Overview
- The New York Public Library publicly launched its partnership with TALEA on Thursday, posting a digitized version of George Washington’s 1757 “To Make Small Beer” entry from his military journal online.
- Washington’s handwritten recipe calls for boiling sifted bran hops for three hours, straining 30 gallons into a cooler, adding three gallons of molasses while hot, cooling to near blood warm, then adding a quart of yeast.
- TALEA brewed a historically informed recreation for study and demonstration but will not sell that original-style brew to the public, instead offering a Liberty Lager inspired by the recipe at its taprooms and local retailers through the end of July.
- Talea brewers said matching 18th-century ingredients and methods posed challenges, so they used baking molasses to approximate period sugar and tempered molasses flavors to make the commercial lager more drinkable.
- The beer project is part of the NYPL’s America250 programming and frames small beer as everyday public-health technology of the 1700s, a low-alcohol drink brewed quickly to reduce the risk of waterborne disease for troops.