Plannin' a gruit!
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TimT
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Let's think. Okay, so you may be able to find a few Belgian lambics and the like that feature fruit and herbs prominently. There are one or two classic ales that have gruit herbs - you may be able to buy 'Fraoch heather ale' which contains heather, bog myrtle, and ginger.
Secondly, there are teas which actually do feature some old ale flavourings. Dandelion tea (dandelion root or dandelion leaf) is one. Lemon balm tea is another. (And of course mint teas in general.)
Thirdly, you can occasionally pick up a non-alcoholic soft drink that probably originally started out as an alcoholic drink: the classic is ginger beer or ginger ale. (They were probably commonly alcoholic even at the height of Temperance!) There are others: Sarsaparilla Ale, or apparently you can buy a Dandelion and Burdock Ale.
Or brew yourself! But - expect some tartness. That's inevitable. If you are doing anything other than a pale I'd strongly recommend a base bittering herb, like horehound or gentian.
Secondly, there are teas which actually do feature some old ale flavourings. Dandelion tea (dandelion root or dandelion leaf) is one. Lemon balm tea is another. (And of course mint teas in general.)
Thirdly, you can occasionally pick up a non-alcoholic soft drink that probably originally started out as an alcoholic drink: the classic is ginger beer or ginger ale. (They were probably commonly alcoholic even at the height of Temperance!) There are others: Sarsaparilla Ale, or apparently you can buy a Dandelion and Burdock Ale.
Or brew yourself! But - expect some tartness. That's inevitable. If you are doing anything other than a pale I'd strongly recommend a base bittering herb, like horehound or gentian.
TimT
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Today I'm all about the glechoma hederacae, or alehoof. Did a mash this morning: 1 kilo Maris Otter, 1 kilo Rye, 9 L of water (after boil), 55 g of alehoof in the boil. Simple! Gravity is 1.053, which I'm not too displeased about.
Alehoof has a definite quality - tanniny and minty, with a fresh herb aroma and taste that I'm hoping will stay at end of fermentation. It also seems to be enhancing some of the malty flavours, though again, we'll see at the end of ferment. As the name suggests, it's a classic brewing herb. Looking forward to pouring a completed one of those out of the bottle in a few weeks
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Alehoof has a definite quality - tanniny and minty, with a fresh herb aroma and taste that I'm hoping will stay at end of fermentation. It also seems to be enhancing some of the malty flavours, though again, we'll see at the end of ferment. As the name suggests, it's a classic brewing herb. Looking forward to pouring a completed one of those out of the bottle in a few weeks
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Coodgee
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Interesting thread. Good ****! And good luck to all the 'erb brewers mon.
Matplat
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Have you got books on this? How do you generate a recipe? Surely you would go through a few too many dud batches if you have to work out herb quantities/boil timing/ferment additions if you have to work it all out by yourself...?
TimT
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Oh yeah, there's Stephen Harrod-Buhner's classic book of weird arsery Sacred Herbal and Healing Brews or maybe it's Sacred Healing and Herbal Brews, but whatever. I always get it mixed up. I find his herb quantities are usually reliable and his advice on the properties of various herbs is useful as well. It's definitely not a book for hop heads - he admits he doesn't like them much and doesn't bother with different varieties of hops.
Country wine books often have good information in them. I have another with recipes for nettle meads, fruit wines, etc. In that respect country wine brewers seem receptive to ideas about herbal brewing in ways that beer brewers sometimes aren't. I have a few country wine books on my shelf with info on that.
I'll dig them up when I've got a bit more time and reference them here.
Country wine books often have good information in them. I have another with recipes for nettle meads, fruit wines, etc. In that respect country wine brewers seem receptive to ideas about herbal brewing in ways that beer brewers sometimes aren't. I have a few country wine books on my shelf with info on that.
I'll dig them up when I've got a bit more time and reference them here.
TimT
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Here we go, here's a list of some of the relevant books:
Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Stephen Harrod Buhner - different perspectives from a naturalist.
Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats, transcribed by Karen Hess - some very interesting old recipes for beer, mead and cheese are included within. Insight into both early US cookery and 17th/18th century English cookery.
Country Wines & Cordials: Wild Plant & Herbal Recipes for Drinks Old & New, Wilma Paterson - that's the ticket! Now we're getting into that time when brewing was mostly in charge of batty old cat ladies who lived in hovels (hey, I mean that in a nice way! (Okay, full disclosure: the book was printed in 1980)). Few beer recipes, but there is a very interesting recipe for 'barley posset'.
Old-time recipes for Home Made Wines, Cordials and LIquers, Helen S. Wright - lots of folky recipes here, stuff like 'Tomato Beer' and 'Pea Beer' and, a lovely idea, 'Ebulum' - strong ale with elderberries, juniper, and spices. Also the inevitable spruce beer and molasses beer and root beer.
The Art of Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz - Katz is an all-round enthusiast about fermentation but there is some good stuff in here about wild-fermented beers, lambics, and meads.
The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart - this one was a library borrowing but it gave me plenty of ideas. The focus is mainly on plants in spirits.
From the Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, Sir Kenelm Digby - I use the online Gutenberg version. Aside from his voluminous section on meads, there's a fabulous slipcoat cheese recipe in there, and plenty of other stuff too. Also ale and cider recipes. (Additional note: Digby has plenty of weird and wonderful additions to his meads - old herbs like galingale (galangal) and odd ones like pennyroyal. Basically he throws everything but the kitchen sink into his brews, and if kitchen sinks had been invented in his time, he probably would throw them in as well. But the book is an extremely useful guide to historical brewing herbs).
Stolen from my old post here.
Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Stephen Harrod Buhner - different perspectives from a naturalist.
Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats, transcribed by Karen Hess - some very interesting old recipes for beer, mead and cheese are included within. Insight into both early US cookery and 17th/18th century English cookery.
Country Wines & Cordials: Wild Plant & Herbal Recipes for Drinks Old & New, Wilma Paterson - that's the ticket! Now we're getting into that time when brewing was mostly in charge of batty old cat ladies who lived in hovels (hey, I mean that in a nice way! (Okay, full disclosure: the book was printed in 1980)). Few beer recipes, but there is a very interesting recipe for 'barley posset'.
Old-time recipes for Home Made Wines, Cordials and LIquers, Helen S. Wright - lots of folky recipes here, stuff like 'Tomato Beer' and 'Pea Beer' and, a lovely idea, 'Ebulum' - strong ale with elderberries, juniper, and spices. Also the inevitable spruce beer and molasses beer and root beer.
The Art of Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz - Katz is an all-round enthusiast about fermentation but there is some good stuff in here about wild-fermented beers, lambics, and meads.
The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart - this one was a library borrowing but it gave me plenty of ideas. The focus is mainly on plants in spirits.
From the Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, Sir Kenelm Digby - I use the online Gutenberg version. Aside from his voluminous section on meads, there's a fabulous slipcoat cheese recipe in there, and plenty of other stuff too. Also ale and cider recipes. (Additional note: Digby has plenty of weird and wonderful additions to his meads - old herbs like galingale (galangal) and odd ones like pennyroyal. Basically he throws everything but the kitchen sink into his brews, and if kitchen sinks had been invented in his time, he probably would throw them in as well. But the book is an extremely useful guide to historical brewing herbs).
Stolen from my old post here.
wide eyed and legless
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With your knowledge of herbs Tim you should have a crack at Campari.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFXx2ibS8T8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFXx2ibS8T8
TimT
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Well, I had some gruit yesterday and it was very pleasant. The herbs (which admittedly I went a little over the top with) all combined together to have a kind of pot pourri effect - very lovely on the nose, with a nice savoury-spicy-bitter flavour that balanced out the sweet and sour of the beer. If anything the drink seemed to have a slightly stimulating effect on me.
It's a little undercarbed and next time I'd go for a lower gravity (from memory it finished up around 1.025, but hey, that ain't bad for a wild yeast). Hopefully it'll carb up a little more with time.
As for the alehoof brew, that has been bottled and secondary ferment should be underway now. The fresh minty flavours seem to have mostly gone, but once it's chilled and mature hopefully I should sense more of the herby qualities from the alehoof additions.
Gruit ahoy!
It's a little undercarbed and next time I'd go for a lower gravity (from memory it finished up around 1.025, but hey, that ain't bad for a wild yeast). Hopefully it'll carb up a little more with time.
As for the alehoof brew, that has been bottled and secondary ferment should be underway now. The fresh minty flavours seem to have mostly gone, but once it's chilled and mature hopefully I should sense more of the herby qualities from the alehoof additions.
Gruit ahoy!
mr_wibble
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Gruits were a often secret blend of herbs. Controlled by the Chruch, then later the Big Wigs.
Stuff I've read (mostly from the books TimT mentions above) asserts that for the most part, there is no reliable recipe for historical gruits.
So why are gruits divided into Hopped Vs NON-Hopped?
Hops impart a pleasant bittering, surely they would bring good things into any gruit.
I guess one could argue that now-days we use a single-ingredient gruit.
Stuff I've read (mostly from the books TimT mentions above) asserts that for the most part, there is no reliable recipe for historical gruits.
So why are gruits divided into Hopped Vs NON-Hopped?
Hops impart a pleasant bittering, surely they would bring good things into any gruit.
I guess one could argue that now-days we use a single-ingredient gruit.
TimT
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So why are gruits divided into Hopped Vs NON-Hopped?
Hops impart a pleasant bittering, surely they would bring good things into any gruit.
Agree. Also people today will talk of a single herb beer as being a gruit brew which seems to be historically quite inaccurate.
But I think it's good to be flexible around definitions.
I suppose I just don't want hops to dominate my brewing! Hence my particular focus.
Hops impart a pleasant bittering, surely they would bring good things into any gruit.
Agree. Also people today will talk of a single herb beer as being a gruit brew which seems to be historically quite inaccurate.
But I think it's good to be flexible around definitions.
I suppose I just don't want hops to dominate my brewing! Hence my particular focus.
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