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In case you’re wondering, here’s the recipe
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George Washington’s Small Beer Recipe, transcribed by New York Public Library
Ingredients
A large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste
3 Gall[ons] Molasses
A quart of Yea[s]t
Directions
Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler.
Put in 3 Gall[ons] Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses (sic) into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot.
Let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yea[s]t.
If the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank[et] & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask - leave the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working -
Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.
“likely” served it to the troops means....we don’t know...
George Washington. “To Make Small Beer.”
From his 1757 notebook.
https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/manuscripts-division/george-washington-beer
To Alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life’s problems.
I have celiacs. Can’t have even a molecule of gluten. But I like a beer now and then. Especially when we have pizza. I have to make that gluten free too.
Anheuser Busch used to sell a gluten free beer. Red Bridge. It was excellent. But they discontinued it without comment. It was based on sorghum. That’s how most African beer is made. I have found a couple of substitutes. But they’re not as good as Redbridge.
I wonder if Ben Franklin liked it? 😏
So in 1757 a loyal subject of king George II named George Washington made a recipe for beer to be enjoyed by other loyal subjects of George II.
Earth shattering news
Going with the Germans here....Water, Malt, and Hops (and yeast) is the requirement of the German Reinheitsgebot for beer. (Under this German purity law St.Louis Budweiser does not actually qualify as beer, just as a Malt beverage. )
I do not see any malt in this recipe. He was using what he had on hand to take care of his troops? (Presumably to prevent dysentery from bad drinking water?) Not really beer...a type of beer perhaps. Leave out the hops and distill the result and you would have rum. (You Tube has videos on this...rum = quick way to make alcohol.)
Here the "sifter" of hops acted as a disinfectant until the yeast kicked in and started pumping out alcohol.
(Brave search summarizer_) Hops contain iso-alpha acids and essential oils that act as potent natural preservatives by inhibiting the growth of Gram-positive bacteria, such as Lactobacillus and Clostridium species. These compounds disrupt bacterial nutrient uptake by interfering with the proton motive force, effectively starving the bacteria and preventing them from multiplying.
This antimicrobial activity is highly effective in low-pH, alcoholic environments like beer, where concentrations as low as 10 IBU (Iso-Alpha Units) can completely inhibit many spoilage bacteria. While hops are generally considered safe for use in food and beverage preservation without toxic effects on humans, their primary application remains as a biological control agent in brewing rather than a general-purpose surface disinfectant."
bkmk
Small beer was a way to make water safe to drink in the pre chlorine era that we now take for granted.
One reason that the Pilgrims landed when they did was that they had run out of beer.
Quick! Send it Boston! Sam Adams can’t keep up!
Before germ theory and scientific sanitation practices came about, beer was a health drink. It’s relatively low alcohol content offered some protection from biolological contaminants that plain water was suscpetible to. During outbreaks of plague and cholera, people who only drank beer or wine were less susceptible.
Which also is why before the invention of distilled spirits and rum in particular, ocean-going vessels often carried kegs of beer instead of drinking water. The beer was more resistant to the contaminants that were unavoidable in stowage for weeks on end in a seagoing vessel of those days.
Storms had driven the Mayflower well to the north of her original destination in Virginia, where they had a contract entitling them to settle. The first land sighted was Cape Cod, so the ship turned south but rough seas drove them back. At that point the ship’s captain took the decision that the Mayflower was so low on provisions that if they were to continue on to Virginia there might not be enough to sustain his crew on the return voyage to England, so he forced the Pilgrims to disembark where they were. And one of the provisions the captain was concerned about ... was the beer.
The story that they didn’t make Virginia because they’d run out of beer isn’t entirely true, but there is a kernel of truth in it. Pilgrim leader William Bradford later wrote that they had been “hastened ashore and made to drink water, that the seamen might have the more beer.”
The ration of beer for the adult Pilgrims had been a gallon per day (”small beer” for the kiddies). By coincidence, the pay for laborers on the pyramids of Giza included a gallon of beer a day to cut down on absenteeism cause by drinking contaminated water).
Rum was among the booty when England captured Jamaica in the mid-1600s, and rum gradually replaced beer on English ships. To reduce drunkenness, an admiral ordered it mixed one part rum to four parts water, which came to be known as “grog.”
Most American cities in Washington’s day had neglected their sanitation needs, so ground water anywhere near a city likely was contaminated with human waste products. So by brewing beer, Washington was contributing to the health of his family and farmhands, and possibly the community as well.
24 hrs? Yeah. quick and easy.
Would I be interested in drinking it? Of course not. :-)