Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

As a home brewer who brews both beer and cider, I found this fascinating.

In particular, it is interesting that there is a suggestion that brewing alcoholic beverages was in part a way to fight cholera and other water-born maladies.

Not sure who is running the home brew ping list...

1 posted on 09/05/2012 3:10:09 AM PDT by djf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies ]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-38 next last
To: djf; Red_Devil 232

Ping!


2 posted on 09/05/2012 3:13:54 AM PDT by who knows what evil? (G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

Back in the 70’s and early 80’s we made a barrel of it a year. We were forced to quit when the 2nd cider mill closed. Now the wife use’s our 2 oak barrels for house planters.


3 posted on 09/05/2012 3:15:41 AM PDT by exPBRrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

Very interesting.

As a teen I made hard cider by adding yeast and sugar to those big glass jugs of apple juice.


5 posted on 09/05/2012 3:30:03 AM PDT by Yardstick
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

“...there is a suggestion that brewing alcoholic beverages was in part a way to fight cholera and other water-born maladies.”

Yes, I thought of that once when I was reading a novel and realized that everyone was drinking “ale” all day, or tea, nobody drank water. Then I realized the water was probably pretty dirty, so you either had to boil it or ferment it to get rid of the germs.


6 posted on 09/05/2012 3:31:41 AM PDT by jocon307
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

Seems obvious that people got turned off to hard cider because of all the wasps hanging around it.


7 posted on 09/05/2012 3:32:31 AM PDT by Misterioso (The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it. - Ayn Rand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

And in other news.. http://www.voanews.com/content/taste-for-hard-cider-grows-in-us/1483936.html

MIDDLEBURY, Vermont — More Americans are quenching their thirst with hard cider. In 2011, U.S. sales of the alcoholic beverage made of fermented apple juice were up 20 percent over the previous year, according to the U.S.-based Beer Institute.

There were about 5.6 million cases of hard cider sold in the U.S. in 2011. At the same time, mainstream beer sales are down.


11 posted on 09/05/2012 3:40:04 AM PDT by jb729
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

I was aware that the Colonists drank gallons of the stuff but just recently discovered it for myself and I must say I’m hooked. I love Woodchuck Cider’s Granny Apple (please don’t post if Woodchuck’s a liberal company=-they’re from Vermont so I have my suspicions but they keep it off their Facebook page and they taste good).


13 posted on 09/05/2012 3:44:10 AM PDT by chargers fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

I don’t remember ever seeing commercial cider but the home made stuff was common when I was a kid back in the ‘50s.
The small town I lived in had Halloween parties, held on our biggest parking lot. Two large wooden barrels were set up, one of apple juice for the kids and one of hard cider for adults. Once the cider took affect no one seemed to notice that kids would draw from the cider barrel.


16 posted on 09/05/2012 3:47:57 AM PDT by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf
That the white working class American male is stereotypically referred to as "Joe Six-pack" is but one example of the dominance of beer as lower and middle- class America's preferred alcoholic beverage.

Wait a second. I'm about as low class as you can get, and my poison of choice is a dry martini, classic, of the Bombay or Bombay Sapphire persuasion...three queen olives, of course.

17 posted on 09/05/2012 3:49:50 AM PDT by stevem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

I ferment up at least one batch a year.


18 posted on 09/05/2012 3:50:59 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

I’ve brewed so much hard cider over the past years that I’m about sick of it...which is good because the apple harvest in NW Ohio was ruined this year by a late frost and generally unfavorable weather so obtaining the base cider is going to be expensive. I’ve got a dozen champagne bottles ready for bottle fermentation though so I may pay the price just to make some good sparkling cider. Oh, and if you haven’t tried Laird’s apple brandy and apple jack you ought to. That’s what cider was always all about. It’s much much tastier than corn liquor IMHO.


20 posted on 09/05/2012 3:59:12 AM PDT by RC one
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf; quantim; spinestein; 5Madman2; DTogo; Horatio Gates; Ribeye; decal; B Knotts; doodad; ...

Ping the homebrewing list.

Interesting article on Hard Cider.

I don’t think I have ever had a hard cider. I would love to try it someday!

Below is a link to info on making a home brew cider. There as some very interesting comments below the article.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Brew-Hard-Cider-from-Scratch/


23 posted on 09/05/2012 4:03:14 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

“Beer is without question, like Pizza, Madonna, and fast cars, an icon of modern American culture.”

You lost me at “Madonna”


28 posted on 09/05/2012 4:15:03 AM PDT by lowbridge (Joe Biden: "Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

I don’t think one major contribution was mentioned in the article: Marketing.

Around 1840 or so I suspect newspapers were becoming more popular and affordable. With the influx of German immigrants I bet there were lots of ads featuring buxom Bavarian beer babes holding big mugs of frothy brew. That sounds silly but beer ads seem so much more alluring then cider ads.


29 posted on 09/05/2012 4:18:54 AM PDT by RadiationRomeo (Step into my mind and glimpse the madness that is me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

Apple jack, beef jerky and barbeque baked beans would keep me happy most winter nights. If one of you brewers will invite me over I’ll bring the jerky.


31 posted on 09/05/2012 4:20:49 AM PDT by outofsalt ("If History teaches us anything it's that history rarely teaches us anything")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: JoeSixPack

PING


33 posted on 09/05/2012 4:24:52 AM PDT by Fester Chugabrew (Kyrie Eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf
I like to drink this, and buy it by the case. But like everything else the price has gone up.
35 posted on 09/05/2012 4:26:15 AM PDT by KeyLargo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

37 posted on 09/05/2012 4:30:32 AM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet - Mater tua caligas exercitus gerit ;-{)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf
"Madonna, ... an icon of modern American culture"


38 posted on 09/05/2012 4:33:13 AM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet - Mater tua caligas exercitus gerit ;-{)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: djf

41 posted on 09/05/2012 4:38:06 AM PDT by AndrewB (FUBO)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-38 next last

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson