Middle Ages Brewing Company offers handcrafted ales brewed in the fashion of medieval, merry old England. The brewery is owned by a Syracuse couple, Marc and Mary Rubenstein. Marc, the head brewer, interned at two microbreweries, Kennebunkport Brewing in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Shipyard Brewing Company in Portland, Maine.

Mary says, "Our beer is handcrafted: no computers to control brewing cycles; we physically weight out the malt, do not use any adjuncts such as rice or corn fillers; and we mix our beer by hand. Using a rousing stick, Marc and Mary mix the fermenting wort when the yeast requires oxygenation, just before fermentation begins. As a brewer in Portland explained to her, "Then you become one with the yeast."

To maintain the tradition and tastes of English ales of the Middle Ages, the brewery uses two-row malted barley imported from Munton and Fisson Plc., in Stowmarket, Suffolk, England. The malt is germinated barley that has been kiln dried. "Our yeast strain is a direct descendent of brewing yeast originating in Yorkshire, England. It has been cultivated for the past 150 years," Marc said. We figure it should bear a resemblance to the Medieval yeasts." Middle Ages Brewing harvests its yeast from batch to batch, mixing it with warm beer to activate it.