Thomas Jefferson Loved Ale !

At Monticello, beer was considered to be "table liquor" and served during dinner.  Upon entering the breakfast room for dinner, drinking cups of silver were on the table.  The table liquors available were beer, home-made cider, and after-dinner wine.

While Jefferson was enjoying his retirement from public life at Monticello and construction was under way on the brick garden pavilion in the 1000-foot terraced garden, Jefferson embarked on the scientific pursuit of brewing beer. Using malt purchased from his neighbor William Meriwether and hops bought locally, Jefferson was apparently successful in the first brewing attempt at Monticello since his wife, Martha, had made beer some 40 years earlier at her father’s plantation, The Forrest.

The inventory taken after the death of Thomas’ father, Peter Jefferson, listed The London and Country Brewer among his possessions, suggesting that beer may have been brewed at Thomas Jefferson’s birthplace, Shadwell, during Jefferson's youth.  In the early years of their marriage, nearly every two weeks,  Martha Jefferson brewed  15-gallon batches of small beer, which had a relatively low alcoholic content.  Jefferson bought beer at taverns while on his travels, and was known to stock up on beer by the gallon or cask. 

On September 17th, 1813, Jefferson began the business of brewing malt liquors for family use. Under the direction of a Joseph Miller, Jefferson became "a brewer for family use." He would brew three  60-gallon casks of ale in succession. 

During the fall of 1813, the slave Peter Hemings, who was proficient in French cookery, also became proficient in the art of malting and brewing. According to Jefferson, Peter possessed "great intelligence and diligence both of which are necessary." By the fall of 1814 there was a brew house at Monticello and Jefferson had begun malting his own grain instead of purchasing it from neighbors. Once the beer had been kegged, it needed to rest for at least two weeks in a cool, still place, his beer cellar, before being tapped. Jefferson's beer cellar was located in the “all weather passageway”, under the house, at Monticello, but the location and design of the brew house remain a mystery.  Perhaps the brew house was like the one he described to James Madison as being dug into the "steep side of a hill, so as to need a roof only."

Once the beer had been kegged, it needed to rest for at least two weeks in a cool-still place before being tapped. Jefferson preferred storing beer in bottles, and referred to the book, The American Brewer by Joseph Coppinger, when brewing from malted Indian corn.

Upon entering the breakfast room for dinner, drinking cups of silver were placed on the table.  The table liquors were beer, cider, and after dinner wine."

Excerpts of article by Ann Lucas, 1995.  Adapted from an essay originally published in Spring Dinner at Monticello, April 12, 1995, in Memory of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1995).  References added by Kristen Lochrie, May 2012. www.monticello.org

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