No Hops

It would be called Gruit Ale.

Cheers

Very cool. Thanks for the nice link.

I'm about as far from being a hop head as you can get but I would not want a beer without hops. Hop character is a huge part of what makes beer taste like beer. I just don't think a hopless beer would taste right.

I would be interested in tasting one sometime just to see what it is like.

You'd have Colt45.

My tastes for hops are all over the map. I like IPAs but I also dig the Blonde I made last batch. It only had an ounce of Fuggles at 60min. That's it. My father, who usually hates anything over 25 IBU even said this beer could use a little more bite. It tastes pretty good to me.

From what I have gathered, a lot of the beers that were originally brewed in this country didn't have hops, because hops are not native to North America (at least where people were settled). All hops had to be imported from the Mother country. I'm pretty sure that other bittering agents like spruce tips were used on occassion.

Now, some beers deliberately have little or no hop character or bitterness. Lambis, for example, use hops that have been aged in horrible contitions for years. There's no bitterness left in them, certainly no flavor or aroma, but apparently they still provide some preservative qualities.

Me, I'm all over the map. The best beer I've ever sampled has got to be Pliny the Elder - they really don't get any more hop-centric than that. I've also been drinking a lot more Belgians lately, where the hops are really only there to provide balance. You'll see that in some big German lagers, the hops are there to keep the beer from becoming cloyingly sweet.

What about that beer that Dogfish Head makes, the one that's supposedly based on a recipe from thousands of years ago? Is that Midas Touch, am I thinking of the right one? I haven't tried that, but I'm pretty sure it's hop-free.

To pick up from the_bird many styles of beer originated in areas where hops didn't grow and thus were expensive. They were used sparingly and the flavour profiles are more about the malt and or yeast used with sufficient hop bitterness to balance the beer and no flavour or aroma additions. Try a Scottish Ale recipe to see what the other end of the hop spectrum is like.

It'd be... A starter?

-D

i've thought about making a "sumerian/viking" beer without using hops. wouldn't really be a true sumerian recipe, but i'd use dates and honey for sure

bittering agents would be something besides hops like rosemary, maybe evergreen or something.

Heather, spruce tips, rosemary...

and yet we give the lemon and lime the snob treatment.


Just throwing that out there.

I think im gonna play with the amount of hops in a few batches. Maybe do the same brew a couple times and cut the hops in the second batch. than we can sample side by side. :0

olllllo said:

Heather, spruce tips, rosemary...

and yet we give the lemon and lime the snob treatment.


Just throwing that out there.

Click to expand...

The former are traditional ways of brewing when hops are scarce or unknown.

The latter are primarily used to mask the flavor of cheaply made beer.

Just sayin'...

They balance an unbalanced cheaply made beer in need of a mask.

So what do you think.....

Toss a couple sprigs of rosemary in a Corona?

the_bird said:

What about that beer that Dogfish Head makes, the one that's supposedly based on a recipe from thousands of years ago? Is that Midas Touch, am I thinking of the right one? I haven't tried that, but I'm pretty sure it's hop-free.

Click to expand...

I've had Midas Touch and read the BYO article about it. While there is very little hops flavor and aroma there is some used by Dogfish Head for bitterness and to make it more like beer for commercialization.
I've also had a Scottish Heather ale that was similar in that the hops was very restrained.
Both were good beers that I enjoyed. However they were not completely free of hops but the malty sweetness was dominate.
Craig

Buds from elderberry bushes can be used for bittering. They have a nice and unique aroma. Use the big spear-shaped buds and crush them a little first before putting them into the boil.

Duffey said:

Buds from elderberry bushes can be used for bittering. They have a nice and unique aroma. Use the big spear-shaped buds and crush them a little first before putting them into the boil.

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Is this similar to elderflowers which are sold by most wine making shops?
Craig

Originally posted by the_bird
What about that beer that Dogfish Head makes, the one that's supposedly based on a recipe from thousands of years ago? Is that Midas Touch, am I thinking of the right one? I haven't tried that, but I'm pretty sure it's hop-free.

Click to expand...

I believe you're thinking of
Chateau Jiahu
In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers used pre-gelatinized rice flakes, Wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, barley malt, hawthorn fruit, and Chrysanthemum flowers. The rice and barley malt were added together to make the mash for starch conversion and degredation. The resulting sweet wort was then run into the kettle. The honey, grapes, Hawthorn fruit, and Chrysanthemum flowers were then added. The entire mixture was boiled for 45 minutes, then cooled. The resulting sweet liquid was pitched with a fresh culture of Sake yeast and allowed to ferment a month before the transfer into a chilled secondary tank.

It is available here in WA but I have yet to try it.

Brewtopia said:

I believe you're thinking of
Chateau Jiahu
In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers used pre-gelatinized rice flakes, Wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, barley malt, hawthorn fruit, and Chrysanthemum flowers. The rice and barley malt were added together to make the mash for starch conversion and degredation. The resulting sweet wort was then run into the kettle. The honey, grapes, Hawthorn fruit, and Chrysanthemum flowers were then added. The entire mixture was boiled for 45 minutes, then cooled. The resulting sweet liquid was pitched with a fresh culture of Sake yeast and allowed to ferment a month before the transfer into a chilled secondary tank.

It is available here in WA but I have yet to try it.

Click to expand...

Just had it the other night, fairly interesting but not impressive.

Berliner Weisse and Flanders Red/Oud Bruin both use very little hops.

CBBaron said:

Is this similar to elderflowers which are sold by most wine making shops?
Craig

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't know. I would imagine that the flowers are similar to hop cones in their structure, so maybe the flowers do work.

There's a Scottish brewery that makes ales in the tradition of ancient methods (sometimes with no hops) and they have a delicious elderberry black ale.

i had a homebrew without hops last night. while it was interesting...i won't be searching out more. my brother said that he had used unhopped beer to cook with and that it worked very well for that, i want hops in my beer...a little or a lot, but give me hops.