George Washington, Brewing like a Champ.

George Washington Drank Here

"Even George Washington needed to take the edge off sometimes.

The founding father and first president of the republic was a man of the people when it came to his drink of preference. His "Notebook as a Virginia Colonel," dated from 1757, includes a handwritten recipe for "small beer."

That recipe, along with many of Washington's other papers, is part of the New York Public Library's collection. This month, the library is joining with Shmaltz Brewing Co. to recreate a modern version of the porter to celebrate the centennial of its Stephen A. Schwarzman building.

Just 15 gallons will be brewed and offered for tasting. Local brewers Peter Taylor and Josh Knowlton have taken the liberty of tweaking the recipe, which the library has dubbed "Fortitude's Founding Father Brew."

The brewers made batches of the beer, one with molasses—which Washington used—and one without, substituting malted barley for the fermentable sugar.

"Back then, they didn't really have quite the same understanding of brewing science that we do now," said Mr. Knowlton.

Of Washington's beer, "it's pretty light, pretty dry, medium-bodied but roasty," Mr. Knowlton said. "We used some roasted malts in there so it's definitely got some of a roasted, chocolaty, little bit of a coffee flavor."

The ingredient list is fairly basic: bran hops, yeast and molasses. The concoction is to "stand till it is little more than Blood warm," in Washington's words.

Jeremy Cowan, founder of Shmaltz Brewing, which also makes Coney Island Lager, among other beers, called the recipe "tricky."

"The ingredients in the brewing process that he used are kind of pre-modern," he said.

Mr. Cowan figures Washington probably sketched the outlines of the recipe, tweaking it and adding ingredients during the actual production.

"They obviously did a couple of things that aren't written down here, like a grandmother would," he said.

The beer will be showcased at a library gala on May 23. The public can sample it on May 18 at Rattle N Hum in Manhattan."

-WSJ By: Sumathi Reddy

This is cool. I like that beer was such a big part of everyone's life back in "ye olde times". George Washington, the man of the people, our founding father, the first president of the USA was a home-brewer. Cookin' up some "small beer". I wish Obama was brewin' in the basement of the White House or had some sort of large production brew house at like Fort Knox or something. All procedes go to paying off our enormous debt. Thats what we should do...buy out ABInbev and just take all the profits and pay off our debt in like 10 years....yup thats right I just fixed the economy. Beer saves the day, once again.