The ingredients are various, sometimes wheat or barley, or jowarhee grain, but in the kolla or low countries the latter is preferred, and as I also found some useful medical effects resulting from its use, my ale most frequently was made from this grain. The jowarhee is the durra of the Arabs, and is largely grown in India, where I think English residents might, by following the Abyssinian method, always have home-brewed ale in their houses.
When barley is employed for the purpose of brewing, it is first well dried in the sun, and afterwards broken in a mortar to divest it in some measure from the coarse outer skin, and which is separated by the usual process of fining through a grass made sieve. The prepared grain is then placed in a large earthenware saucer, at least two feet in diameter, and in the centre about six inches deep. This being raised upon three supports over a low fire, an attendant keeps stirring the contents, using for this purpose the small reaping hook of the country, the convex curve of which scrapes the barley from the bottom of the saucer, and prevents its burning. Whilst this is going on, another servant washes the jars intended to receive the ale, and which, after being well rinsed out, are fumigated by a few leaves of the bitter gaisho plant, placed upon a little lighted charcoal, on a broken piece of earthenware, and is introduced beneath the mouth of the vessel, which is held over it to receive the ascending smoke.
Gaisho are the leaves of a species of Rhamnus indigenous to Shoa, for besides being regularly cultivated in favourable situations between six to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, I have also found it growing wild at the base of the hill of Kundi, above the Tabeeb monastery, in that neighbourhood. These leaves are serrated, and of the form and size of bay leaves, only of a lighter green. When used, after being dried in the sun, they are pulverized in a mortar until a very fine powder of an intensely but not permanent bitter is produced. It is then ready for the purposes required, which are similar to those of hops and gentian in brewing our beer.
After the barley has been well roasted, it is taken out of the pan and ground into a coarse meal, which, after being slightly wetted with water, is again exposed to the action of heat in the same manner as before, until it has become thoroughly scorched; being kept the whole time well stirred to prevent its burning. During this process, a small jar containing a thin acid mixture of flour and water, called wahaka, or leaven, to which the powdered gaisho has been previously added, has been standing to infuse in the warm wood ashes. The meal being now removed from the fire, is put into another jar, and sufficient water being added to make it into a paste, the wahaka is also added, and the mixture remains for the rest of the day. On the morrow, the whole contents of the lesser jar are transferred into one much larger, capable of holding at least thirty gallons of water, and which is now brought and poured by successive jarsfull into it until full. This is allowed to stand another day, when the surface, showing evidences of a certain point in the process of fermentation having been attained, the whole is then decanted, and strained through a large straw funnel into a number of lesser jars, each of which contains from four to five gallons. These are carefully stoppered by large cakes of a dirty mixture of the refuse of the strainings of the large jar and of clay, and which are plastered over the mouths of the jars. In about three days the ale is ready for use, and if made properly, is most excellent; bright, sparkling, and potent, it reminded me, by a slight acidity, of the best October of England. After nine or ten days, Abyssinian ale gets too sour to be a pleasant draught, which I attribute to the imperfect covering afforded by the clay plasters which close the jars in which it is contained.
When jowarhee, or durra is used, the grain, after being reduced to a fine meal, is made into a paste, or rather thin batter, with the wahaka. After standing one day and night, it is then made into thin cakes, as in the usual manner of baking teff bread. These cakes are afterwards broken up and placed in the large jar, the gaisho and water being added exactly as in the process where barley is employed, and when fermentation has somewhat progressed, the wort is in the same manner strained and decanted into lesser jars.
There is a red variety of jowarhee, or millet, called tallange largely cultivated in Shoa for brewing the tallah alone, as it is considered to produce the best description of the beverage. It is said to be injurious to man eaten in the form of nuffrau, or bread, although the grain is given to cattle for food. This certainly makes very fine ale, and should the experiment of making jowarhee beer succeed in the East, where I hope it will be tried, it will be very easy to procure some tallange for seed from Abyssinia, should the plant not exist, as I do not expect it does at present, in India.
In conjunction with all these different grains, and with a mixture of all, which is sometimes employed in the same brewing, it is not unusual to add a little real malt called bikkalo, generally in the proportion of double the quantity of gaisho. To make the bikkalo, a quantity of barley is placed in a flat dish and well wetted with water, a large stone being placed upon it. This presses the sprouting grain into one mass of a wheel-like form, which, when the operation has proceeded as far as is desired, is taken from the dish, a hole made through the centre, and it is strung upon a rope, where it hangs to dry against the wall, and is a common ornament of the interior of the houses in Shoa. On occasions of brewing, the quantity required is broken off, and its value as an ingredient is well-known, for a common Shoan proverb says, “the more bikkalo the better ale.”
The proportions of the different ingredients are generally from forty to fifty pounds of grain, to which is added one pound of gaisho, and two pounds of bikkalo. From these quantities are made about thirty gallons of very good beer, but which, as I have observed before, will not keep more than ten or twelve days, which is one reason why ale is brewed generally in such small quantities.
There is no beverage so largely indulged in by the Shoans, whether Christian or Islam, as tallah. The Hurrahgee people are also extremely addicted to drinking it, and when they arrive in the country, every saltpiece that they can get is sure to be spent in ale. It is, therefore, an essential on all occasions of rejoicings, whether of a religious character, or at weddings, and even at funerals. In fact, the number and size of the jars of ale provided for the company indicates the importance of the feast, or the wealth of the entertainer, whilst no one to whom the cornucopœia of ancient mythology is familiar, but detects at once, the origin of that poetical appendage to divinity, as he contemplates the parties engaged in celebrating these jovial meetings. Every one bearing in his hand, a deep drinking-horn, varying in length, from a long span to more than half a cubit, which, as he drains its contents, is handed to the servants in charge of the jars of tallah, who quickly replenish it, and return it to the thirsty soul. Each reveller keeps to his own rude flagon, and nothing could more strikingly typify agricultural wealth and rustic happiness, than the representation of one of these drinking horns; and which, ornamented and embellished by Grecian and Latin poets, still I believe to have been the original of the famous horn of plenty; probably derived from some Egyptian hieroglyphic, which well expressed the condition of man it appears so naturally to characterize.