Renaissance Party Series: Turn your Home into a Medieval Pub

Today’s topic for our Renaissance Party Series is for the grown ups, especially those who enjoy good food and good drink! When it comes to fare at the faire, you can bet that you’ll always find a tall glass of ale and delicious meats. In fact for some, it’s the best part of any Renaissance fair. For many people, food is a great way to explore and learn about a culture or civilization and in this case, you and your guests can experience what it might have been like to celebrate during that time. We’ve written about how to host a beer tasting party before, (see our Oktoberfest series), so putting a Renaissance spin won’t be too difficult.

Source: TicketFly.com
Source: TicketFly.com

The goal is to create an ambiance of a medieval pub or beer garden if it’s outdoors. Begin by inviting guests to attend in their best Renaissance attire (here). Decorate your party space with natural elements like floral wreaths and wooden details. Create a wooden sign to hang at your party and add color by hanging European flags. You can also put out candles and lanterns since they didn’t have the convenience of electricity back in those days.

For the food, I would recommend serving meats like sausages and roasted chicken. Cheese and rolls would also be a nice addition as well. Since the beer is the highlight of the party, you want to food to be a simple accompaniment to compliment the beer. During the Middle Ages, beer was commonly made by monks so it would be a real treat to serve trappist beer at your party like Chimay or Rochefort. You can also serve European beers from lagers to ales to add variety.

Since this party is a little less organized, you can leave out activities for your guests to do at their leisure such as horseshoes, checkers, chess, and cards which were all commonly played during the medieval times. You can also learn and teach your guests to play games that were unique to the time period. Examples include Nine Men’s Morris and Fox and Geese.

With these simple tips, you can create an afternoon of fun with friends in an instant. Do you have a tip to add to this party theme? Is so, share it with us by leaving a comment below!

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