horrific. Some people took to writing, some to art, some probably even did our hobby making scale models of the very same aircraft that were flying over their heads with whatever was at hand. Some made booze! In fact I believe a great many made booze on both sides, my father’s platoon  did when he was in the army and I have been told of tales where P.O.W camps were virtual breweries.  It must also be considered that 100 years ago there would have been a slightly different mix of people making up the service men making many more of them capable of making booze. In Victorian Britain it was considered a household chore to make Ale and I have no doubt that 100 years ago this was still done in many households. Most farms made their own beer or cider for their workers and themselves, a larger percentage of rural people would have been serving on the front than if there numbers were to be made today with many of these people having first hand knowledge on how to make booze from all manner of things. I have no ‘Western Front’ recipes or names of any drink; this would have been done secretly by the servicemen because if they were to be caught the punishment would have been anything but lenient. What I have done is picked two drinks that I think would have been very commonly made. My decision on them was based on the availability of the ingredients and the time of year they could make them. I am sure wines and ciders were made a plenty from fruits of the hedgerows and trees near the front but this restricts the brewer to late summer and autumn, I think in April 1915 they would have wanted some booze on the go a little sooner. So here are my choices and the reasons for picking them:

Bread Beer

The reason for this is bread would have been available all year round to everyone and without the need for foraging. Bread also has all the ingredients of beer be it in solid form, in fact it could almost be described as the first ever homebrew kit! Ancient Egyptian labourers were paid in bread; they then took the bread home and made beer out of it. Because of the sheer simplicity of this beverage and the fact it could be made all year round this has to be one of the two.

Stinging Nettle Wine

At this point I have probably lost all credibility with many of you after seeing that title but if you have please read my explanation and hopefully all will become clear. This happens to be one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in Europe dating back to the ancient Celts. Going back to what I said earlier about farms and households making their own beverages nettle wine would have also been made due to its sheer abundance and also the fact that it is available in all but the winter months. It is also made today commercially boasting the fact that it is gluten free. Nettles and herbs were also used in Ale right up till the 17th century when hops were introduced into Britain from the continent though once again due to their abundance they were probably still used by home beer brewers right up to and including the period of the Great war. Nettle Wine, like Barley Wine tastes more like a beer than a wine although it does eventually make you go blind – Just kidding!

I will do my best to make these drinks using things available to the servicemen but with one slight difference, I will use bread yeast in a starter bottle to be sure of a good start. Although they could have got this they probably would have just left the ingredients to ferment themselves or let the natural yeast present in the air get into the drink and ferment it. Once they had a brew going they could simply take some of the fermenting liquid out and use it to get another lot going. I will make the starter by putting a crushed apple in a bottle with some sugar and yeast. I chose an apple because even at this time of the year they would have been around as keepers can last a few months and even if it were rotten it could still have been used (but not by me), a spud would have also worked. Even 100 years ago sugar would have been cheep and plentiful due to Britain’s virtual monopoly on the sugar trade though I could imagine this being nicked out of the canteen “How many spoons of sugar do you have in your tea sergeant Pask” – “Eleven please!”. I will use a bucket for the nettle wine and cover it so no nasty’s get in. The Bread beer will be brewed in the Stone Jar. I have written ‘SRD’ on the Jar to replicate the rum jars used in the Great War. Rum rations were given to men on the front, this is because in previous wars with the exception of sieges most stress and danger happened on a battle field and lasted a day or two, outside of this time the men were in relatively little danger or stress. On the Western front some men were shelled for days, even weeks on end and the stress of this took its toll. Good moral was seen as being important so Rum rations were distributed (usually in a spoon from the jar with an officer present so they do not collect it up in a stash and get hammered once in a while). These came in Jars similar to my one, the SRD stands for ‘Supply Rum Department’ though the troops would have you believe it actually meant ‘Soon Runs Dry!' Everything has been thoroughly sterilised and the starter bottle is now on the go. Once it is fermenting vigorously I will pour half in each brew.

I will keep you guys informed how it goes. I would be interested to know if anyone actually has any stories or recipes of home brew on the front. It would also be great if someone else gave it a go so we could have a GB (Group Brew) going on.

Cheers, Alan.

[WarrenD]

Alan,
       This is, IMHO, a great topic and a worthy endeavor. (Remember, I spent 30 years or thereabout with other crazy, hard-core living-history nuts recreating history for the "experiential archeology" aspect.) 
NPR ran an article today on pear brandy, and and I have a 125+ year old pear tree in my front yard. Yes, I've considered buying a small still and attempting to distill those pears, for fuel of course. 

Do not forget about mead/honey-wine. I've had it in mind to make some for quite sometime now. It was made all over Western Europe and Great Britain from Roman times onward if memory serves. Like a foraging bear, you just need a good supply of honey.

Warren

[ALBATROS1234]

very nice idea, i only regret i wont be able to sample with you when its done.

[Dirigible-Al]

Hi Albatros, you can if you live in or near Plymouth UK and pop round in about a months time.
Hi Warren, Yes Mead is an ancient drink and I did consider this. I have made it before and it is a lovely drink. Another drink I considered though not so ancient was potato wine/beer which has also been know to be distilled. I dare say both these drinks were made on the front.

The mix in the starter bottle has started to ferment so some time later this week I will pick a load of nettles and get that one going along with the bread beer.

Cheers, Alan.

[lone modeller]

This is a truly fascinating topic and one which rarely, if ever, appears in any of the histories of that terrible conflict. Social history at its best - bravo!!

BTW honey mead has probably been brewed for a good deal longer than Roman times in Britain. Our ancestors were nothing if not ingenious and honey has long been known as a source of sugar which is of course an essential ingredient for a brew. The problem is finding evidence to support any such statement - brews do not normally leave easily recognised traces. However I think that the odds are very short indeed that mead has a much longer history than (a mere) 2000 years in Britain.

[WarrenD]

Well LM, I figured it had been around longer, but at the time I was writing the earliest occurrence of it that I could recall reliably in my reading was with some Romans.

Warren

[Dirigible-Al]

Hello LM and Warren

One day a documentry may appear on TV about the earliest origins of drink or someone may write a book. Until then we can look at the snippets of information we see when the subject appears in other things. I once read a book about Vicking Gods and mythology and in that Mead was mentioned numerous times so they must have been making that since their history began. Last sunday I got back onto this and here is the log of how I got the two beverages going:

First thing to do was to pick a supermarket bag full of nettles. Like tea the best part is the tip (top 6 leaves) I did this with thick gloves and a pair of scissors. By some miracle I did not get stung but just for the record the best thing for a stinging nettle sting is not a dock leaf - Pull up a whole nettle and strip it of its leaves, cut it lengthwise down the middle and rub the inside against the sting. Once back in the house I put all the nettle tips in the sink and rinsed them to rid them of any nasties (they were picked 7 O’clock in the morning when most of our multi legged friends are absent – lazy buggers). I then drained the sink and put them in one gallon of boiling water, this had to be done in two pots unfortunately because I do not have a big enough pot in the kitchen. I brought this to the boil, simmered it for 30 minutes then with the lid on let it steep while the water cooled down.
   While the water was cooling I ripped up the loaf of wholemeal bread and put it in the bottom of the bucket. I decided to use the bucket instead of the ceramic jar to make the bread beer because it just made more sense. I did not boil the bread in a pot because this would turn it into porridge making it near impossible to extract any drinkable liquid from the must. Instead I poured onto the bread nine pints of boiling water (extra pint because some will be lost by the bread soaking it up). I gave this a good stir and left it covered to cool down.
   Now back to the nettles. After leaving it for just over an hour it seemed cool enough to handle. I scooped out the nettles/water mix in a jug and tipped it into a cone shaped colander (mesh one is just as good) though the soldiers probably used their socks – hopefully before they were worn. I pushed down on the nettles with a plastic spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as I could, this collected in another large bucket underneath. Once I had separated all the nettles from the liquid and the two boiling pots were empty I poured the nettle juice into the ‘SRD’ ceramic jar along with a pound of sugar. Closing the top I gave it a good shake to dissolve all the sugar. When it was just lukewarm I poured some of the fermenting mix from the starter bottle only partially closing the top (otherwise the carbon dioxide produced will not escape and something will blow). I did not have much luck the last time I used this jar when I made Ginger Wine in it. The Jar originally had a wooden tap in the bottom of it and though old it worked perfectly well. Ginger Wine has a gorgeous smell though it is beyond mans capabilities to smell this when it is in the Jar, dogs however can and when I left the house one day I came back to find a lovely smell in the air, a hideous mess on the floor along with the chewed up remains of the tap and a drunk Lurcher.
   Back again to the bread beer. Because I cannot bring this to the boil it has to be left to steep in the bucket with the bread for one week, then it will be squeezed out like the nettles. This does not mean however that it cannot ferment, in fact it is safer to do so because the rising carbon dioxide helps keep off nasties that may spoil the brew. Once again I throw in a pound of sugar and give this a good stir. Once it is lukewarm in goes some of the fermenting liquid from the starter bottle and the bucket is covered.
   The bread beer seems the most promising at this stage as it smells most palatable. I could not resist a little taste and it tasted pretty much the way I expected. The nettle beer did not smell very nice, though not horrible it was a long way from pleasant and certainly did not smell like something you would want to drink. The taste was somewhat strange and it was a weird green/gold colour so I can say at this stage I do not get this one but time may prove me wrong. It will probably be another 3 weeks before it has finished fermenting and I will update you all again then.

Thanks for looking in, Alan.

P.S one last thing, the left over nettles make an exellent soup when put with a potato, onions and stock. This will give about a dozen servings! Bubble and Squeek can also be made from them if you crack some eggs into them, add potato and onion and wack it in the frying pan - both very healthy iron rich meals.