The name is Cock Ale. Though most of us have never tasted an ale we have read enough of it. Until the day beer stormed to the forefront it was ale that ruled the English market.
Unlike in beer, ale has a different kind of yeast grinding behind the machine. And that made all the difference.
As there were not many rules and regulations in the past regarding the production of spirit, it was sheer pandemonium in the world of ale. Anything goes, the brewers knew. So there were as many kinds of ales as there were people who set up business in the villages to sell the homemade spirit.
One interesting ale among them may raise your brow - the cock ale. No brownie points for guessing what went into it.
Popular in the 17th and 18th century, cock ale was normal ale brewed inside a container. That far fine. Then they added an interesting character - a bag stuffed with a parboiled, skinned and gutted cock! Before they closed the lid, they threw in various fruits and spices too.
The Oxford dictionary refers to it as "ale mixed with the jelly or minced meat of a boiled cock, besides other ingredients.” The earliest mention was found in mid-17th century, in the Kenelm Digby's Closet Opened (published in 1669). A recipe from it prescribes this:
‘Take eight Gallons of Ale; take a Cock and boil him well; then take four pounds of Raisins of the Sun well stoned, two or three Nutmegs, three or four flakes of Mace, half a pound of Dates; beat these all in a Mortar, and put to them two quarts of the best Sack; and when the Ale hath done working, put these in, and stop it close six or seven days, and then bottle it, and a month after you may drink it.’
How good was the result?
Physicians of those ages swore on the medicinal properties of cock ale. Here is what Thomas Fuller’s Pharmacopœia extemporanea says: the drink "sweetens the Acrimony of the blood and humours, incites clammy phlegm, facilitates expectoration, invigorates the lungs, supplies soft nourishment, and is very profitable even in consumption itself, if not too far gone."
Cock-a-doodle-do. No. No cocks would proudly cluck about its importance in a medicinal broth like that.
How did a cock ale taste like? Roast chicken? Fried chicken? Tandoori? Don’t you feel curious?
J. J. Berry in 1977 studied the old recipes, brewed the drink and tasted it. He wrote: ‘Astonishingly, it made an excellent ale, nourishing and strong-flavoured, of the ‘barley wine’ type; well worth trying.’
More recently, Chris Thomas and Adam Cusick wrote about experiments with cock ale in Beer & Brewing Magazine (Australia) after recreating it from old recipes.
‘It poured a dark amber colour with a foamy head. Howard was offered the first taste of the Cock Ale and was rapt with the added bitterness of the bullet hops and impressed by the obvious benefits of a quality yeast. He also recognised the superior head. And thankfully it didn’t taste like drinking a roast chicken. In terms of aroma, the cloves are first identifiable, along with the pleasant hint of oak from the dry white. The spices, raisins and wine really enhance the flavour of this freshly hopped strong ale, while the major impact of the chicken has been to add great body to the beer.”
One thing we know for sure. Brewers in the 16th and 17th centuries were desperately looking around for things that would make a difference in their brew. At the end it should lure customers to your shack in a place where almost every neighbour around is an ale brewer.
The competition was stiff, cocks were always around, clucking noisily, catching unwanted attention. It could be sheer serendipity. Someone could have noticed a cock, wrinkled his brow thinking hard, threw a glance back at the seething brew and smiled an all-knowing smile.
But many like Graham and Sue Edwards who wrote ‘Language of Drink’ think differently. They swear that the cock was not part of the drink, but was merrily outside it and fighting. They hold this view that the ale was a mixture of spirit fed to the cocks fighting in the 18th century.”
Well that’s some relief, isn’t it?
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