“We Had Our Own Oktoberfests”: An IT Specialist from Gomel Revives Historic Belarusian Beer Recipes
In this dev.by publication, Stanislav Pridibaila discusses his interest in the history of Belarusian brewing and his efforts to reconstruct traditional beer recipes. The article explores his early experiences with homebrewing, research into historical sources, collaboration with historians, and experiments with recreating old beer styles, including military camp beer and pine beer. It also highlights the challenges of adapting historical brewing methods to modern ingredients and equipment.
I have many interests. I can create a documentary film using artificial intelligence or bring historical Belarusian figures to life. For the past two years, I have been brewing beer. But not ordinary beer — traditional Belarusian beer based on historical recipes. I'll tell you how to recreate the kind of beer that the Belarusian nobility once drank.
About the author: Stanislav Pridibaila from Gomel, Belarus. An IT specialist working on the development of transport-related projects, including automated transport management systems, transport analytics, and passenger information systems.
Readers may be familiar with the latter through the Transport BY service, which provides real-time information about public transport movements in Minsk and other Belarusian cities. He is also involved in reconstructing historical Belarusian beer.
“The Bikers Couldn't Believe It Was Homemade Beer”
When I brewed my very first beer, I was completely exhausted. I had to stand beside a large pot for three or four hours, stirring the wort and constantly adjusting the gas burners — switching them on and off to maintain the required temperatures at each stage of mashing. Then I had to strain the mixture through a bag, boil it again, and cool it down. There were so many things I wasn't sure about. Was I doing everything correctly? I started brewing around lunchtime and didn't finish until one in the morning.
My best friend and I went to Mir Castle. After the tour, we tasted my first beer over lunch. Some bikers were sitting at the next table and asked where we had bought such beer. They couldn't believe it was homemade. They thought we were lying and making fun of them.
Beer Instead of Water and Protection Against Vitamin Deficiency
My goal is to “save,” reconstruct, and develop the brewing heritage of Belarus. After all, we had our own traditional drinks, our own brewing customs, and even our own “Oktoberfests.”
Take, for example, a beer known as Oboznoye, or “Camp Beer.” In the 17th century, when soldiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had no access to clean drinking water, one solution was this special beer prepared for military campaigns.
According to a recipe recorded in 1675 by Jakub Kazimierz, the beer was made using special loaves called Saladushki. These were soaked in boiled water, to which hops and yeast were then added.
This unusual recipe was not only a practical solution during military campaigns but also a symbol of adaptability and ingenuity. The tradition survived for centuries, particularly among Belarusian settlers known as samokhody. They carried it eastward across the Russian Empire, refining the methods and introducing new ingredients such as beets, carrots, and pumpkins.
Another example is pine beer. Made using pine needles or other coniferous ingredients, this beer was believed to do more than simply quench thirst. It was used as a preventive remedy against scurvy and vitamin deficiencies, which was especially important during the winter and spring months.
“I Dedicated My First Beer to My Grandparents”
Four years ago, my adventure with beer began. At first, I brewed it in an ordinary cooking pot, just like most homebrewers.
When I was starting out, I tried to brew two types of beer: one light and one dark. I called the light beer Dziady (“Grandfathers”) and the dark one Babuli (“Grandmothers”). The labels featured portraits of my actual grandparents.
My friend says that my first beer was the most delicious beer he had ever tasted. Unfortunately, I didn't write anything down or keep a brewer's log — a detailed record of the brewing process. So recreating that particular beer is now impossible.
Beer of the Nobility
As I continued brewing Dziady and Babuli, I learned more and more about the brewing process, improved my skills, and gained experience. After another brewing session, I suddenly asked myself: “Did we have any beer of our own — something specifically Belarusian?”
I couldn't find anything obvious, so I decided to dig deeper.
That question started my journey in search of Belarusian beer. I have friends at the Academy of Sciences, including archaeologists. I often join them on expeditions as a volunteer, where I meet other researchers and scholars. Some of these expeditions take place in Grodno.
Perhaps the old buildings of Grodno and our conversations about history also inspired me to explore Belarus's brewing heritage.
I search for information in many different places, including Polish, Lithuanian, and Belarusian resources. Most of the historical materials are written in Old Polish, Latin, Old Russian, or Old Belarusian.
I use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to help with translation. It allows me to convert Latin-script text from scanned books or images into digital text, which I can then process using translation software.
Scholars help me with Old Polish and Old Belarusian. I meet them through Facebook and tell them that we need to save the history of Belarusian beer 😏 Everyone seems to like that idea.
Many People Help Me
This kind of research requires an enormous amount of time to find and process information. Keep in mind that I mostly do this work at night.
Most often, I search for information in digital archives. I find digitized historical books and then study them.
But finding information is only half the challenge — you also have to understand it.
For example, I discovered a beer recipe in a 17th-century book published in Kraków. The first problem was understanding pre-metric units of measurement, such as the garniec, handfuls, and other traditional measures.
These measurements varied from one city to another and could even change over time within the same city. Without understanding them, it is impossible to recreate the original beer accurately.
That is why I actively seek help from historians. For example, Professor Yury Hardzeyeu of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków helped me understand historical units of measurement.
The second challenge is reproducing and reconstructing the beer itself, because modern malt is different from the malt used centuries ago. I had to brew many experimental batches and learn through practical experience.
In general, many people support my work and the idea of preserving Belarusian brewing history.
For example, Vasil, who spent a long time reconstructing Samokhod Beer, helped me with Oboznoye Beer, which was its predecessor.
The Beer Brewing Process
The brewing process has changed considerably from a technological perspective.
In the past, people heated stones over an open fire and then used them to warm water inside a large wooden vessel. Metal containers were extremely expensive at the time.
Today, we have electricity and readily available specialized equipment. However, the basic ingredients remained essentially unchanged until the 20th century: malt, hops, water, and yeast.
What changed were the proportions of ingredients in individual recipes and the tools used for brewing.
In the 21st century, brewers began adding all kinds of ingredients to satisfy the tastes of modern beer drinkers. Now you can find everything from Gose to beers flavored with borscht or khaladnik, a traditional cold beet soup.
But here is what a more classical brewing process looks like.
We take malt and boil it while maintaining specific temperature rests (during which the enzymes in the malt turn into starch).
Then we filter the mixture and boil it with hops. After that, we cool it, add yeast, and allow it to ferment.
Once fermentation is complete, we bottle the beer for carbonation. About a month later, it is ready to drink.
You can brew beer in ordinary cooking pots. You can also use specialized brewing equipment, which makes the process easier. The necessary equipment can be purchased from specialist stores.
It all depends on your patience, the amount of free time you have, and what kind of final product you want to achieve.
For a full historical reconstruction of something like Samokhod Beer, you would need a stove, an open fire, wooden vessels, straw, and many other things.
Specialist shops offer a wide variety of brewing ingredients, and their characteristics can differ significantly.
Historically, malt was less efficient: brewers used two to three liters of water per kilogram of malt. With modern malt, the amount is five liters of water per kilogram. Hops also tasted different.
My collection includes:
- Three beer recipes dating from 1675.
- A pine beer recipe from 1714 (although the drink itself is much older and can be traced back to the Vikings).
- Gramatka, which most people prepare as a soup. However, I found evidence that it was actually a drink prepared in a way similar to English butterbeer from 1588, which inspired J. K. Rowling.
And I intend to continue my search.
For now, I only share my beer with friends and acquaintances. You can read reviews of my beer on Untappd.
