Frosty adult beverages....

snuffy19608

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Feb 26, 2013
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Reading. Pa.
Did soldiers in the ACW enjoy beer? If so, what kinds/varieties? I was thinking of trying home brewing, and might as well make a beverage to go with the hardtack.
 
I thought they could get beer from the sutler? I think they also got it anywhere along the road they could! But I did hear something vague about some having brewed their own, and hard cider was fairly plentiful too. Remember one guy writing about having a dinner of steamed clams and cold lager. The Germans, by the way, tended to have ample supplies of beer - don't know if their commanders ordered it or they made it themselves!
 
In the 1862 Sioux Uprising, 190 buildings in New Ulm, MN were burned. The Dakota warriors spared the August Schell Brewery (still in existence). They were thinking ahead. :D

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In the 1862 Sioux Uprising, 190 buildings in New Ulm, MN were burned. The Dakota warriors spared the August Schell Brewery (still in existence). They were thinking ahead. :D

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Hmm... You don't suppose Schell gave them 'samples' before the uprising, do you? :smoke: Never heard of warriors tossing the plate they eat off of!
 
One thing to keep in mind is that the meaning of the word "beer" has changed. Today, it's usually considered synonymous with "lager beer," but in the period, lager beer had been introduced to the US only a few decades earlier and was still spreading out from German-dominated areas. One problem was that before pasteurization of bottles was understood, it couldn't be bottled and shipped long distances, so that kept it closer to German immigrant areas that could support a lager beer brewery.

More on that from http://www.sha.org/bottle/beer.htm
In the early 1870s, the process of pasteurization was applied to beer bottling allowing the increasingly popular lighter (in color and body) lager beers to be bottled and transported long distances without spoilage - something impossible before that time (Wilson 1981). Pasteurization in hand with the invention of improved closures like the Lightning stopper and later the crown cap (which both replaced the less reliable wired down cork), more accommodating laws related to brewing, improved transportation systems, and a growing taste of Americans for lager beers, allowed bottled beer to become big business throughout the country. Nationally distributed beers, led by the innovative Anheuser-Busch Company, began to make their way across the country by 1872 or 1873 ( Anderson 1973; Wilson 1981). The ability to pasteurize and ship beer long distances diminished the importance of local breweries with its reliance on kegs and draught beer. This was so innovative that the Anheuser-Busch beer bottles shipped to the West proudly proclaimed on their labels that their beer would "Keep In Any Climate."

So "beer" in the period might refer to a variety of beverages that weren't lager beer. The usage still remains in "root beer" today, but in the period, beer might refer to any flavored, briefly fermented beverage: ginger beer, birch beer, persimmon beer, etc. The carbonation was usually achieved by fermentation, but there were also recipes for soda-based (alkali and acid) carbonation. These beers also weren't transported long distances, but could be made much more quickly than lager beer, within a day or two if necessary, and so could be made and sold almost anywhere. The alcohol content could range from less than half a percent to a few percentage points.

There are lots of beer recipes in period cookbooks. For example:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=b...34,d.aWc&fp=10f3e028abef2cad&biw=1056&bih=545

Though that search is for ginger beer, there will be recipes for a variety of different beers in each book.

Like anything else, historic context makes the difference. A regiment stationed in a German area, or a German regiment with access to request whatever they want, could have lager beer. A non-German regiment far from a German-immigrant area would be more likely to have access to ginger beer or another kind.
 
Recipes from 1863 Confederate Cook Book. ( This Reprint of the book.)

"Table Beer. To eight quarts of boiling water put a pound of treacle, a quarter of an ounce of ginger and two bay leaves, let this boil for a quarter of an hour, then cook and work it with yeast as other beer."

"Another Recipe. Eight quarts water, one quart molasses, one pint yeast, one tablespoonful cream of tarter, mixed and bottled in twenty-four hours; or, to two pounds of coarse brown sugar add two gallons of water, and nearly two ounces of hops. Let the whole boil three quarters of an hour, and then work as usual. It should stand a week or ten days before being drawn and will improve daily afterward for a moderate time."


From: "Confederate Receipt Book, A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts Adapted To The Times",. This copy reprinted 1990 from Pioneer Press, Union City, Tn.
 
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