Ye Olde Cocke Ale
A modern adaptation of a recipe from the 1500s
Read this page with a cockney accent.
A few years ago I heard a legend about an old recipe, dating from the 1500s, for "cock ale," made with a whole chicken in the brew. I had heard of coffee beer, chocolate beer, and fruit flavored beer, but chicken beer? I mean, I like chicken, and I like beer... could this be possible?
After looking around on the web I found a recipe for cock ale. I upscaled and got the support of the collective. There was no stopping us now. At the local brew shop, the owner had heard of cock ale. Our conversation went something like this:
me: "I'm going to be making a cock ale and I wondered what kind of hops you recommend."
him: "cock ale?"
me: "yes, with a chicken in it. You may have seen the recipe."
him: "yes, I have. You are actually making that?"
me: "I can bring you a bottle if you want."
him (quickly): "I'm a vegan."
The brew begins
Here is the recipe:
1 cup raisins
2 cups dry white wine
5 cloves
pinch of mace
1 roasting chicken (1.5 lb)
1 tsp fresh rosemary
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
6 lb light malt
2 oz Amethyst hops (8.5%)
2.5 gallons water
Soak the raisins, cloves, and mace in the white wine for at least 2 hours.
Coat the chicken with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper, and roast in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes or until done.
Boil the water; if you don't have a big enough pot, boil part of the water and make up the difference with bottled water, which should be sterile. As all brewers know, sanitation is key. Add the malt, boil until thoroughly dissolved, add 1 ounce hops, remove from heat, let cool slightly and add the other ounce of hops. Transfer to a sterile carboy, add the raisin mixture, chop the chicken and add the entire chicken--bones and all.
Ferment as usual. Racking will be very important.
The roasted chicken looks great: one for brewing, one for eating. The one for eating is stuffed with spinach risotto.
Hops, malt, and yeast are ready to go.
The big pot is set.
...so is the collective.
All the ingredients are in, and it looks disturbing.
12:13am, June 9
A few hours have passed, and I notice a distinct fat layer collecting at the top of our 3-gallon carboy. Not sure if this is normal.
11:41 am, June 11
The beer is bubbling away, which means (in theory) that the yeast in the mix are the dominant microorganism and that things are going as they should. The mix smells like beer or bread--another good sign. Sometime yesterday the raisins all floated to the surface, which likely means that they have yeast inside them pumping them full of carbon dioxide. It is still disturbing to look at, but I think we are out of the woods as far as chances of the brew spoiling. We'll see.
8pm, June 20
Tonight T. of the collective came by and we racked the Olde Cocke Ale. Racking is the process of siphoning off the good liquid, leaving behind sediment (yeast) and additives (chicken, raisins, and spices.)
And, yes, we did taste the ale. It is a strange brew; I like all the flavors in it individually, but I'm not sure I've ever had them all together. Not bad, but mind expanding. It truly does taste like chicken. We also took a couple of bites of the chicken that had been soaking in the ale; I'm writing this note several days after the fact, and I'm still alive and apparently unharmed. The chicken itself was very dry, but not bad otherwise, aside from a very hoppy flavor.
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