Early American Ginger Beer - 18th Century Cooking 

If you were my history teacher I would have stayed in school for my entire life.

I love watching this guys videos he's like the bob ross of 18th century cooking

Mr. Townsend sir, I want to tell you how much I like your show and how much it helps at times a great stress, recently due to my son's being hospitalized I had a hard time trying to sleep and it's not that you're boring it's just that your voice is very soothing and you have a joy de vivre in your voice a joy in your voice when you speak and that is very relaxing and soothing almost like a lullaby and I listen to you making this drink which I'm very interested in making for myself; I found that I had the best short cat nap it felt like hours okay, I had not had sleep like that in days, so again a thank you for having such a personality that it literally comes forth not just in the way you make things, but literally through the media in a amazingly soothing comforting manner that is almost as comforting as the food or drink would be.

A lot of people I have met who lived in the mountains of northern BC, made variations on the theme of green beer. Some of which were not bad. Most were better if bottled and aged in the root cellar. I was told by an old Polish fellow who made beer, wine, and vodka, that the big five gallon glass jugs he used would occasionally explode in the summer. We had no electricity, so no fridges. The Polish fellow even grew his own hops. His beer was the first beer I had ever had that contained no hops, at all. I was most surprised as I thought the hops taste was the normal taste of beer. I was surprised and had to learn to like some of it. Ginger beer, required no taste adjustments to like. He made wine from any eatable berries that grew in the mountains, especially black berries and goose berries. I don't care for goose berries but he made a very drinkable white wine from them. White with a slight green shade, very like the goose berries themselves. The European hermits up there were much better at booze making than the Canadian and American hermits and prospectors.

I love your enthusiasm about history mr. Townsend, thank you for sharing your passion with us.

I've been making it roughtly this way (EU guide for smaller amounts): 2l of water 3-4 tablespoons of dried ginger 180ml demerara sugar 180ml dark syrup OR maple syrup 3-400ml of liquid yeast starter made from dates* Leave it out for 2 days to make sure the yeast can act, then strain bottle and refrigerate. Let out air now and then. It's good! * "date beer" - I buy dates in a cardboard and paper wrap, leave them from many months to ensure they have the misty yeast look on their surface then let them sit in 4-500ml water, covered with a cloth. After it starts bubbling, drain off the top half of the water every 2-3 days and add alittle honey, to keep the yeast alive. I do this for a week or two to make sure the yeast has beaten the bacteria. Makes a really nice sweet starter for this and for bread.

Not sure if anyone has commented yet, Mr Townsend -- what you need to look for in a modern grocery store is "fancy molasses", which will not have the sulpherous component of "black strap". ^_^

Thankyou Mr Townsend!

Love your channel. So much forgotten history is found again right here.

I've home-brewed for years and have made a couple of ginger beers with more sophisticated methods but now I want to do it in a historical method. This was fantastic watching. I have really enjoyed your videos.

I know modern fermenters talk about "burping" their containers to prevent over-pressurization (i.e. opening the lids on the containers periodically to allow some of the gas to escape). Maybe that's how they managed in the past as well?

Your videos are way better than Netflix. I’m gonna make this!

1 gallon spring water 1 pound molasses (about 366 ml) Or if using black strap 8oz and 8oz sugar 1oz powdered ginger Optional- about 2oz diced ginger root And of course the yeast

Finally got around to trying this. Note to self... Doesn't need the diced fresh ginger! Otherwise it's great. I used 12 oz. full flavor molasses and made up the difference with brown sugar.

How exciting! Can’t wait to get started! Thank you!

I love your videos and I really appreciate all the work and research that goes into your channel. Again thank you.

I love Turbinado Sugar, I use it in my coffee and tea.

i doctored the recipe a little bit-- i used half a cup of blackstrap molasses, a full 8oz of dark brown sugar, and I doubled the amount of ginger, with some of it grated in rather than chopped. It ended up being a really strong ginger flavor with a great afterburn but really smooth and sweet without any of the bitter molasses flavor you get with the original recipe. the champagne yeast is definitely the way to go in my opinion, i liked the result a lot better than beer yeast-- a cleaner flavor and finer bubbles. The altered recipe is def something i'm going to use to make dark 'n stormies!

FWIW, Canadians reading this, you can get "debittered brewer's yeast" from Bulk Barn

According to Brad Leone of Bon Appetit who does a lot of fermentation stuff, kombucha bottles are all fermentation grade so just buy a few bottles and experiment cheap.

Lemon in any brew is to make it easier for yeasts to start working. Yeast preffer acidic brew.

Can’t wait to try making my own beer. This will be fun!

Needs moar nutmeg

Thank you so much for these enriching videos, great history and cooking lessons.

You can use modern bread yeast for beer and this "ginger beer". Bread yeast originally was the same thing as brewer's yeast. Whether or not the strains since isolated and sold as bread yeast are a continuation of the same yeasts, I'm not sure. All I know is that bread yeast works for beer. Also I do not recommend fermenting any beverage like this other than for historical reasons. Doing it this way can easily explode bottles, and if you drink it within a week it'll have very little alcohol. Putting it in the fridge will likely stall fermentation entirely. Put it in a demijohn or bucket with a stopper or lid and an airlock. Let it ferment out in this vessel. Then bottle the fermented beverage with some sugar to carbonate it. There are calculators online that will tell you how much sugar to use.

Yum! TY Jon🍻🤘

Very informative video. Highly appreciate it.

I'm currently making something very similar that I started about a week ago - Ginger Mead. I tasted it after 5 days of fermenting, when it reached about 4% ABV, and it's really, really delicious! Still too sweet for me, though, so I'm going to let it ferment down to dry or nearly dry. I didn't make a ginger 'tea' before, I still have the chunks of ginger floating around in the brew, and will let them soak until fermentation is complete.

A wee bit of the previous batch makes a fine starter too.

Very interesting presentation... Loved watching this.👍

If you DO want it to last in storage... let it finish working. Then just before you cork/cap the bottle, throw in a tiny bit of sugar (.5tsp-1tsp or so). There's still going to be enough yeast in the solution that the added bit of sugar will take care of carbonation. I would imagine the "Green Beer" is somewhat sweeter, however less in alcohol content in that the whole idea is that the yeast is turning the sugar into alcohol. Decades ago, Grandpa and I used to make lots and lots of similar stuff in 5gl batches. Than after being gone for a couple decades in the military, I came home in the 2000's to a whole movement of amateur beer making involving all kinds of (typically) expensive equipment... I was all like, geez people, all you need is a stoneware crock and some cheesecloth!

Looks great, have to try it.

As soon as we stop sailing we'll give it a whirl!

Very cool I hope to try it some day.

Ok West Philly is in the house I knew something drew me to this page other than my obsession for Ginger Beer🍻!for it's healing properties well maybe not with Alcohol!

Try using Sorghum syrup it is lighter than molasses but it is darker than cane syrup and a bit sweeter.....

Lovely Thank You

ferment for 3 days before bottling and that will use up most of the sugar. Then you dont have to worry about exploding bottles.

I remember my granddad telling about making root beer. She would put it in a closet. And let it brew. She for hot about it for about 6 months. Holidays hit Grandma found it. They the adults tried it. They said kids couldn't have it. 1 bottle was enough to make you drunk. She made 60 some bottles.

Great videos, great quality with brewing and history, my fave subjects.. :)

Funnily enough when ever I brew I use Fleischmanns instant dry yeast and usually get good results the key is to not use an assload and it helps if you add nutrients, surprisingly enough Fleischmanns can actually give you a fair amount of alcohol and decent carbonation.

I really want to try an alehoof beer or maybe even something like a forest sorrel beer.

During the Taste Testing portion of the video, were there several Takes or Cuts? As I was watching, it seamed to me, that your Smile just gets Bigger & Bigger as you finished the video!

This is the coolest dude on RU-vid i swear

John, could you make a gingerbread recipe? The cake loaf type, not the cookie type. Thank you.

Ginger becomes more spicy the older it gets, so one could plan ahead with purchasing and aging ginger. However, if it becomes too soft and spongy over an extended period of time, peeling can become unfeasible and crude slicing off of the skin might be the only solution before dicing very well aged ginger.

Thanks Man, am growing ginger this year. Three guesses why....

great shows

Making this!

YUM ! GOT TO M THANKS ! ! !

I will try this with wine emptins.. let's see how it goes

this looks like mexican tepache. The differences being that instead of yeast they use pineapple peel and instead of molasses they use piloncillo. But it is pretty much the same thing.

Now we kwon what it was in Nashville. An East Bonn.

Molasses is for food for the yeast/bubbles/alcohol. Ginger is instead of hops...

How Fantastic! I must make some of my own!

Yay for Indiana

Why is molasses spelled with f's (Moloffes at 1:21)? Looks like yeast is spelled "yeaft," also.

There’s a reason ol’ timers would tie a rope around their jugs and toss them in the river. It kept their ale cool!

god i love your pot ,its so awsome and man could i use it for a lot of things.

Tried this recipe. Made a mess. Still fun. Only thing. Only place that I could find light baking molasses was Amazon. Pricey but worth it. A couple of places have molasses powder for baking supposedly serving the same purpose. They have other ingredients to make the powder that made me choose the Amazon product. My nephew thought he was a big boy drinking ginger beer with the guys fishing.

Great video

How long I can keep the beer in the bottle? At a cold place in basement for example? Greatings from germany 👍

I think I'm finding my future carrier in this video

Any idea what the alcohol content on this would be?

Love the 🍺..thanks for making this video

So you've said in another video that maple syrup used to be referred to as maple molasses in the 18/19th century, so would it be that maple syrup could substitute for the lighter molasseses that are harder to find today?

Hi Sir, Great Video! How can i make a non-alcoholic version?

My favorite soda….bestevar

"I really like ginger." Yeah bud, we know that you were thinking of nutmeg when you said that.

I just love this guy. He is like a colonial Mr. Rogers. Thank you Mr. Townsend for being so awesome and positive. 😁

if you try this, please learn from (my) mistake: filter well before bottling this. I took a paper towl and strained it through, but only for one bottle as it took a while. For the others i didn't. Now that one bottle was wonderful when opening it, the others however double as a fire extinguisher, as they don't just bubble and foam over, but shoot foam everywhere. in your face? yes. All over your shelf? yes. Across the goddam room all over the walls, and even into the next room? Yes. Did i slip on the floor afterwards? yes. So it tastes wonderful, try it, its little effort and cheap and easy to make (look for beer bottles with a flip top thingy) i can highly recommend you try this

This is the only man that can bring me down to my peaceful place after the worst day of all time

I grew up in the Appalachians and my dad used to make sassafrass tea when I was a kid. This video reminds me of him. Thanks so much for bringing back the memory.

In the past it was common to use "ginger bug" as well. A lot of farmers would make this instead of running to the brewers because they lived too far away. Ginger bug is essentially ginger, sugar, and water. Ginger naturally attracts good yeast from the air. Essentially, have a thumb sized piece of ginger with three tablespoons of sugar with about a cup of water. Let it sit 1 day. Then add a small piece of ginger and sugar each day for 3 days. By the third day, you should notice some bubbles. That is the alcohol. You can then put it in the fridge and just add a little ginger and sugar each week. Then you can just use it like the barm. This style of beer is actually a traditional "ale" rather than the lagers most people drink today. Hence where "ginger ale" came from.

This recipe is for my metric friends: (I rounded off the values.) 1 gallon water = (3.8) 4L water 8oz molasses = (236) 240ml molasses 8oz sugar = (226) 230g sugar 1oz powdered ginger = (28) 30 g powdered ginger 1 ginger root (diced) 1 lemon and a little bit yeast after the boiling You're welcome! :)

Dad used to tell the story about his grandmother's bathtub beer bottles exploding and making the whole house smell like beer. This was during Prohibition.

Industrialization was definitely great in that it drove prices down, made products more available, as well as saved people time, and gave people the chance to buy a known, consistent flavor. The downside is now people rely on mass-manufactured goods so much that we seem to almost be on the brink of forgetting how to do things for ourselves. I think this is why channels like this are so incredibly important, so that we can preserve history, and increase our own self-reliance. Besides, if you know how to cook things yourself, you can actually make food that suits your tastes far better than any fancy restaurant or name brand item. My friends always asked me why I never went out to eat, and so one evening I prepared them a home cooked feast, and all of them had the same reaction of, "OMG... I didn't know food could taste this good!" I prepared each person's meal to suit their particular taste, and afterwards I offered to teach them how to make the dishes they so enjoyed. Best part is, most of it was 1/4th or less the price to make at home you'd pay at a fancy restaurant. They no longer ask me why I don't go out to eat. Especially homemade maki rolls. It's so cheap to make your own, and as long as you have good ingredients and keep your knife VERY sharp and lightly coated with olive oil, it's a cinch to make... actually, that applies to many foods! Get a high quality high carbon steel kitchen knife, learn how to sharpen it with proper high grit ceramic stones (I like 3,000 and 8,000 grit), and hone it on a quality leather strop. If you can't push-slice a tomato so thin that you can read newspaper through it, your blade is dull in my book.

Sarsaparilla Root Beer would be really interesting to learn about!

I’ve been on RU-vid for most of my life, and I think I’ve just found my favourite channel.

This man always flexing on us with the fits

My granduncle taught me to make malt liquor in a butter churn,with malt syrup and bread yeast.We bottled them up in 6oz glass coke bottles with a capping press! If you got in a hurry and bottled up before the yeast was through , things got LOUD in few days!Sometimes they explode on opening and hose the ceiling lol so we had a yard only opening policy! Do not know the 'proof' when finished but two of those lil'bottles would get you knee walking and climbing the grass lol.

I have tried adding cinnamon and *nutmeg* to my home-made ginger beer using 50/50 white/brown sugar. It tasted like hot-cross buns in a glass.

Oenologist and Alcoholic Beverages Technologist here, and you mentioned the most important thing people typically fail to realize, and that's that beer quality is, indeed, inherently tied to your water quality! Excellent video in all, but I reality wanted to emphasize that point. Kudos!

I LOVE this video as I love all of your videos! My family is from Germany and they made their own beer and wine, they actually had a winery. They lived in the Black Forest and apparently they stored all of their bottled beer in a cold stream. This was the beer that was for home use. Germans love their beer. They also had other refrigeration methods that I didn't quite understand using ice and salt in some special cellar. We are talking about the early 1900's and 1800's and cold and rainy Germany. I spoke to numerous old (and since passed) relatives (I am 66) and this was apparently common practice. This may add a little information to "How they did that..." information.

Cookery with the possibility of explosions. Exciting!

Such a wonderful presentation, Jon and crew. So enjoyable it would be easy to miss how scholarly the translation of these old recipes are. Without the work of Townsends, only historians would know the actual ingredients.

Now all you need is some ice, vodka, and lime juice and a nice copper cup to drink it from.

If you’re refrigerating right away, you’re “cold shocking “ the yeast. It goes dormant.

The lemon is there to brighten the flavor. It's a very old cooking trick. If you have ingredients with little acidity, you add something acidic (lemon, vinegar etc). Whenever your dish tastes flat or dull, a little dash of acidity will elevate the flavor and brighten things up. There's no need to add much - just a dash will do. Apparently they knew back then.

Scratch-made ginger beer has been one of my favorite culinary adventures. I used champaigne yeast, molasses, and some lime juice to get a flavor I really loved. I also doubled the ginger, because ginger is fantastic.

An episode about spruce beer would be very interesting I think.

I love ginger beer and I've made it at home before. One thing I usually add to the bach is one or two cloves. It really compliments the flavor!

We just cracked a bottle of this recipe :D got a little excited and didn't filter it as good as we should have but WOW ! We'll be doing it again :D

I wanna find something, anything to be as passionate about as this man is with historical foods and food practices. He radiates happiness like Bob Ross, you can tell his life has purpose.

I love making ginger beer and always like new recipes. One of the things I like about it is nothing goes to waste. If you take the pieces of ginger left over after boiling and coat them in sugar, they can be dried and make ginger candy out of them. I have even added the leftovers to ginger bread for a unique twist.

Ginger Beer, the pumpkin spice latte of its time

Now all you need is a pile of Scottish eggs and some mustard.

1 gallon Water 8 oz Molasses 8 oz Sugar 1 oz Powder Ginger 2 oz Fresh Ginger (diced or mashed) 1 Lemon (squeezed and zested) Step 1: Add all ingredients to a large pot and boil for up to an hour. Step 2: Let pot cool to blood temp, then strain and keep the liquid. Step 3: Add yeast of choice and let ferment at room temp for 12-16 hours. Step 4: Bottle fermented liquid and refrigerate or cellar immediately. Note: Sorghum is a great substitute for molasses. Its flavor is a cross between honey and molasses.

1:57 "the rising particles taken off at the Bung-Hole" 👌.

Pro tip: go to an Asian market for fresh ginger it is usually far cheaper than most grocery stores.