Hello everyone,
the topic popped up in two other threads, and it seems like a hand full of people likes to experiment on the gruit front, so lets combine our efforts in this thread.
For those who don't know, gruit beer is the "oldschool" way of making beer, with little to no hops but a whole range of herbs and combinations instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruit
The herbs can include nearly everything which is somehow aromatic and eadable, but the main ones are sweat gale or bog myrtl (that was the most famous one before the hops were enforced by the church), yarrow, heather, wormwood, mugwort (probably the second most used one, together with yarrow), ground ivy (grows EVERYWHERE in the uk, Mugwort also), meadosweet, juniper branches and berries, wild rosemarie (it is not related to the herb rosemary) and so on... There are a lot of those herbs.
To make a nice gruit, the brewer has to overcome some obstacles. First the taste, the herbs can be combined and as there are so many herbs, there are endless numbers of combinations possible. I personally stay with the approach "as simple as possible" but that might be only my idea.
The biggest problem i faced when brewing gruit was the fact that hops do keep all those unwanted bacteria und molds out of the beer, because hops are a strong preservative. Without the hops, spoiling the brew becomes quite easy.
I have brewed with yarrow, ground ivy, heather, sweet gale, mugwort and wild rosemary.
All the "dry hopped" (no hops used, but instead the herb) brews turned sour during the carbonation in the bottle, in other words, the herbs do not pocess those preserving abilitys of the hops. None of them, except sweet gale and maybe ground ivy.
I did make a fairly easy brew with sweet gale only (pilsener malt and 20-30% pale ale malt as I did run out of pilsener) in which i did boil 50% of the herb with the wort and added the remaining 50% unboiled into the primary fermentation. The result is delicous and not spoiled or sour as all the other ones were (except ground ivy, but i did not "dry hop" with ground ivy, i boiled it all).
Tastewise were all of the tested herbs remearkable. They all contribute their own note and I would recommend to brew a tea out of each, to get to know them. I went the long road and created a brew for each, do not know if that is really necessary.
My conclusions so far, better boil all the herbs to sanitize them, or make an alcoholic extract with vodka or a similarly pure alcohol.
Sweet gale seems to have similar characteristics to hops, regarding preservation and there might be other herbs which can do the same.
My next step will be a combination of herbs, possibly sweet gale, yarrow and mugwort and maybe a bit ground ivy (does not taste so good if it is overused) which I will boil in a wort of pale malt, red x and 10% crystal for some body and sweetness. I might also add some wormwood for the bittering (amazingly bitter herb).
I will keep you updated, please feel free to share all your ideas and results in this thread as well, so that we can all learn from each other and have some gruity fun around here
Cheers!
the topic popped up in two other threads, and it seems like a hand full of people likes to experiment on the gruit front, so lets combine our efforts in this thread.
For those who don't know, gruit beer is the "oldschool" way of making beer, with little to no hops but a whole range of herbs and combinations instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruit
The herbs can include nearly everything which is somehow aromatic and eadable, but the main ones are sweat gale or bog myrtl (that was the most famous one before the hops were enforced by the church), yarrow, heather, wormwood, mugwort (probably the second most used one, together with yarrow), ground ivy (grows EVERYWHERE in the uk, Mugwort also), meadosweet, juniper branches and berries, wild rosemarie (it is not related to the herb rosemary) and so on... There are a lot of those herbs.
To make a nice gruit, the brewer has to overcome some obstacles. First the taste, the herbs can be combined and as there are so many herbs, there are endless numbers of combinations possible. I personally stay with the approach "as simple as possible" but that might be only my idea.
The biggest problem i faced when brewing gruit was the fact that hops do keep all those unwanted bacteria und molds out of the beer, because hops are a strong preservative. Without the hops, spoiling the brew becomes quite easy.
I have brewed with yarrow, ground ivy, heather, sweet gale, mugwort and wild rosemary.
All the "dry hopped" (no hops used, but instead the herb) brews turned sour during the carbonation in the bottle, in other words, the herbs do not pocess those preserving abilitys of the hops. None of them, except sweet gale and maybe ground ivy.
I did make a fairly easy brew with sweet gale only (pilsener malt and 20-30% pale ale malt as I did run out of pilsener) in which i did boil 50% of the herb with the wort and added the remaining 50% unboiled into the primary fermentation. The result is delicous and not spoiled or sour as all the other ones were (except ground ivy, but i did not "dry hop" with ground ivy, i boiled it all).
Tastewise were all of the tested herbs remearkable. They all contribute their own note and I would recommend to brew a tea out of each, to get to know them. I went the long road and created a brew for each, do not know if that is really necessary.
My conclusions so far, better boil all the herbs to sanitize them, or make an alcoholic extract with vodka or a similarly pure alcohol.
Sweet gale seems to have similar characteristics to hops, regarding preservation and there might be other herbs which can do the same.
My next step will be a combination of herbs, possibly sweet gale, yarrow and mugwort and maybe a bit ground ivy (does not taste so good if it is overused) which I will boil in a wort of pale malt, red x and 10% crystal for some body and sweetness. I might also add some wormwood for the bittering (amazingly bitter herb).
I will keep you updated, please feel free to share all your ideas and results in this thread as well, so that we can all learn from each other and have some gruity fun around here
Cheers!