Beer for the Baby
Just a few days after we found out for sure that we were going to have a baby. I brewed up a beer to celebrate the coming baby. I can't find the original page where I first read about it, but back in the day "ale wives" would make a special high gravity ale upon finding out a woman was expecting. The beer would take the whole pregnancy to age, and would be consumed by the mother and midwife during labor to help keep up their strength, and the baby would be bathed in the beer since it was sterile... because the available water couldn't be guaranteed to be safe. The beer was called a "groaning ale". The recipe is up on my beer page if you are interested.