THe Mint Rye Beer of Aldobrandino

This is probably Aldobrandino de Siene's claim to fame, as it is a frequently reproduced image from a 13th century illuminated text.

Le Régime du corps

The Le Régime du corps (Regular Care of the Body) is Aldobrandino’s 13th-century text covering all aspects of health (preserving health, care for different parts of the body, diet, and physiognomy [judging someone’s character from facial appearances]). In it, he describes some ailments caused by drinking beer. Whether it is beer brewed from oats, wheat or barley (or a mixture thereof), it harms the head and stomach, gives you bad breath, hurts your teeth, and fills the head with bad fumes (that one may be true). Given that Aldobrandino was Italian (and wrote in French) I would venture to guess there was a strong wine bias here towards beer. In any case, if one must drink a beer, that which is brewed from rye (or rye bread) with mint and wild celery is best.

This sounds very interesting.

Ingredients

Unfortunately, this beer was probably not meant for daily consumption, but more for medicinal reasons, given that it was from a medicinal text. Mint was said to aid in digestion, so it would cancel beer’s harmful effects on the stomach.

Wild celery could refer to five different plants. Excluding the ones from Asia, it could either be Lovage, Celery, or Garden Angelica. The latter two were commonly used for medicine.

At the same time this was medical advice for proper diet. So it may not have necessarily been solely for ailments. 

I will have to do some research into the use of rye bread in brewing in the Middle Age. Was this a common homebrew method of the time? If so, what was the general process? Or was this a mistranslation, or possibly a misconception of the brewing process?

As with most research, I am left with more questions than answers. Would love to know whether rye beers such as this were common, and how it fits into the gruit scene of Medieval Europe.

I’m a fan of rye beers, and honestly, I could see a mint / celery combination being pretty tasty, albeit a hard one to nail down. I really need to get my home brewery up and running, so I can give this a try.

Resources

Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in medieval times. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.
Scully, D. Eleanor, and Terence Scully. Early French cookery: sources, history, original recipes and modern adaptations. University of Michigan Press, 2002.