Brew Like It’s 1850
Researching the adaptation of indigenous beer styles to modern times has been a recent interest of mine, but who knew this passion would lead me to a place only 20 minutes from my home. The Carillon Brewing Company at the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio is a functioning brewery in a museum setting. The brewers are also historians who operate the wood-fired, gravity-fed, three-tiered one-and-a-half barrel system, where they brew beer inspired by the early industrial revolution era, circa 1850.
The brewery is designed almost like a cut-away illustration in children’s books. You can see every function performed from the bar and dining room, and the brewers gladly embrace their historian roles by interacting with customers and guests — including volunteers who assist with brewing. Brewing is at least a two-person job here, and brewers Kyle Spears and Dan Lauro share those duties. Both are living historians who can discuss the recipes, ingredients, and equipment, but to be clear they are not performance artists acting as if they were in 1850.
The brewery itself is not built using a historical design; it was created as an educational museum in 2014. However, the tools used for brewing are traditional designs from the earlier Colonial Williamsburg period. Brewers and staff dress in period clothing. Ingredients are local where possible, or sourced from suppliers with heritage or heirloom products. Recipes are not necessarily from the local area, but are recreated from the era (with some modern interpretations). While clearly of another time, the brewery is surprisingly recognizable to modern brewers — the basic process of making beer is still the same.
I have made several visits to the brewery to observe different parts of the brewing process and sample the full range of their beers. At one event, I was able to meet several of the suppliers of ingredients and equipment and also interview them. In times where “supply chain” is on everyone’s mind, it was useful to see how a brewery like this would operate. While I don’t expect homebrewers to start using wood-fired systems, I think we might learn a few things from a better understanding of the past.
Historical Context
Dayton is a mid-sized city in southwest Ohio, first settled in 1796, incorporated in 1805 (just two years after Ohio became a state), and was chartered as a city in 1841. It sits on the banks of the Great Miami River, a tributary of the Ohio River. One of the first settlers operated a tavern with an attached brewery, built in 1810. The first standalone brewery was opened in 1820, with more breweries opening after 1830.
Settlers to the area were German, English, and Irish, all of whom brought brewing traditions with them. Canals linking Dayton with the Ohio River and Lake Erie opened around 1830, which increased trade and settlement. Railroads didn’t appear until the 1850s. Industrialization began around 1850, when brewing was transitioning from a household chore to a business.
Local breweries flourished as the population increased through the 1800s. The first local lager was brewed in 1852 by German immigrants. But the industry was devastated when Prohibition went into effect in 1920. Only a few breweries survived, and the last one ultimately closed in 1962. It wasn’t until the craft beer era that local breweries began to reappear.
The Brewing System
Brewing at Carillon starts with chopping wood. Local hardwood is used, with ash being popular now as many trees died when the emerald ash borer went through the area. The brewery is built of brick with integrated fireplaces and good external ventilation. You can brew like it’s 1850, but you still have to live with modern fire codes. Local city water feeds the system, which looks like a pump but is raised with pressure (one of the few modern conveniences employed).
The three-vessel system uses beautiful, custom-designed hand-hammered copper kettles built by Bucyrus Copper Kettle Works, an Ohio craftsman. Grain is milled with an old flour-type mill, and carried in bags. The mash tun is insulated with cedar, and uses a wooden trough system to move water from the hot liquor tank. The water is scooped manually with a long-handled ladle. A perforated bucket hooked to the trough is used for sparging.
Runoff from the mash tun is sent through a copper pipe into the floor-mounted kettle. After the boil, the wort is run through a chiller (a coiled copper pipe mounted in an oak barrel that is filled with cold water), and into wooden barrels used as fermenters. The 59-gallon (225-L) American white oak barrels are unlined and have a medium-deep toast. They are reused, and therefore don’t impart a significant wood character. Interestingly, one barrel is marked sauer and creates acidic beers.
Recipes are designed for about 45 gallons (170 L) of finished beer — enough to supply their bar and restaurant that sit inside the same large building as the brewery but not to distribute. The brewers use BeerSmith for recipe calculations, another modern convenience. The bar has 11 tap lines, and occasionally serves gravity-fed cask beers for special occasions.
The Ingredients
The brewers take special care in sourcing their malts. For most base grain they use malts from Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, North Carolina, who buys grain from small family farms in the Southeast U.S. They favor Southern Select as a base grain, an English pale ale-like 2-row malt. They also use rye, wheat, and oat malts, and some higher kilned malts similar to Vienna and Munich.
The brewers produce their own toasted and crystal malts in-house. They use base malt from Riverbend and then process it for their needs. To make toasted malt, they toast the pale ale malt on a sheet tray in a 350 °F (180 °C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until it “smells like popcorn,” according to the brewers. To make crystal malt, they soak about 5 lbs. (2.3 kg) of base malt in a hop bag overnight. Then they bring the water to 150 °F (65 °C) for one hour, or until the kernels are sweet inside. The grain is then spread on a tray and roasted at 365–375 °F (185–190 °C) for 15 minutes. The grains are rested at least two days before using. They estimate the crystal malt to be a medium-dark roast, somewhere in the 60–80 °L range.
They get some specialty and unusual malts from Sugar Creek Malt in Lebanon, Indiana who also sources from small family farms and works with heirloom varieties. A small custom maltster, roaster, and smoker, they produce a wind-dried malt like the first white malts in Europe. They use traditional techniques, including floor malting, and also produce malted corn.
Most hops come from Yakima as whole hops, but they also grow some hops on-site and source from Hopyard 79, a small grower about 40 miles away that is working with some newer varieties. American, English, and German hops are used, including Comet, an older American variety that has some “wild” or blackcurrant character. Yeast is usually a Lallemand dry yeast, with the Windsor strain as their house yeast for most styles. Some styles might use the Munich (wheat beer) or Belgian strains.
The Beers
I found an interesting range of beers served, some recognizable styles, and others that featured spice or vegetable additions. Every beer had a historical story, however. The brewers were proud to describe the medals they won in competitions, quite a feat given that they are entering against professionals using modern systems.
For “normal” beers, I sampled their Irish red ale, cream ale, English porter, roggenbier, pale rye beer, and Berliner weisse. The cream ale was very solid, and represented a stronger, rustic, hoppier pre-Prohibition version. The strong and slightly sweet porter is based on an English recipe from around 1870, and was a silver medal winner at the Ohio Craft Brewers Cup. The Berliner weisse was produced from that sour barrel I mentioned and was a very good example of the style.
Several beers featured field vegetables. Their very unusual beet beer (yes, it was bright red) recently won a silver medal at the U.S. Open competition. Normally it is a February seasonal beer because it’s red for Valentine’s Day, but I was able to try a special batch because it had recently medaled. Earthy but spicy from weizen yeast and rye malt, it was very enjoyable. They also make a butternut squash ale as a fall seasonal, and spice it like a pumpkin beer.
Spice beers are a theme for them, which surprised me but spices were a popular historical ingredient. Ginger, coriander, black pepper, allspice, and spruce were all historical ingredients and many of them find their way into Carillon’s beers. Their Ginger Pale Ale won a gold medal at the U.S. Open, and drank like an IPA. They were experimenting with a witbier with chamomile when I was there, which seemed like a great spiced wheat beer (the Belgian character was low, but the base beer was very drinkable). Their winter beers included a spiced dunkelweizen using ginger, cinnamon, and star anise, and a spruce ale with molasses and spruce tips.
In general, the beers with the German wheat yeast seemed to understate the yeast character, and the interaction between yeast phenols and added spices often caused a stronger spice character. Their Spruce Ale was amazing — an English barleywine base that is enhanced with molasses flavor and citrusy spruce tips. The real treat was when the brewers dug out a bottle of last year’s version and we tasted them side-by-side. The aged beer had picked up a dried cherry ester over time, while the body became leaner and the flavors layered and complex. I hope they consider a vintage program in the future.
They were brewing their Coriander Ale when I visited once. This beer is based on a historical 1831 recipe from the book Family Receipts for the Husband & Housewife. Interestingly, a similar recipe appeared in a book from London of the same era called Town and Country Brewery Book.
Just to show you what an old recipe really looks like, I’ll quote it in its entirety:
Another Method of Brewing Ale
For 36 gallons take of malt (usually pale) 2 ½ bushels, sugar 3 pounds, just boiled to a colour, hops 2 pounds 8 ounces, coriander seed one ounce, capsican one drachm.
Work it 2 or 3 days, beating it well up once or twice a day; when it begins to fall cleanse.
So, this is a coriander ale but it also has some hot pepper in it. This is the beer the brewers interpreted using the wind-dried malt I mentioned. The lemony coriander provides much of the character with the chili pepper adding a subtle heat to what seems loosely like a blonde ale.
Lessons for Homebrewers
While this story could easily have been a simple brewery profile, I always look for ideas that can be used by homebrewers. Some might scoff at the idea that 170-year-old practices might have applicability today, but you’d be surprised.
• Learn to use your senses throughout the brewing process. The brewers used few tools but were making measurements and estimates based on hard-earned experience on their system. One of the brewers said it took a year and a half to fully learn the system and how it responded. I constantly saw them checking measurements by looking for visual indicators as well as checking how things felt and tasted. Even if you have to take measurements with tools, learn how to estimate those measurements directly using your senses.
• Know your suppliers. Use local ingredients where possible, and meet your suppliers. You may be able to get them to develop ingredients for you, or to understand how better to use their ingredients. Maybe you can get heirloom varieties or unusual products. Like in farm-to-table cooking, it’s a two-way partnership that benefits both parties, as the suppliers learn more of their customers’ needs.
• Develop a house character. Use standard ingredients and learn them well. If you make beers with a certain theme (like spiced beers), experiment within that space. Then you can use what you learn from past beers to try new experiments to gain a better understanding of how the specialty ingredients respond in different brewing situations.
• Create your own ingredients. Transform your ingredients to get unique products of your own. Like toasting your malt to produce something different, or growing your own hops. Learn through trying something that you can’t just look up on the internet. If you can’t find something you need, see if you can adapt something you do have. Don’t let supply chain disruptions keep you from brewing.
• Explore historical recipes. You can adapt them, trying to keep true to the original intent, but using modern knowledge to better control the process. Don’t be afraid to try older techniques, or to attempt older recipes with modern ingredients.
As brewing historians and educators, the brewers at Carillon Brewing Company would love for other brewers to learn something from their work, just as they hope the public learns about history and their beer. I certainly learned from them, and hope to collaborate with them in the future on some new ideas, or at the very least try their latest ales. Homebrewers who started by building their own systems and learning to solve problems will see kindred spirits in the brewers who start their brew day with an axe in their hands.
Recipes
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Ginger Pale Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.068 FG = 1.012
IBU = 36 SRM = 8 ABV = 7.4%
The brewers shared three recipes for some of their award-winning and special beers, which I have converted to a homebrew scale. If you don’t have toasted malt, perhaps substitute Munich malt.
The base of their Ginger Pale Ale is a traditional mid-19th century English pale ale but with fresh ginger, honey, and a moderate dose of hops added. This beer is golden in color, aromatically floral with underlying notes of spice and hops. Despite being a dry beer, Ginger Pale Ale has a deceptively sweet character that balances the strong ginger spiciness with the hops playing a supporting role.
Ingredients
10 lbs. (4.5 kg) pale ale malt
2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg) toasted malt
1.25 lbs. (567 g) wildflower honey (mostly clover)
2.25 lbs. (1 kg) fresh ginger root, peeled, sliced
8.25 AAU Comet hops (60 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 11% alpha acids)
8.25 AAU Comet hops (15 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 11% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mash the grains at 152 °F (67 °C) for 60 minutes. Sparge slowly and collect 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of wort, adding the ginger to the kettle.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated. Add the honey after the boil is finished, stirring to dissolve. Chill and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
Rack the beer, prime, and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate to 2.5 v/v.
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Ginger Pale Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract only)
OG = 1.068 FG = 1.012
IBU = 36 SRM = 8 ABV = 7.4%
Ingredients
8.2 lbs. (3.7 kg) light liquid malt extract
1.25 lbs. (567 g) wildflower honey (mostly clover)
2.25 lbs. (1 kg) fresh ginger root, peeled, sliced
8.25 AAU Comet hops (60 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 11% alpha acids)
8.25 AAU Comet hops (15 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 11% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Heat 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of water in the brew kettle to 158 °F (70 °C). Turn off the heat. Add the malt extract and stir to dissolve so you do not feel liquid extract at the bottom of the kettle when stirring with your spoon. Turn the heat back on and bring to a boil.
Add the ginger to the kettle. Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated. Add the honey after the boil, stirring to dissolve. Chill and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
Rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Porter clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.064 FG = 1.012
IBU = 34 SRM = 33 ABV = 6.7%
This English porter features a toasted malt aroma punctuated with hints of coffee, dark chocolate, and fruity esters from the British yeast. With a medium body, the flavor has a moderate level of roasted character, complemented by hints of toasted bread or biscuit, coffee, and hints of acidity.
Ingredients
7.25 lbs. (3.3 kg) pale ale malt
2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg) toasted malt
1.25 lbs. (567 g) oat malt
1 lb. (454 g) chocolate malt (350 °L)
0.67 lb. (304 g) crystal malt (60–80 °L)
0.67 lb. (304 g) dark Munich malt
9.4 AAU Fuggle hops (60 min.) (1.7 oz./48 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275
(Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mash the pale malt, toasted malt, oat malt, and dark Munich malt in 154 °F (68 °C) water for 60 minutes. Add the chocolate and crystal malt, recirculate for 15 minutes.
Sparge slowly and collect 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of wort.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated.Chill and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
Rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Porter clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.064 FG = 1.012
IBU = 34 SRM = 33 ABV = 6.7%
Ingredients
7.42 lbs. (3.4 kg) light liquid malt extract
1 lb. (454 g) chocolate malt (350 °L)
0.67 lb. (304 g) crystal malt (60–80 °L)
0.67 lb. (304 g) dark Munich malt
9.4 AAU Fuggle hops (60 min.) (1.7 oz./48 g at 5.5% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275
(Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Use 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of water in the brew kettle; heat to 158 °F (70 °C).
Steep the malts for 30 minutes. Remove and rinse. Turn off the heat. Add the malt extract and stir thoroughly to dissolve completely. You do not want to feel liquid extract at the bottom of the kettle when stirring with your spoon. Turn the heat back on and bring to a boil.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated.Chill and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
Rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Coriander Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.050 FG = 1.006
IBU = 25 SRM = 3 ABV = 5.9%
Based on a recipe from the mid-19th century, Coriander Ale is yellow to yellow-gold in appearance. Its aroma is moderately spicy with a fruitiness from the coriander seed. Fruity esters from the British Ale yeast are married to the citrus notes of the coriander and there is a lingering impression of heat from the chili peppers. There is also a soft well-rounded malt character reminiscent of honey and moderate hop bitterness.
Ingredients
9 lbs. (4.1 kg) wind-dried malt (sub: 2-row brewers malt)
0.75 lb. (340 g) white cane sugar (15 min.)
0.56 g (16 g) coriander seeds (15 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) chile de arbol (15 min.)
4.9 AAU Sterling hops (60 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 6.5% alpha acids)
4.9 AAU Sterling hops (15 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 6.5% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mash the grains in 151 °F (66 °C) water for 60 minutes. Sparge slowly and collect 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of wort.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated. Add the spices and sugar with 15 minutes remaining in the boil.
When the boil is complete, chill the wort, pitch yeast, and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
When fermentation is complete, rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
Carillon Brewing Co.’s Coriander Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract only)
OG = 1.050 FG = 1.006
IBU = 25 SRM = 3 ABV = 5.9%
Ingredients
6.2 lbs. (5.2 kg) extra light liquid malt extract
0.75 lb. (340 g) white cane sugar (15 min.)
0.56 g (16 g) coriander seeds (15 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) chile de arbol (15 min.)
4.9 AAU Sterling hops (60 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 6.5% alpha acids)
4.9 AAU Sterling hops (15 min.) (0.75 oz./21g at 6.5% alpha acids)
LalBrew Windsor, White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale), or Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Use 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of water in the brew kettle; heat to 158 °F (70 °C).
Turn off the heat. Add the malt extract and sugar and stir thoroughly to dissolve completely. You do not want to feel liquid extract at the bottom of the kettle when stirring with your spoon. Turn the heat back on and bring to a boil.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated. Add the spices and sugar with 15 minutes remaining in the boil.
When the boil is complete, chill the wort, pitch yeast, and ferment at 64 °F (18 °C).
When fermentation is complete, rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
