Beer and Ale in Early Medieval England: A Survey of Evidence

Abstract

This chapter will consider the production and consumption of beer or ale in early medieval England before ca 1200 AD using legal texts, medical recipes, and literary and linguistic evidence, as well as a small amount of physical evidence. These sources tell us that ale in early medieval England was a dietary staple almost as widely produced and consumed as bread, from much the same materials, that it was consumed by all classes of society, and by people of all ages and all social classes, and that it was produced both in small-scale domestic environments, most likely by women, and in large-scale industrial settings, as evidenced by quantities of malt paid as rent to monastic foundations. The existence of hop residues in the archaeological record suggests that hops may have been used in ale production as early as the ninth or tenth century, despite widespread assumptions that the addition of hops to English ale was a late medieval or early modern phenomenon. I suggest that hops may have been introduced to ale brewing in monastic settings by reforming Benedictines from Northern France, who would have been familiar with the use of hops, while other gruit herbs probably remained the norm in domestic ale production. Another form of ale was most likely produced with a mixture of malt and honey, while the use of beech wood in pre-modern malting kilns would have produced a mid-brown or amber ale with a distinctive smoky flavour. It is quite likely that the wyllisc ealu distinguished in food rents from hluttor ealu was a kind of bragget or honeyed ale, given that it is defined as a sweet drink in the medical literature. The additional expense of honey in the drink may explain why it occurs in smaller quantities in food rents and less frequently in the Leechbook than plain or hluttor ealu.

I must thank Merryn and Graham Dineley for providing insights into the brewing process and modern brewing terminology, as well as useful information on the archaeology of floor malting. I must also thank Zina Uzdenskaya of the Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies for suggested improvements to the presentation of this chapter.