Herbs in non-hopped beers

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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?
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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!)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 :p
 
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