One of beer’s greatest strengths is its ability to bring people together. And mead … and braggot … and gruit. Within the world of Medieval and Renaissance historical reenactment lives a thriving subculture of historic alesters, vintners, meadsters, and fermenters. This session unites individuals of diverse backgrounds, interests, perspectives, and motivations around the shared theme of brewing in the contemporary, performative cultural phenomenon of Medieval and Renaissance historical reenactment. The conversation will concentrate on researching and reconstructing historic recipes, the concept of authenticity, reenacting historic techniques and procedures, judging and competition, the emphasis on documentation, and the uniqueness of brewing camaraderie within historical reenactment communities.

Lucas Livingston (moderator) serves on the Chicago Brewseum Board of Directors and is an ancient art and beer historian. He is a Lord in the Society for Creative Anachronism, having received his Award of Arms in 2012 for excellence in teaching the history of beer and wine in antiquity. But, much to his consternation, the title “Lord Lucas” hasn’t caught on with his family.

Alec Story (aka Þorfinnr Hróðgeirsson) is a software engineer and labor organizer by day, and amateur historian by night.  He studied Literary Chinese as an undergraduate at Cornell University and applies that training and his background in biology to explore Asian fermented beverages that have received little attention in the English-speaking world, but which have richly documented written history and deep archaeology in China.  He has been a reenactor since the early 90s.

Michael Suggs (aka Master Mikhail Novgorodets) is a professional Russian translator, and a retired Navy cryptologist. He began brewing beer in 1995 and picked up meads and wines not long after. He currently lives on a farm in Maryland, where he keeps bees and grows various other ingredients for his brewing. 

Marco Vachon (aka Master Ludwig Von Eisburg) is a software specialist for a living, and an enthusiastic hobby brewer, both for modern and historical beverages. As a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, he is more oriented in doing and experimenting, and is always around anything brewing related. As a jack of all trades, he has picked up a lot in the last 25+ years brewing, reading, researching, sampling, sharing, and talking with other like-minded people. Being fluent in English and French and dabbling in other languages also help.

Susan Verberg (aka Mistress Elska Á Fjárfelli) lives with her family, furry and human, on a small homestead in upstate New York. She grows European variety fruits for fermentation, especially wild ferments, in summer and researches traditional meads and herbal beers in winter. She enjoys sharing her exploits in mainstream homesteading magazines, brewing websites, and the occasional historic brewing-oriented academic journal.

THIS SESSION IS SUPPORTED BY:

MELISSA O’MALLEY