Freezeblade

Recipes 

So, new guy to the forums here, and to brewing beer in general, I usually stick around the cider/mead side of things, but intrigued by the unusual and historic, I decided to take a stab at making a Gruit Ale (Unhopped http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruit). Of the beers my fellow conspirators and I enjoy, many are Belgian-style ones, so it seemed like a great idea to just combine to two, making a sort of Spiced Gruit Golden Ale. As this is my first real attempt at this sort of thing, i thought sticking up the would-be recipe for crit would be a good idea. so here it is. (based loosly off of a Golden Monkey Ale clone)

Size: 5.5 Gallon

8.85 lb pale malt extract
.5 lb flaked american barley
.5 lb Aromatic Malt Belgium
2 lb Honey (clover)

Here's where it gets a bit different than most are used to:

Herb infusion (instead of hops, all added at 60 mins of a 75 min boil)

1 oz Yarrow Tops
1/4 oz Wormwood

Other spices

1/4 oz Cardamom Seed
1/2 nutmeg "nut" (grated)
1 medium cinnamon stick

Yest used is White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast

What do you guys think? suggestions?

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Primary:Russian River Redemption clone, Kelly's Melomel, Graham's English Cider 22-23
Clearing:Apple Wine
Aging:Public House Dry Stout, Procrastination Porter, Mr. Brown Ale, Westvleteren 12 Clone, Mead, Duvel Clone, Graham's English Cider 6-21, Belgian Draak Strong Ale, Fig Melomel, Acerglyn, Restorative Tonic Metheglyn

Arneba28

Recipes 

actually I think it sounds really really good. Half of a nutmeg nut sounds like it might be a bit much if its greated, especially if it is fresh that is some potent stuff

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My Kegerator Project

Ego Archive

Recipes 

Bringing back a older topic, but I'm curious if you ended up doing this, and how it went?

I am contemplating brewing up a Gruit, and thought I would get some impressions first.

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ABV quickchart

Planning:SWMBO Berry wine, Imperial Coffee Stout, Shaved Nut(s) Brown ale.
In Primary:Apfelwein, American Pale Ale
In Secondary:
Conditioning:Sweet Chocolate Stout
On Tap: Apple Clove Mead (Bottled), 120 IPA Clone,Thanksgiving Amber Gruit (yuck), Pyment, Sweet Chocolate Stout

CBBaron

Recipes 

Here is a link to a couple gruits I did and my impressions.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/gruit-ales-kettle-64725/.
The gruits are drinkable but not enjoyable. That may change with age but I'm not betting on it.
The recipe used here looks much better than what I did.

Craig

Freezeblade

Recipes 

I ended up doing it, and it turned out very intersting. I overdid the complexity of the spices, next time I'll just do corrander and orange zest, as well as cut back the yarrow a bit and putting it earlier into the boil, which will make it a bit less present in the nose (hopfully), as most people who tried it were a bit disturbed by the herb-y smell. I quite enjoyed it, but it's not for someone who likes to stick with more traditional views of beer, lending more twards thoes who enjoy trying something new. One thing I will say though, is the buzz that comes from this was very interesting, making it feel so much more alcoholic than it really is, this of course is from the Herb mixture.

My next experiment with Gruit is going to be my spiced holiday red, which will be heavly spiced anyway, so I'm hoping that will make the inclusion of alternate bittering methods less noticable.

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Primary:Russian River Redemption clone, Kelly's Melomel, Graham's English Cider 22-23
Clearing:Apple Wine
Aging:Public House Dry Stout, Procrastination Porter, Mr. Brown Ale, Westvleteren 12 Clone, Mead, Duvel Clone, Graham's English Cider 6-21, Belgian Draak Strong Ale, Fig Melomel, Acerglyn, Restorative Tonic Metheglyn