Old book review

Here’s an interesting book pointed out to me from a reader, thank’s Peter! It’s called The Theory and Practice of Malting and Brewing. By a Practical Brewer by William Creech  You can read it here. The great thing about it is that it was published in 1793, a time that predates the use of Black Patent malt in 1817 (which would eventually replace diastatic brown malt) and it’s also a time where thermometers were used to record temperatures in Farenheit. The Farenheit scale was first introduced in 1724 so it is between these two dates that we can find books published about brewing that include temperatures used in the process of making malt and beer in a more pre-industrial era and by that I mean this predates the mechanization and increased scale of malting.  So we get some very useful descriptions of malting and brewing practices that serve as a window into the past. What’s amazing about this book is all of the unique descriptions about brewing practices, things like adding the hops before the boil pg. 37 for a perceptible improvement in flavour. Hmmm gotta try that. Here’s a link to an article on first wort hopping.

There is also mention of using fresh hops for small beer on page 66. But more importantly, this is the first time I’ve seen mention of different colours of brown malt. They are referred to as Brown, Middling Brown, and High Brown. What?! This suggests that malt colour and therefore beer was not as inconsistent as one (being me) might have assumed. And if you’re into brewing historical beers check out the recipes included on page 60-72.