The first extract homebrew beer recipe

This is not exactly extract but it seems fairly familiar to those of us who have brewed with the thick, syrupy wort extract sold in homebrew stores. It's a homebrew recipe from 1825 found in a working man's notebook.

Thomas Denton was tired of paying for his favorite beer, London Porter, so he came up with this "Recipe for Cheap Beer." It calls for a peck of barley, 7 pounds of treacle and 4 ounces of hops. The barley, which I'm presuming shouldn't be malted, is toasted and soaked in hot water. Then the water is drained off and boiled with the treacle and hops. Not unlike a typical extract/partial mash recipe that homebrewers are using today.

I'm tempted to try this. I'd probably use sorghum molasses which isn't quite the same thing as treacle but close enough. Here in the States, I can only find treacle locally in little half pint tins so I'm not buying 7 pounds worth that way. Otherwise, though, this looks pretty doable and could just make a tasty beer. Well, if not exactly tasty it would be at least interesting.