One of the most specialized of the so-called specialty beer styles, Cock Ale is beer which is dry-hopped with a parboiled chicken which has been soaked in sherry wine.
Brewing Cock Ale
The most often quoted recipe is one that was collected by William Carew Hazlitt (grandson of William Hazlitt), in his 1886 collection Old Cookery-Books and Ancient Cuisine. The recipe reads:
- To make Cock Ale
- Take ten gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better, parboil the cock, flea him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you must craw and gut him when you flea him) put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as other ale.
Brewers considering making their own cock ale should probably take extra precautions to avoid microbiological contamination of their beer.
