Beer brewed with ephedra herb?

[philistine]

K, so just thought id throw this one out there....
Anyone heard/thought of beer brewed with dried ephedra? It's a herb used in Chinese medicine , aka Ma Huang. Also used more in recent times in gym and energy supplements etc.
I was thinking about the possibility of a brew using the dried herb somewhere in the process (not an extract) .
It has it's on bittering qualities that aren't overly offensive and traditional preparations involve simmering it for a period of time - so it wouldn't suffer from being thrown into a wort on the boil.
I was thinking it could go into a particularly strong (as in alc%) IPA. I'd call it 'the berserker' ;-)

 

[slcmorro]

Beer already gives me energy, the ability to do things I normally wouldn't do, and makes me dashingly handsome even without fancy eastern herbs. Just ask the missus

 

[philistine]

I resemble that remark

 

[Screwtop]

Another suggestion for a name for the beer

Sudsafed

Screwy

 

[NewtownClown]

K, so just thought id throw this one out there....
Anyone heard/thought of beer brewed with dried ephedra? It's a herb used in Chinese medicine , aka Ma Huang. Also used more in recent times in gym and energy supplements etc.
I was thinking about the possibility of a brew using the dried herb somewhere in the process (not an extract) .
It has it's on bittering qualities that aren't overly offensive and traditional preparations involve simmering it for a period of time - so it wouldn't suffer from being thrown into a wort on the boil.
I was thinking it could go into a particularly strong (as in alc%) IPA. I'd call it 'the berserker' ;-)

Seriously?
Crumble some Sudafed into your beer (screwy beat me)

 

[TimT]

Interesting. I hadn't heard of that one, you might have to hit the Chinese cookery books to find out more! What sort of bitterness does it give, and how do you extract the bitterness? (ie, would it be killed by a long boil - would the ferment tend to negate some/all of its flavour qualities?)

 

[TimT]

You can brew with any number of herbs or spices, or even omit them entirely for a straight fermented-malt ale. You could get quite a lot of flavour that way, just by drinking early in its life (like two, three days after the fermentation begins), or by mashing high to ensure a lot of unfermentable sugars are in the brew, or by using strong flavoursome malts (crystal, roast barley, black malt) to get spiciness or bitterness.

I've been doing mostly herbal brews this year, and I've had some encouraging results. Some herbs just allow the yeasty flavours and esters to shine through, and some work well with the malty flavours as well. If you want the focus in your ales to be, say, malt or yeast rather than hops then it's well worth doing a few brews without hops at all; many other herbs have similar preservative effects to hops anyway. Check out my post on this over here; I'll be interested to add ephedra to the list.