Its always frustrating to start a conversation and realize that the audience you are speaking to has no idea what the terms you are using mean. I assure you I have not relapsed into a more comfortable language (like Dutch or German) but am in fact speaking English when I give my beer talks.
What follows is a short dictionary of common brewing terms from 18th Century Britain.
| Airitch | barley or barley stubble which has recently been cut and harvested |
| Ale | Anglo Saxon word for beer made from sweet unhopped wort |
| Ale | beer in which hops had been used but the resulting wort is fermented at low temperatures |
| Archimedean Screw | elevator consisting of a shafting with flanges attached to it enclosed in a case so that the grist is gradually pushed forward in the encasement by the flanges of the screw. |
| Artesian Well | A well made by boring a hole in the ground to a great depth until a plentiful supply of water is reached |
| Back | wooden vessels used in brewing |
| Backelage | a gratuity given to a waggoner when he delivers barley into a malting house. |
| Barley | a grain cultivated for use in making beer or whiskey |
| Barley Bottles | bundles of barley in the straw fed to farm horses. |
| Barley Sele | the barley sowing season. |
| Barley-Mung | barley-meal mixed with water. |
| Barm | alternative name for yeast |
| Barrel | 36 gallon cask. Also a unit of measure of 36 gallons |
| Beer | drink made from barley |
| Beer-Good | East Anglian term for yeast |
| Bigg | six-rowed barley. |
| Binge | to keep wooden vessels with a certain quantity of water in them when not in ordinary use so as to prevent the wood from shrinking or drying. |
| Bourges | weevils. |
| Break | when suspended or dissolved matter begins to drop out of suspension |
| Burgad | East Anglian name for yeast. |
| Burnt Ale | wort remaining in the still after the whisky or alcohol has been distilled off. |
| Buskins | jute sacking tied round the working maltster’s feet when emptying the malting cistern with the double purpose of keeping the men’s feet dry and preventing them from crushing the barley by treading on it |
| Butt | a cask of 108 gallons |
| Cavings | unthreashed ears of barley taken out by screening and used as animal feed. |
| Cerbada | the Portuguese word for barley |
| Clamber-scull | East Anglian term for very strong ale |
| Cleansing | separating of the yeast from the fermented wort |
| Combe | English measure of grain consisting of four bushels |
| Corn | individual grains of barley |
| Corn | maize in America and Canada |
| Couch | wet barley before germination has fully started |
| Culms | dried rootlets produced in malting |
| Dew Drink | first beer given to harvesters before starting the harvest. |
| draf | worthless. |
| Draff | spent malt from the mash tun after all the wort possible has been drawn off |
| dredgemalt | mixture of malted grains and even beans used to make beer before the codification of Reinheitsgebot. |
| Dropping System | method of brewing in which fermenting wort when it has passed through the first stages of fermentation is ” dropped ” or run down into a lower vessel for skimming off the yeast. |
| Escourgeon Barley | native six-rowed winter barley of France |
| Excise | tax charged on the internal resources of a country particularly a tax on beer wine and spirits |
| Exotic Barley | any variety of barley introduced into the country but not indigenous to a country. |
| Faucet | spile or spigot |
| Feed | Fermenting wort drawn off and added new wort to initiate fermentation |
| Fining | Adding a small quantity of solution of isinglass to beer in order to produce quick clarification |
| Firkin | nine gallon cask |
| Flincher | an instrument for drawing a sample of ale from a cask through the shivehole. |
| Floater | large two-wheel cart or dray used to easily move full casks |
| Fount | malt which has become ”slack” or soft due to the absorption of moisture |
| Frigel | flail used to beats the corns from barley chaff |
| Galloped Beer | East Anglian term for ” small beer” |
| Gantry | strong joists of timber bolted together on which casks can be rolled up an inclined plain to a higher level |
| Gavel | sheaf of barley |
| Goods | the contents of the mash-tun after mashing has been completed. |
| Gosgood | East Anglian name for yeast |
| Gotches | East Anglian term for large beer jugs or pitchers. |
| Grains | refuse of the malt and other ingredients of the mash after sparging has been completed |
| Grist | Ground malt |
| Grout | Wort after it is boiled and cooled and is ready for fermenting |
| Gyle | ale or stout brewed from the malt. |
| Gyling | to add a small quantity of sugar or wort in an incipient state of fermentation to ale or stout to promote carbonation. |
| Head Barley | good barley after the ” tail” has been taken out. |
| Heat | temperature but is used only for liquids or semiliquid at specific points in the brewing cycle. For example, Striking Heat or Pitching Heat |
| Hogshead | cask containing 54 gallons |
| Hot-Pot | ale and spirits served warmed |
| Initial Heat | temperature of the mash directly after mashing |
| Isinglass | dried airbladder of the sturgeon from which brewers’ finings are prepared. |
| Jacob’s Ladder | an elevator having cups attached to an endless belt, the whole being encased and used for raising malt or grain from the bottom of a brewery to a higher level |
| Jyssoping | adding sugar solution or coloring matter to the beer before bottling or kegging |
| Kid | a small cask or keg used for grains other solid goods but not liquids |
| Kieve | mash tun |
| Kilderkin | cask measure of 18 galllons |
| Kreitzing | adding sugar to a solution of actively fermenting wort to elevate the alcohol content of the final beer |
| Laatage | duty paid for the right to carry grain on a ship |
| Ladegorn | large wooden ladle with a long handle was used for emptying the copper of boiled wort |
| Lap | East Anglian for ” small beer.” |
| Leek On | to mash in brewing |
| Lees | Sediment which settles at the bottom of casks or bottles consisting mostly of dead yeast cells |
| Letch | weakest wort or last runnings from the mash tun at the end of sparging |
| Liquor | general term in breweries for water used for mashing and sparging |
| Load | transfer growing couch from the working floor on to the kiln |
| Load of Malt | Six bushels |
| Load of Plate Barley | 250 tons |
| Lodged | Barley it is beaten down flat by rain or storm |
| Lookum | projecting part of a malting house, brewery, or grain store which contains hoisting gear for lifting sacks into the building from railway wagons or carts. |
| Louvre Boards | wooden openings of coolers which allow steam to escape while admitting air but keep out rain. |
| Make-up Liquor | boiled water added to the wort to bring down the initial gravity before fermention |
| Malt | to soften – grain that has been soaked in water and allowed to germinate |
| Maltkiln | the building used to roast and dry malted barley |
| Maltster | person engaged in the task of making malt |
| Mash | to mix |
| Mash Tun | the vessel used for containing the infusion of malt and hot liquor |
| Mawbled | beer that has turned sour |
| Mother | thick scum which forms on beer left standing or accumulates in beer taps |
| Oast | hop-drying kiln |
| Oversman | Scottish term used where two arbitrators are appointed to settle a dispute and being unable to agree call in a third arbitrator or umpire |
| Pamment | Tiles or bricks about 9 in. square and one inch thick used for paving malting floors |
| Pickles | Scotch term for the individual grains of barley or other grain. |
| Pickling | solution of caustic for cleansing and sanitizing pipes and other vessels in the brewery |
| Pin | 5 gallon cask |
| Pit | room into which hot malt is thrown from the kiln before going into the malt store |
| Pitching Heat | temperature to which the boiled wort is cooled before yeast is introduced |
| Pontos | casks used to hold cleaning and sanitizing solutions |
| pot ale | wort remaining in the still after the whisky or alcohol has been distilled off. |
| Rack | separating of the yeast from the fermented wort |
| Racking | to strain or draw beer from the lees |
| Ranten | copper can in which beer is brought from casks in the cellar and then poured into drinking vessels. |
| Rucking Malt | process of throwing the malt into a heap on the kiln at the close of the curing period. |
| Running In | filling casks with hot liquor at about 190°F then allowing that hot liquor to stand for about two hours to sterilizing those casks |
| Scuppit | small scoop used by maltsters for weighing malt |
| Setting Taps | |
| Shive | wooden bung for closing a cask |
| Shoe-pegg Barley | barley which is of poor thin quality |
| Slack | starting to draw off the wort from the mash tun |
| Sparging | sprinkling the ” goods ” in the mash tun with liquor at various temperatures to wash out all available sugars into the wort. |
| Spigot | wooden plug for stopping a hole in a cask which has been purposely made to allow beer to flow through it on demand. A faucet. |
| Splashiings | boiled liquor passed over the cooler and into the fermenting vessel to reduce the gyle to the required gravity. Make up water |
| Stillion | wooden frame used for setting full casks so that the contents may be easily drawn off |
| Stinker | a cask in which the wood has become incurably infected preventing it ever again being used for beer |
| Stoor | Scottish term for yeast |
| Stout | Extra strong porter |
| Strickle | straight edged piece of wood with which to strike off the bushel as level full. |
| Striking Heat | temperature of the water as it is added to the grains in the mash tun |
| Sweating Barley | Kiln-drying to drive off excess moisture |
| Tail Barley | thin and poor barley screened out before steeping. |
| Tap Heat | temperature of the wort taken shortly after the is drawn off from the mash. |
| Tell Tale | indicator to show how much liquor is contained in a tank or other vessel |
| Thrawl | elevated brickwork part of cellar on which casks are set so that the contents may be drawn off |
| Tunners | large casks used for cleansing purposes |
| Tunning | racking |
| Ullage | quantity which a cask has lost after being filled during storage owing to evaporation leakage or absorption by the wood |
| Vat | large wooden vessel in which ale or stout is stored in bulk |
| Whip-Belly-Vengeance | Poor sour beer |
| Withering | last stage of germination before malt is put on the kiln. |
| Wort | unfermented solution of malt |
| X, XX. & XXX | Markings of casks to show the quality of the contents or number of times a spirit has been distilled |
| Zythepsary | Egyptian word for a brewery |
| Zymurgy | Practice of fermentation in wine or beer making |
Vielleicht ist das mehr gemütlich (oops, I guess I DO sometimes slip)…
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 