ryantate21

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Hi my name is Ryan and i live in Serbia,

I will be making my first home brew as soon as soon as my grain is ready for the mill, but over here it is near impossible to get your hands on hops, are there any alternatives i could use?

I was thinking along the lines of dry cinnamon and roasted chestnuts or hazelnuts.

Any feedback or ideas would be highly appreciated.

Ryan.

29thfloor

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Before hops, brewers used something called "gruit" to balance the flavors in their beer. I'm not sure that will be any easier to find in your area, but it's worth checking out:

http://www.gruitale.com/intro_en.htm
http://www.homebrewing.com/articles/gruit.php

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ryantate21

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Thanks for the links, both helpful and interesting reads. There is a few bio markets/health stores here that i think will suply majority of the herbs mentioned.

What results would you expect from citrus fruit zests or roasted nuts?

hoppymonkey

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NOt sure of nuts, but citrus/coriander leaves a nice fruity flavor behind. Very nice in wheats,hefes, and wits.


And FYI Wormwood is BITTER!!!

ryantate21

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thanks a lot for the advice... I've got a feeling a lot of experimenting will be involved in the first few batches, fingers crossed i can get a nice tasting brew!

htc

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Good luck to you, but something tells me that without hops for bittering your brew won't come out tasting like anything you're familiar with. Not that it won't taste great, just different.

Have you prospected the idea of growing your own hops? Granted I'm on another side of the world, but sources for hop rhizomes aren't too hard to come by here.

Phunhog

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You might also want to try rosemary. A guy in my homebrew club brewed an IPA with nothing but rosemary. It was surprisingly good!! The rosemary gave it a nice piney flavor and aroma. Just be careful because it is easy to over do it.

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biochemedic

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...the first link is especially excellent, and one that I used extensively in planning some gruits that I did in the past. I've also ordered some herbs from the site, and was very satisfied.

Gruit is indeed very different from anything that most people know beer to be...it tends to be a bit on the tart side (especially if you use yarrow for bittering), and has much more of an herbal/earthy quality to it. Not unpleasant at all, especially if you let it age for a while, but definitely not like "normal" modern beer...

Rosemary can be used as a bittering herb and flavoring herb...the March or Wild rosemary that is one of the traditional brewing herbs is actually in the rhododendron family though.

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ryantate21

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thanks all for the advice, i will lt you know how the brew comes along.

terrapinj

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some health food stores will also carry hops as a nutritional supplement if they have bulk herbs etc - worth asking them if they can get them if you can't find them elsewhere

you would be going in blind since they won't list the variety or AA% but certainly worth looking into