Herbs in non-hopped beers

[TimT]

Yes! Nettle beer! Last year I made a beetroot beer, for the superficial reason that I just wanted a purple beer. I have one or two recipes for nettle brews, including a nettle mead, lying around. It's a beautiful, diverse plant (you can use it as a rennet substitute in cheesemaking, did you know?) I would have thought, however, that the beer might have coloured the nettle more than the nettle coloured the beer - I'm assuming the beer was a kind of murky green?

 

[thylacine]

Nettle beer pic:

http://www.beerpal.com/vault/beergrab.asp?ID=31401

 

[TimT]

I just dug this up: a very useful list of culinary herbs, including some of the classics - hop, mugwort, elder, oak, and thyme.

Good to know hazel is a potential bittering herb. We've got one in our backyard and I just had a taste of a leaf then. Surprise surprise, it is bitter!

 

[TimT]

Got some gentian today from the very nice people at The Fruit Peddlers in Northcote (thanks for the suggestion, Technobabble!) I reckon it might go very well in a porter.

 

[Hintadupfing]

I made an oak leaf mead a few years ago. You have to be careful with when you pick the leaves, as well as how much. The young leaves are best, I think, as the tannin builds up as they mature, making them *very* bitter.

Or you could do what I did - use older leaves, and just reduce the amount.

 

[TimT]

I've read that some oaks are unsuitable for brewing - not sure why.

My latest, today, is bittered with yarrow and hazel leaf - in fact this brew may have some interesting issues which I should be able to update y'all with soon. Watch this space!

UPDATE: - My beer: the story so far.

 

[TimT]

Another great list of bittering herbs.

 

[Edak]

As mentioned on a previous page, lemon myrtle is a nice addition, had a beer with it in there and was blown away!

I wish I had the time to do such experimental beers, but alas I don't. I am glad though that someone is putting their wort on the line for the sake of others.

I will be brewing a hitachino nest white ale clone using nutmeg, coriander and orange peel but still hopped. That's as close as I get.

 

[TimT]

I've been tossing around the idea of using Vietnamese mint in a brew, during the secondary ferment, perhaps in combination with kumquats. Wonder if anyone else has tried this idea? The flavour is peppery, if a little delicate, so it might enhance a brew or might get lost completely. What do others think?

 

[Edak]

To me it doesn't sound appealing, but why not experiment? I had a cumquat tree taller than my house, had to remove it because it made to much mess. The fruit was good for jam but never considered it for beer. Its a sound way to get bitter in there though. Viet mint is best kept for food or mojitos.

 

[TimT]

With kumquats the sweetness is largely in the skin, you have to pop them in your mouth skin and all. I think the sharp citrusy bitter and the hint of citrusy sweet might go quite well.

 

[TimT]

In this week's weird-arse herbal experiment: gentian porter!

 

[TimT]

Tasting the wormwood porter today. It's chilled, and has had time to mellow and mature and carbonate. I think it's benefited greatly. It's still something of an acquired taste but approaching drinkability. The Baron had a taste and she pulled a face but remarked helpfully, 'it's savoury'. (True: it might pair well with other herbs like rosemary). Good: I can use it again, though next time I'll be more aware of how overpowering it can be.

 

[TimT]

Woah. I'm just tasting a mature gentian and ground rose hip porter and the taste and feel of it are so surprising that I have to share it.

The bitter you get from gentian is clean and strong, and immediately noticeable. Then the flavour changes in your mouth so you get a little sour and sweet as well (sweet mostly from the residual malt, I guess).

There's a bit of ginger in there - yeast loves ginger, it's said to have a lot of wild yeast living on its skin, and I think it used to be recommended, pre-20th century, to give extra zing to brews. That adds to the flavour, giving a kind of heat and to go with the bitterness of the gentian and the sweetness of the malt.

And also the liquor seems a tad more syrupy than beer would be normally - very little seems to have settled out at the bottom of the glass, meaning a lot of those solids are still in suspension. (This is the only time this has happened to me with a brew and I'm not quite sure why this time? It may be a bad sign - yeast too excited? - but I plan to drink the brew quickly, since it was always intended as a bit of an experiment.)

Perhaps as a side effect of the no-hops (hops being anti-bacterial, and all) this brew did get an infection at some point, I'm guessing lacto-bacilli but not sure. At any rate it doesn't seem to have ruined the brew; in fact I wonder if it may not have complemented the fruity sweet-sour-bitterness of the brew, giving it a tiny bit of an acidic tang?

Another thing that I've noticed with a few of my herbal brews, too: the yeast seems to throw off smells that ordinarily the strong hop aromas will block or overpower. Gentian isn't really an aromatic spice (though a fantastic bittering spice and I'd definitely recommend it for use in herbal porters and stouts and any other beer, really, where you want a clean, straightforward bittering effect). So the rule seems to be, make sure you add spices and herbs for the aroma of the beer as well as the flavour.

 

[Hintadupfing]

Where'd you get the gentian from?

I'm interested more for the purposes of creating kräuter liqueurs than brewing, per se, but experimentation is always an option.

 

[TimT]

Liquer! Just remember we're not supposed to talk about that sort of thing here

Got the gentian from a naturopath, Terra Madre in Northcote. It came with a prescription and everything - I'm to take it 'as needed'. They even gave me a sample drop to taste, and that one drop was so mouth puckeringly bitter that I wished I had brought some water with me. (I was too proud to ask for it though!)

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Is this the same gentian one uses to eliminate crabs?

 

[TimT]

Probably, how many gentians can there be? If the herbal brewing revolution ever takes off (pfft, yeah right) it would be a good excuse to keep drinking: "you can't be too careful"!

Gentian gives the bitter to Angostura and bitters, a beautiful little tipple.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Just checked the Gentian Violet used for pubic lice is also an anti-fungal, it is a crystal not the plant, just so happens to be known as the same name as the plant.

 

[philistine]

quinine for bittering perhaps? pretty strong, its already used in other beveridges... chinotto, ye olde tonic water..
It would also make your beer glow under UV