Ivy-ale and Chop-houses

[tgarnsl]

 I've been doing some reading (as you do) about 18th/19th century dining, and I came across this fascinating bit of trivia: apparently at certain chop-houses, roast beef was served with "gill-ale", which is an ale made with ground ivy (from what I've read, in place of hops.) Now, of course, it's very difficult to find such a thing nowadays, but BUT I have found that apparently Lincoln College, Oxford serves it on May 25th to students of Brasenose!

(For the record, I don't know if it actually contains ivy, but the tradition is it does. That being said, All Souls no longer does their Duck Hunt with a real duck, so we shall see.)

Comments

[sanguinity]

Everything I know about this topic I learned from the Tudor Farm season of the Historical Farm series, but...

My understanding is that ale doesn't have hops, and consequently has a short shelf life and is meant to be drunk fresh. Beer, on the other hand, does have hops, which acts as a preservative, and thus has a very long shelf life. (Which is why beer was a staple beverage for the Royal Navy, how little you hear about it.)

Which brings me to my question: is the ivy meant to be a preservative, so that gill-ale is a de facto beer?

And I'm curious, what part of the ivy is ground up, did they say?

[tgarnsl]

As far as I know, ale is essentially any beer-like drink made without hops. (Nowadays ale just refers to anything that isn't a porter, stout, or lager, which makes me wonder where CAMRA would stand on something like gill-ale.) I'm not sure about the shelf-life, I think the boiling would make it fairly stable, but I don't know for certain. It's possible that hops act as a preservative.

From what I've read it merely seems to act as flavouring. There's something called 'gruit' which is a herb mixture used for flavouring ale that contains sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, and ground ivy, amongst others. According to the Brasenose College/Lincoln College ivy ale tradition, the ivy was added by Lincoln Collegians to stop the Brasenosians imbibing too much ale (according to legend the actions of Lincoln college caused the death of a Brasenose student and they've been apologising ever since.)

I assume the leaves? The trouble is the actual ivy variety used is called 'ground ivy' but I don't know enough about beer brewing to conclude how you'd go about flavouring it -- if it were me I'd grind it up and steep it like tea but I'm not sure.

[sanguinity]

(according to legend the actions of Lincoln college caused the death of a Brasenose student and they've been apologising ever since.)

O_O

Okay then. I'm surprised nothing more came of that but an apology in perpetua, but I suppose times were different then?

*reads random pages on the internet, all of which are unsourced, so who knows*

It seems that ground-ivy is 'creeping charlie,' a relative of mint. The French call it 'gill' (which refers to beer-making somehow), it's a medicinal herb, and now that I've seen photos of it, it's nothing like helix-ivy at all. It allegedly predates hops in English beer-making, and it served the same purpose as hops: flavor and preservative. I can find some recipes for using it in beer-making, but they seem to be more people dicking around until they find something they like rather than anything traditional.

[tgarnsl]

I mean, Lincoln has been giving free beer yearly out for several centuries now, so I'd say apology in perpetua is enough. As far as I know, the exact origins of the tradition are lost in mist, but it's certainly one of the more entertaining college traditions.

(My favourite bizarre Oxford college tradition is the All Souls duck hunt: once a century, a man, known as Lord Mallard, is paraded around on a chair followed by people with flaming torches who all go in search of a giant mallard. In front of the procession someone carries a stick with a dead duck on it -- now replaced with a wooden one -- and everyone in the procession sings a special duck hunting song. According to tradition, when the college was being built in the 15th century a giant mallard was seen flying out of the foundations, and so naturally this became a bizarre and somewhat arcane ceremony.)

Ooh that's interesting! There we have it! That would make sense then, with the name. Apparently there's a beer brewing company in Austria that makes a beer with ground-ivy, but I'm fairly certain there's got to be some experimental archaeologist somewhere who's making it in their back garden.

[sanguinity]

once a century, a man, known as Lord Mallard, is paraded around on a chair followed by people with flaming torches...

O_o

Well, as long as everyone is having a good time, I guess.

but I'm fairly certain there's got to be some experimental archaeologist somewhere who's making it in their back garden.

I should certainly hope so!

[tgarnsl]

Everyone had a good time, barring the duck.

(Oxford is a very weird place. It has one foot firmly in this world and the other foot firmly in another world altogether. I was fortunate to spend two years of my life in that strange place and enjoyed collecting bits of odd trivia about it.)

There's bound to be SOMEONE. It combines two things that practically every experimental archaeologist love: beer and the danger of poisoning yourself.