Jekyll Beer of Yesteryear
While touring Jekyll Island, Georgia, many years ago, our trolley guide pulled into the Horton Historic District describing the Colonial ruins in front of us. Then he beamed and said, “here was the site of Georgia’s first brewery.” The locals are quite proud of this brewing history, so much so that the Jekyll Island Mosaic Museum recently celebrated the 277th anniversary of the original ale produced with a tasting event called the Jekyll Beer of Yesteryear.
In early 2024, the museum staff contacted Silver Bluff Brewing Company in Brunswick, Georgia, about coordinating a celebratory activity in honor of the state’s first beer. Silver Bluff Brewing had spent years restoring a historic building in the downtown business district to use for its brewing operations, taproom, and beer garden, before opening in July 2020. The taproom has 16 taps featuring a wide variety of beer styles, all brewed in-house. The company’s passion for historic preservation and its experience brewing so many different beers made it an ideal collaborative partner. Of course, the ultimate challenge of the collaboration would be a recreation of the 1747 brew.
The Museum’s Educator, Patrick Carmody, and William Melvin, Silver Bluff’s Director of Brewing Operations, worked with their respective staffs to put together an informative and tasty evening on May 11, 2024. About 30 patrons gathered on the patio behind the Jekyll Island Mosaic Museum and were entertained with live music while awaiting the start of the celebration. The beer tasting part was introduced by Melvin and started with a variety of Silver Bluff’s traditional offerings. Melvin described the beers, which he noted were available on tap at the brewery or in cans at either the brewery or in stores. Then the gathering was divided in half with one group meeting with Carmody and the other group meeting with Melvin.
Carmody related Jekyll Island’s long association with beer, from the first ale produced in 1747 through World War II. Between 1886 and 1947, some of America’s wealthiest families owned the island and operated the Jekyll Island Club. Among them was J. Herbert Ballantine from a prominent family of New Jersey brewers. At the time he joined the club, Ballantine was the fourth largest brewery in the country, and the largest brewer of ale in the United States. The company produced a lager, a porter, a bock, a brown stout, and a pale ale.
Melvin’s session compared the brewing methods of Colonial times to modern brewing. The groups then traded speakers and when the discussions were finished and the questions answered, everyone returned to the patio for the pièce de résistance — Silver Bluff’s Jekyll Island Historic English Ale, served in commemorative pint glasses. Melvin noted that since the ale was brewed especially for this occasion, he did not plan to brew it again once the supply ran out in the taproom. He remarked later to me that recreating an ale brewed 277 years ago presented numerous challenges and required some assumptions. Given the fledgling colony’s British origins, he believed East Kent Golding hops and an English yeast would most closely reflect the original ale. Melvin explained that the beer wasn’t intended to be the same exact beer that was brewed so long ago, but a beer that would taste similar in order to give modern drinkers an understanding of what the first beer brewed in Georgia likely would have tasted like.
“We didn’t have any recipes or records of the first beers brewed in Georgia at Horton House, but we wanted to create something that showed how beer in the 18th century could have varied from most beer today. We used British malt and a fair amount of crystal malt in order to try and approximate the rich malty flavor and low finishing gravity beers of that time, often from poorly modified malt and a direct-fired boil,” Melvin explained. “The resulting brew is not a true historical recreation, but more of an historically inspired ale designed to give the drinker an idea of the ways in which these Colonial beers tasted very different from beer today.”
Melvin shared the recipe (below), but before we get to that, I’d like to share the story behind this 1747 brew. Carmody related that General James Edward Oglethorpe and his British board of trustees in London founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, the last of the original 13 Colonies. General Oglethorpe insisted upon four principles for his vision of a new utopian society: No hard alcohol, no lawyers, no Catholics, and no slaves. British settlements were established along Georgia’s Atlantic coast, including Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island. While drinking there was officially discouraged, a National Park Service Ranger at today’s Fort Frederica National Monument observed that at least six taverns were operating inside the settlement by the 1740s.
The British government did not initially fund the fledgling enterprise, but still viewed General Oglethorpe’s colony, and Fort Frederica in particular, as a defensive bulwark against Spanish colonial expansionism from Florida. The Spanish threat soon flared into open conflict in 1739 when the War of Jenkins’ Ear erupted and 600 British troops plus their families were sent to the garrison at Fort Frederica to shore up the settlement’s defenses, according to the National Park Service. Fort Frederica was initially built to house only 400 colonists and with the additional military contingent, the population bloomed to nearly 1,000, creating a challenge for sanitation and water resources.
Meanwhile, General Oglethorpe granted his primary military aide, Major William Horton, 500 acres on nearby Jekyll Island, a small barrier island just south of Saint Simons Island. As a condition of his land grant, Horton was expected to bring over from England 10 indentured servants and have 20% of his property under cultivation within 10 years. Upon landing at Jekyll Island, he discovered it was covered by a thick maritime forest hosting alligators, thorny vegetation, and biting insects. Horton left his wife and children in England as he and his indentured servants cleared the land, planted crops, and built a large wooden home.
Carmody explained that in 1742, still engaged in the War of Jenkins’ Ear, Spanish forces attacked Saint Simons Island in attempt to seize the Georgia colony. Despite some combat confusion, the British forces managed to defeat the Spanish at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, forcing them to flee south. Retreating Spanish forces from the battle sailed across the sound to Jekyll Island where they burned Major Horton’s wooden home to the ground and ravaged the rest of his property. Upon completing this petty revenge, they fled back to Florida. Then, within a few months, General Oglethorpe was recalled back to London to lead other battles in Europe, leaving Major Horton in charge of the colony.
Major Horton also had to rebuild his home and restore his other damaged property on Jekyll Island. This time, his plans included the capability to brew beer. Carmody quoted Jonathan Bryan, a South Carolina planter visiting the area, who wrote in his journal about Horton’s property saying, “I was surprised at the extraordinary expense this gentleman must have been at in the settling and improving of this place” with a “handsome dwelling house, a malt house, all these of tabby, and a large brew-house of wood with all conveniences for brewing.” The mention of “tabby” refers to a type of fire-resistant concrete derived from oyster shells, sand, and ash. Once constructed, Major Horton brought his wife and children over from England, and resumed farming about 20 acres, growing barley, wheat, hops, and indigo, among other crops. He raised cattle and eventually supplied all the fresh meat for Fort Frederica.
Carmody explained that archaeological evidence suggests Major Horton also had a well-stocked wine cellar in a tabby building near his house, but no beer brewing artifacts have yet been found. However, written Colonial records show that he had ordered a great copper pot for brewing. Historian June Hall McCash, Ph.D. has uncovered writings from that period confirming that the barley was specifically grown for brewing. She quoted a settler named John Terry who wrote in a letter that Major Horton’s barley was intended for the copper (brewing) pot. A visitor to Jekyll Island, John Pye, reported back to the British trustees that Major Horton had harvested a barnful of barley that was “not at all inferior to barley grown in England.” She also found in Jonathan Bryan’s journal a description of the malt house’s dimensions as 80- to 100-feet long by 30-feet wide.1
More recently, the Jekyll Island Mosaic Museum staff has successfully grown hops on Major Horton’s former land to confirm that growing hops in the colony was possible. Colonial records show that Major Horton delivered his first ale to British troops stationed at Fort Frederica in 1747.
Alas, the brewery was not in operation long. McCash notes that an epidemic spread through Fort Frederica and infected Major Horton in October 1747. His wife nursed him back to health, but the illness left him weak. In late 1748, he traveled to Savannah, Georgia, for a political meeting and caught a serious fever while there. This time, he did not survive and was buried in the city’s Christ Church cemetery. That same year, Britain and Spain signed a peace treaty and most of the British troops soon left Fort Frederica. Their departure was followed by an exodus of the civilian settlers. By the late 1750s, the settlement had become a ghost town.
Today, Jekyll Island State Park welcomes thousands of visitors every year. The ruins of Major Horton’s house and surrounding property are included in the island’s Horton Historic District. A demonstration garden is next to the Horton House, growing the crops he planted, including hops. When the Jekyll Island Mosaic Museum was renovated and updated in 2019, it added an exhibit featuring Major Horton’s brewery, which prominently displays a great pot filled with hops. The National Park Service at Fort Frederica National Monument on Saint Simons Island maintains the settlement’s ruins, conducts archaeological investigations, runs tours, and hosts a museum, research library, archives, and reenactment events.
Unless you stopped by Silver Bluff’s taproom and were lucky enough to sample Jekyll Island Historic English Ale before it ran out, you likely won’t be able to try Melvin’s interpretation of the original Georgian ale. Though you still have a chance to try it for yourself as the brewery has made the recipe available here.
References:
1 McCash, June Hall, Jekyll Island’s Early Years: From Prehistory to Reconstruction. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014, p. 66–70.
Silver Bluff Brewing Co.’s Jekyll Island Historic English Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.070 FG = 1.021
IBU = 45 SRM = 14 ABV = 6.4%
“We didn’t have any recipes or records of the first beers brewed in Georgia at Horton House, but we wanted to create something that showed how beer in the 18th century could have varied from most beer today . . . The resulting brew is not a true historical recreation, but more of a historically inspired ale designed to give the drinker an idea of the ways in which these Colonial beers tasted very different from beer today.” – William Melvin, Head Brewer
Ingredients
12.25 lbs. (5.6 kg) Golden Promise malt
1.1 lbs. (0.5 kg) flaked oats
1 lb. (0.45 kg) English crystal malt (65 °L)
8 oz. (230 g) English crystal malt (77 °L)
9.6 AAU Magnum hops (75 min.) (0.6 oz./17 g at 16% alpha acids)
2.5 oz. (71 g) East Kent Golding hops (0 min.)
Omega Yeast OYL-016 (Extra Special), Wyeast 1968 (London ESB Ale), White Labs WLP002 (English Ale), or LalBrew Windsor yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by step
Use enough water to have a moderately thick mash (1.4 qts./lb.). Mash the malts at 153 °F (67 °C) for 60 minutes. Raise the temperature to 168 °F (76 °C) and recirculate for 15 minutes. Sparge slowly and collect 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) of wort.
Conduct a hot, rolling boil for 75 minutes, adding the Magnum hops at the start of the boil and East Kent Golding at flameout.
Chill the wort to 68 °F (20 °C), aerate if using liquid yeast and then pitch the yeast and ferment. Near the end of fermentation, conduct a diacetyl rest by raising the temperature to 73 °F (23 °C) for a few days. Then crash cool and force carbonate or prime and bottle condition to
2.5 v/v.
Silver Bluff Brewing Co.’s Jekyll Island Historic English Ale clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.070 FG = 1.021
IBU = 45 SRM = 14 ABV = 6.4%
Ingredients
8.5 lbs. (3.9 kg) pale ale liquid malt extract
1 lb. (0.45 kg) English crystal malt (65 °L)
8 oz. (230 g) English crystal malt (77 °L)
8 oz. (230 g) CaraPils® malt
9.6 AAU Magnum hops (75 min.) (0.6 oz./17 g at 16% alpha acids)
2.5 oz. (71 g) East Kent Golding hops (0 min.)
Omega Yeast OYL-016 (Extra Special), Wyeast 1968 (London ESB Ale), White Labs WLP002 (English Ale), or LalBrew Windsor yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by step
Add crushed grains into a steeping bag and place bag in the brew kettle with 6 gallons (23 L) of water as it heats to 170 °F (77 °C). Remove bagged grains, allowing them to drip drain back into the kettle. Continue heating wort to a boil. Remove kettle from heat and carefully stir in the malt extract. When fully dissolved, return kettle to heat and boil 60 minutes, adding the Magnum hops at the start of the boil and East Kent Golding at flameout.
Follow the remainder of the all-grain recipe instructions.
