2025 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПThis article examines three seventeenth-century medical sources that describe beer and honey-based drinks, their properties, and their effects on health. Particular attention is given to references to Lithuania and the eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as regions associated with brewing and traditional mead making.
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2025 / Related drinksRelated drinksПБПSources from the 16th–19th centuries describe drinks made from hogweed that were fermented and consumed instead of beer in Lithuania, Poland and neighbouring lands. Some of this evidence is directly connected with Grodno, Polesia and other territories of present-day Belarus. Based on these sources, I propose a hypothesis: early “borshch” may originally have been a fermented, probably low-alcohol liquid base similar to kvass or light beer, with the name only later passing to the soup we know today.
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2025 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПIn a German edition published in 1554, the physician Ioannes Placotomus discussed Polish and Lithuanian beers and referred to excellent “Lithuanian honey” gathered from linden blossoms. This article examines what the Latin source actually says, what “Lithuania” meant in the sixteenth century, and why the evidence is relevant to the history of beer and honey-based drinks in the lands of present-day Belarus.
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