November 2015 Beer in Ireland

Ireland was not affected by the Romans during their invasion and thus not exposed to wine as other parts of Europe and indeed what would become Great Britian. The main drink to get intoxicated in Ireland
was beer (cuirm in old Irish). Behon Laws, the great Irish code, mentions beor, malt and ale which proves that brewing and drinking was indeed a serious matter. In the Brehon Laws there were volumes as the laws were divided into different areas. The one called Senchus Mór give some insight into the brewing in Ireland as it explains how to treat malt, what kind of drink it was etc. The drink itself was red in colour, it was native to the whole of Ireland.

Treating the grain

In Senchus Mór it states that the grain that was used could be oats, wheat, rye or barley although barley was the most common one. Now regardless of grain it was supposed to be steeped in was for a certain amount of time, then let the water drain slowly from the wet grain. The grain was then spread out on the floor to dry. While it lay there to dry it was turned over and over, this was done by hand making sure that at some point all of it was at the top layer while drying.

After that it was dried in a kiln until it became hard. What we have now is what we call malt, if not kept whole it was ground, usually in a mill, and put in a sack. Sometimes it was made into cakes when it dried. These cakes became so hard that when being used they had to be ground again in order to reduce them back into meal.

Treating the grain in this manner makes their shelf life very long. Since it had a long shelf life and was rather valuable it was often used as payment or as a tribute.

Strength of the ale

The ale was most likely not that strong, since there are records of the amount that laymen and clerics were allowed to drink after the end of lent. Laymen were allowed six pints of ale for dinner while clerics were allowed three as they were not supposed to be drunk. This means that you can get drunk on six pints but not on three. Or as the text (The life of St Brigit)says: "they may not be drunk and that their canonical hours may not be set astray on them" when speaking about the clerics.

Beer in heaven

In St Bridgids Alefeast, which is an 11th century Irish poem, we learn what she thinks is her idea of heaven and it goes like this:
I would like to have the men of Heaven
in my own house
with vats of good cheer
laid out before them

I would like to have a greak lake of beer
for Christ the King
I'd like to be watching the heavenly family
Drinking it down through all eternity