response 1 of 15:

Jan 5 23:31 UTC 1993

(In response to further questions:)

Unfortunately, most interest groups meet on weekday evenings.  The IMAS
and fighting practice are the only two regular activities I can think
of that usually meet on weekends.

Smithing: there's the Institute for Medieval Arts and Sciences, a group
who has shop space available for various crafts.  Some do metalworking,
but I don't know if they have a forge.  Try Gunnbjorn, (Mike Rosecrans)
517 764-5118 -- he's a member or knows those what are.

In fact, call him for general info.  He's Cynnabar's Castellan, the
officer responsible for orienting newcomers.

Fighting practice is at the Student Theater Arts Complex on Sundays, if
someone is willing to open it.  Try David Hoornstra (Daibhid), at
996-4290.  He'll know more than I.

Dancing has been held as a Monday evening workshop once a month.

Music practice is usually Tuesday nights -- Aldric (Glenn McGregor),
426-3506.

There will soon be a Domesday Book, wherein all the shire members can
list their interests.  Tanwyn (glenda@grex) can give more info.

There's the Bedlam Players, a performance group, that meets on Thursday
evenings.  Very informal, some medieval material and some modern.  Ask
me (Tim McDaniel, 677-4386, or mcdaniel@grex) for more info.

Heraldic consulting is done on some Friday evenings -- names and armory
consulting and conflict checking.  Call Aureliane (Jean-Marie),
996-4290.

-- 
Daniel of Lincoln, Burgh of Cynnabar / Tim McDaniel
Internet: mcdaniel@{grex,m-net}.ann-arbor.mi.us, mcdaniel@adi.com

response 3 of 15:

Aug 10 08:29 UTC 1993

Could someone maybe send me one of the newsletters and some other
information....?  I would really like to get involved.  When I started up at
EMU I intended to get involved, but haven't been able to exactly find you... 
My friend Kate Crosby goes to the meetings on Mondays...  I would just like a
little bit more info myself....

response 5 of 15:

Sep 25 19:21 UTC 1993

Rkard Gorm was here.

response 7 of 15:

May 23 07:13 UTC 1994

I assume you have mentioned this at a meeting?a

response 9 of 15:

May 24 08:57 UTC 1994

I tried to abort that last entry.  I wouldn't worry about telling people
until after pennsic, or right before you go.

/

response 11 of 15:

Jun 10 04:33 UTC 1995

       B R E W I N G   A N D   V I N T N I N G

 
Introduction

Let me first introduce myself. My name is Lynne Jones, I live and work
in Detroit. If you meet me within the Society, I am Elwnnyd ver'Rhys of
Gwynedd. (Northern Wales, pre-Edwardian conquest) My pastimes include
cardweaving, cooking and collecting books. I volunteered to do a Monday
workshop on Brewing and Vintning. Much of my inspiration and practical
knowledge of these particular arts comes from a former resident of our
Shire (and master vintner), Tzvi ben Avraham.  (House Inertia and the
Inertial B.&V. Guild are now part of Cynnabar's ancient history.)
Our local Brewing and Vintning Guild has been dormant for a few years,
but I hope there might be some fresh interest in this noble craft.

What is the history of Brewing and Vintning?

Fermented beverages have a very old history. Mead was probably the first
fermented beverage, since diluted honey spontaneously ferments into a
honey wine, and diluted honey is a by-product of extracting beeswax from
the comb. Honey has long been prized as a source of concentrated sugar.
Grape juice can also spontaneously ferment into wine. (Honey and grapes
contain wild yeast.) Beer making, a much more involved process, was
practiced by many ancient civilizations. Some of the early Egyptian
hieroglyphics show brewing.

Fermentation permits storage and preservation of perishable food stuffs
until the next harvest. Distilled beverages are a later development.
Many of the earliest cordials were developed as a way to concentrate and
preserve the medicinal properties of herbs. They would usually start
with a wine. Many herbs were infused during fermentation, while spices
(seed, barks and woody roots) were often added during or after the
distillation.

Does the Society practise "period" B.&V.?

Modern laws on home distillation restrict the cordial making techniques
used within the Known World. Cordials are a fortified drink. The only
legal way to increase the alcoholic strength of a cordial is by adding
to it spirit on which excise tax has been paid. Therefore many "period"
techniques are illegal. Most beer and wine makers within our Society
also choose modern methods. One reason I encourage modern fermentation
techniques is because the wild yeasts found in North America are
different from those found in Europe and England. Permitting spontaneous
fermentation of the must or wort will not give the style of drink
desired. Because of this (and for related health reasons) the Brewer's
and Vintner's Guild competitions focus on the drink produced rather than
the technique behind it. Studying the history of B.&V. will help the
beginner understand which styles of drink she should keep as her goal.

What is fermentation?

Although modern brewers can better control the outcome of fermentation,
the desired process is unchanged. (Some organisms which compete with
yeast produce less desirable products, like vinegar.) Yeast turns sugar
into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Start with a sugar solution, discourage
bacteria by adding a little acid, or by boiling it, then add yeast. (This
liquid is called the "wort" for beer and the "must" for wine.) The dregs of
a finished batch of beer or wine will usually contain more than enough
yeast and nutrients to get a new batch started. Wine is fermented grape (or
other fruit) juice, mead is fermented honey, ale is fermented malted grain,
and beer is ale bittered with hops. Beers and ales are lower in alcohol
than wines because they start out with less sugar. 

Why ferment?

Remember that one of the reasons for producing these drinks was to preserve
and store the fruit or grain. (These beverages were an important source of
B-family vitamins, especially during the winter months.) Desirable
microorganisms (yeast) help prevent spoilage. Pressing the juice from
the fruit concentrates some of the nutrients and reduces the volume to be
stored. The acid in wine musts slows bacterial spoilage and encourages
yeast growth.  Honey does not need preservation. (It is too high in sugar
for yeast or bacteria to grow.) Mead is a way of reclaiming the leftover
honey-water after the comb is processed. This water has usually been heated
long enough to kill most contaminants. Mead keeps very well, unlike wine,
it does not tend to become harsh when oxidized. "Old mead" was reserved for
special occasions. Beer and ale do not keep as well because they are lower
in acid and in alcohol.  Malting, roasting and mashing grain extracts the
starches and nutrients, and converts some of the starch into sugar. It also
gets rid of most pre-existing contaminants. Hops and bittering herbs
contain compounds that naturally stabilize and preserve the brew. Usually
only mead could be kept for much more than a year without turning into
vinegar, but even that vinegar was useful for preserving other foods.

What was fermented where and why?

Historically, the local drink was influenced by agricultural as well as
social conditions. France, Spain and Italy, all have grape growing
regions, while the more northern and eastern European nations are better
suited to cereal growth. Wine grapes need a fairly long, warm growing
season, but thrive on soil that is ill-suited for other crops. Bees do
best in partially wooded regions that are not intensively cultivated.
Wine is historically the preferred beverage, although mead was a
favoured drink of the Romans. (Mead is a luxury drink where wine
producton is possible. Honey was too important as sugar for large scale
mead making.)

Beer is found mainly in areas where vintning is not feasible. The area
north and east of the wine growing region is sometimes referred to as the
"beer belt". Being lower in alcohol, beer is traditionally a lower class
drink. Efficient malting and mashing grain actually require fairly
sophisticated techniques. These require trained brewers and are most
economical when there is an excess of grain.  In England, beer and ale
displaced mead once the Brewer's Guild organized large scale malting
operations.

Cordials

B.&V. also includes cordial making, which can use fruits, herbs, nuts
and spices to flavour liquor. In medieval times this usually meant
distilling the alcohol; very different flavors resulted from different
distillation techniques. The product was often medicinal. Even today,
cordials (also known as apertifs or liquers) are commonly sipped after
the meal as an aid to digestion. The best known cordials were often
produced by monsteries. Benedictine, Chartreuse and Frangelico are all
adapted from recipes which date to the Middle Ages. Vermouth is another
modern drink based on medieval cordials. Cordial making requires almost
no special equipment, and is an easy introduction to brewing and
vintning.

Mead

Starting at the beginning -- what is mead? A purist's definition is
diluted honey, fermented by yeast. The proper names for some of the more
common variants follow. Cyser is fermented cider and honey, metheglin is
dry or sweet mead flavored with herbs, sack mead is a heavy sweet mead
(usually aged for a couple of years), and melomel is a fruit based mead
(piment being grape melomel, perry pear melomel and morath mulberry
melomel).  Hippocras is a heavily spiced piment. Almost any of the above
can also be made as a sparkling mead. As honey became more costly in the
later Middle Ages, English mead makers sometimes supplemented the honey
with malted barley; this was called bracket or "mead ale". In the Welsh
laws, the guidelines for dispensing drink describe one serving being a
full vessel of ale, half a vessel of bracket, or a vessel one third full
of mead. (I am not discussing wine, because I have done very little
research on it.)

Fermenting Grain

Now let's quickly cover ale and beer. As mentioned above I do not brew
my own beer. If you want to make beer, and can't find another local
brewer, I have some of the equipment and can trouble shoot recipes. I
won't baby-sit the fermentation. Beer ferments quickly and somewhat
violently. The timetable is much tighter than that for mead making.
Bottling is also fussier. Unlike most wine, beer is usually carbonated,
and because it is typically lower in alcohol (3-7%) it will not keep as
long. Historically, a grain-based brew was called beer when hops were
used and ale when they were not. Lager is a modern style of beer; it
uses a strain of yeast which ferments at low temperatures. Sake is also
a beer, but one beyond the scope of this article.

Both ale and beer are made from grain. The grain starch has to be
converted to sugars before the yeast can make alcohol. This is done by
malting and mashing. For beginning homebrewers, I would strongly
recommend starting with canned or dried malt extract. There are many
ways to play with different styles of beer by varying types of extract,
strains of hops and their boiling times. Along with giving beer its
characteristic bitter flavor and aroma, hops significantly help
stabilize, clarify and preserve the brew. The early English ales used
jealously guarded blends of different herbs as preservatives. When hops
were first introduced to England, the Brewer's Guilds petitioned to have
their use and cultivation restricted, because they so simplified the
brewing process. 

Cordial Making

In cordial making, time, temperature, and alcohol content are all
important variables in determining which flavor components are
extracted. As mentioned earlier, period distillation techniques are not
permitted. This limits the cordials made, but still allows plenty of
room for enjoyable experimentation. Home cordial makers can fortify a
homemade wine or a herbal infusion with grain alcohol and then sweeten
it to taste with a sugar or honey sirop. They can also make a basic
fruit cordial by alternately layering fresh fruit and sugar in a jar and
then covering with liquor. Shake periodically, and after three to six
months, strain the liquor off the fruit. Most cordials need several
additional months of aging to let the flavors blend. Blends of different
herbs and spices with a white wine or a brandy base will give an
"authentic" character. Different brands of sweet and dry vermouths may
also serve as guidelines. 

response 13 of 15:

Jun 19 21:04 UTC 1995

Oscad,

What kind of a drink is kumos (sp?)?

        Pattie

response 15 of 15:

Jul 3 03:06 UTC 1995

Chris is coming TEN?  Good grief I'm getting old- I remember him at 4 and 5.
Sigh.
Lynn, nice article- clear and well written.