George Washington’s Beer Recipe

Thursday, 05 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

When he wasn’t chopping down cherry trees,he was brewing beer. The Wall Street Journal prints George Washington’s beer recipe in this morning’s paper. The former president included a recipe for something called “small beer” in his 1757 treatise, “Notes as a Virginia Colonel.”  This month, the New York Public Library, which owns the document, has partnered with a brewery to recreate Washington’s recipe. The brewmaster in charge of the project say the beer as “pretty light, pretty dry, medium-bodied but roasty.”

A limited amount of Fortitude’s Founding Father Brew will be made—the public can get a taste on May 18 at Rattle N Hum, at 14 E. 33rd Street in Manhattan.

The New York Public Library has transcribed the recipe here, if you can’t make out Washington’s longhand.