June 2025 Beverage of the Month

Meadhbh inghean Ui Chlérigh

Braggots have well-established roots in period, particularly during the 14th century where my persona resides. If you look at the modern judging criteria, a braggot falls into the mead category.

I reject this. Historically a braggot is a beer made with honey added. 

Braggots boast a long history. The earliest written use of “braggot” in English sources dates to 1390 from Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale”: “Hir mouth was sweete as bragot or the meeth.” Braggots (sometimes spelled “bragodi” or “bragawt”) appear in Old Welsh texts as early as 600CE and were considered an economically valuable drink. The Welsh could use braggots to pay land taxes, and they had a value between mead (the highest) and ordinary ale (half as valuable). 

Another Welsh mention occurs in the 11th-century tale “Mabinogion” where the heroes are tasked to obtain honey “nine times sweeter than the honey of a virgin swarm, without drones and without bees, to make bragget for the feast.” Making honey without bees would indeed make this a challenge worthy of a hero, with the resulting celebration demanding some decent libations.

As for the "braggot is a beer" comment, to support that I turn to Curye on Inglysch (14th century) which documents includes two useful recipes:

8 Ad faciendum brakott.

Take xiiii galouns of good fyn ale that the grout therof be twies meischid, & put it into a stonen vessel. & lete it sonde iii daies or iiii, til it be stale. Afterward take a quart of fyne wort, half a quart of lyf hony; & sette it ouer the fier, & lete it sethe, & skyme it wel til it be cleer. & put therto a penyworth of poudir of peper & i penyworth of poudir of clowis, & sethe hem wel togidere til it boile. Take it doun & lete it kele, & poure out the clere thereof into the forseid vessel, & the groundis thereof put it into a bagge, into the porseid pot, & stoppe it wel with a lynnen clooth that noon eir come out; & put thereto newe berm, & stoppe it iii dayes or iiii eer thou drinke thereof. Put aqua ardente it among.

205 Clarrey and Braggot. Take ... ounces of kanel & galinga, greyns de paris, and a lytel peper, & mae poudur, & temper hit wyt god wyte wyne & the thrid perte hony & ryne hit thorow a cloth. in the same manere of ale, but take viii galones of god stale ale to on galon of hony ipurede clene, & boyle iii galonus of ale wyt tho hony. Or hit bygyne to boyle, do in thi spicery; set hyt fro tho fyre & styre hit soft & let hit cole, & ryne hit thorow a wyde bultyng cloth. Do hit in a clene vessel to tho ale & kouore

At their core, both recipes take stale ale (“til it be stale” and “god stale ale”) then refresh it with honey and spices. Given modern brewing techniques this may be one reason that braggots have fallen out of production. Beer doesn’t go stale so there’s no need to refresh it.

You can find a few braggot recipes on the Brewers Guild web site. If you're interested in a more in-depth article about braggot as a historical beer, you're welcome to read "The braggot — a new old brew: Is it beer or is it mead?" from American Bee Journal (March 2022).