Yarrow Beer

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cbraun77s

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Anyone have any experience brewing with yarrow.
I brewed an ale with local wild yarrow, wormwood, and homegrown hops.
First a warning- you do not need much yarrow. The plant was much more potent than it tasted raw and in a tea. I used about 12 ounces in a 15 gallon batch. Second- it has a very distinct flavor and bitterness. It is overwhelming at first. But, after 6 months I have become accustomed to it and enjoy. AND LAST- BE CAREFUL. This plant produces a psychotropic effect. No one in my drinking and brewing circle has dared to drink more than 2 pints.
I would love to hear if anyone else has explored with this ancient herb, as I plan to re-brew (with a lesser amount) this summer.
 
Ive used it and the recipe from joy of homebrewing " oh gope yarrow" I used dried yarrow from the healthfood store and i even used less than half the recommended fresh yarrrow reccomendation, i still think i used to much. I also used sweet gale and hit my numbers with that. It turned out just a touch milder than an exact lemon taste, not quite as tart but close.Although it was refreshing like mild lemon beer i do think there is a kind of awareness you get from it. I think it just bittered with a very lemon likeness to it. Fresh yarrow is recommended so im thinking its totally differnt. Wormwood is a different story though i didnt use that.But am curious.

I consider it a summer quencher like unsweetend lemonade tart dry crisp clean refreshing light and tart. THe tartness seems to mellow out some over time they are going on over 8 months bottled currently and im not exactly drinking them too fast. I almost wonder if it was because i bottle conditoned around 80 degrees unintentionaly that made it this tart?Then again it could be its bittering effects,and i still used too much somehow or something. I did a 2 gallon batch and used .2 oz although i used a cheap scale which doesnt weigh extremely accuratly it could have been .4 oz dried max.
 
I would not describe my experience as a tart flavor at all. Interesting....of course there are many varieties of yarrow and my wild native plants could be vastly different than what you got from the store. Was your fresh addition picked yourself?
 
No i only had dried available. What kind of taste were you getting?
 
Do tell...I'm becoming more and more interested in ancient herbs to bitter/flavor my brews. I haven't heard of yarrow in a beer before and I would love to know more about the plant and its historical use in brewing (if there is any)
 
There are books on ancient herbs for brewing,7 bridges co-op sells them,im shure you can get it on amazon or something too. I just wish i could commercially obtain a good ancient beer like this, and now i have a vision of future commercial beers,seems to be the trend in brewing to raise the bar or be unique.I happen to enjoy Rogues Juniper pale ale alot its different i dont know if ancient but i enjoy some of those differnet type beers. Im shure beers will become more out there with time.
 
Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers is a great, great, book. If interested I will post some highlights from the Yarrow section.
 
I have been using yarrow (along with wormwood & sweet gale) in my gruit ale recipe. I kept it to 1oz yarrow in the boil, and 1oz yarrow in the primary.

I've read that the fresh flowering tops are extra potent, but I am having a tough time imagining 12oz in 15gal of beer... wow! I may have to try a slightly bolder addition sometime soon..

I've also found a use for yarrow with a metheglin (mead). It provides a very nice drying finish to the mead's sweetness. Plus, the aromatics are so nice!
:)
--LexusChris
 
LexusChris said:
I have been using yarrow (along with wormwood & sweet gale) in my gruit ale recipe. I kept it to 1oz yarrow in the boil, and 1oz yarrow in the primary.

I've read that the fresh flowering tops are extra potent, but I am having a tough time imagining 12oz in 15gal of beer... wow! I may have to try a slightly bolder addition sometime soon..

I've also found a use for yarrow with a metheglin (mead). It provides a very nice drying finish to the mead's sweetness. Plus, the aromatics are so nice!
:)
--LexusChris
Click to expand...

I have used wormwood in several metheglins to give a complexity of flavor. I usually am not fermenting with honey in the summer, but may have to do up a batch with yarrow.
I only use fresh yarrow, as I have fields of it in the woods near my home. It is potent to say the least. I still have well over 10 gallons of it, as it is only sampled when you have the freedom to be giddy and dancing.
 
I know this thread is relatively old, but I thought I would post my experience with Yarrow in case anyone is wanting more information.

Be careful! according to Ancient Herbal and Healing Beers, yarrow compounds the alcoholic effect, maybe because it contains Thujone. I will say from experience that this is true. I recently brewed an American Honey Ale from a kit. I replaced the aroma hops supplied in the kit with a healthy bunch of yarrow, chamomile and rose hips. I also dry hopped with Yarrow, chamomile and rose hips. The beer was approximately 6% ABV but it hit me like 2 shots of tequila. The inebriation was instant. It was a happy feeling but the sobering was brutal. I had a horrible lasting headache. I tested it the next night on my boyfriend, without telling him what to expect and he noted the same feelings and headache afterward. Luckily the chamomile also made him sleepy and the nap took care of the headache.

Despite the headache, I will be brewing this recipe again because the combination of the herbs and honey was amazing and I really enjoyed the heightened intoxication. I took this beer to my beer club meeting and everyone loved it and also fed it to my family at our Christmas party and it went over very well.
 
cattailsforlunch said:
I recently brewed an American Honey Ale from a kit. I replaced the aroma hops supplied in the kit with a healthy bunch of yarrow, chamomile and rose hips. I also dry hopped with Yarrow, chamomile and rose hips.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a successful adventure into yarrow! I am curious to know how much yarrow you used at both steps, and whether it was dried or fresh cut from your garden? Also, how big was the batch?

It is always the challenge to determine 'how much to use' of any spice. All the details are appreciated!
:)
--LexusChris
 
It was an American Honey Pale Ale kit purchased from More Beer. It made 5 gallons. As I said, I just replaced the aroma hops in the last five minutes of boil with the yarrow, chamomile, and rose hips and also dry hopped with the same combination. The yarrow and rose hips were purchased from Monterey Bay Spice Company in dried form since this isn't the time of year to get fresh stuff from my Pennsylvania backyard garden. The chamomile was from my garden. It grows like a weed in my garden and I harvest and dry enough each year to make tea on special occasions. Unfortunately, I am horrible at recording and repeating recipes. I am a culinary student and have been cooking for 20 years but I don't think I have ever made the same thing twice. If I had to guess, I would say I used approximately 2-4 ounces of each herb in the boil and then another 2-4 ounces of each as a dry hop.
 
Also, I think the flavors were a little strong, so I would probably go closer to the 2 ounces of each the next time.

another note: many people commented that the chamomile and honey combination was like drinking tea and then all of a sudden the yarrow and alcohol start working on you. It is very interesting but I will add that no one has been brave enough to have more than two at a time. Both because of the strong effect and the abundant flavor.
 
cattailsforlunch said:
I know this thread is relatively old, but I thought I would post my experience with Yarrow in case anyone is wanting more information.

Be careful! according to Ancient Herbal and Healing Beers, yarrow compounds the alcoholic effect, maybe because it contains Thujone. I will say from experience that this is true. I recently brewed an American Honey Ale from a kit. I replaced the aroma hops supplied in the kit with a healthy bunch of yarrow, chamomile and rose hips. I also dry hopped with Yarrow, chamomile and rose hips. The beer was approximately 6% ABV but it hit me like 2 shots of tequila. The inebriation was instant. It was a happy feeling but the sobering was brutal. I had a horrible lasting headache. I tested it the next night on my boyfriend, without telling him what to expect and he noted the same feelings and headache afterward. Luckily the chamomile also made him sleepy and the nap took care of the headache.

Despite the headache, I will be brewing this recipe again because the combination of the herbs and honey was amazing and I really enjoyed the heightened intoxication. I took this beer to my beer club meeting and everyone loved it and also fed it to my family at our Christmas party and it went over very well.
Click to expand...

If you could, please post the recipe for us - :)
 
I am curious, when I lived in Idaho a few years ago yarrow grew wild all over the mountains, which part of the plant are you guys using to brew with. Are you using the shoots off the roots, the flowers, or the whole plant? I know the white or purple shoots or rhizomes off the roots have an herbal flavor if you chew on them but they will also make your mouth go numb.
 
Yeah, if just chewing on it makes your mouth go numb, think what ingesting it will do to your brain.

Anyway, you asked for a recipe. As I said above, I used the American Honey Ale kit from More Beer and simply replaced the hops in the last five minutes of the boil with 4 ounces each of Yarrow, chamomile, and rose hips. Then I dry hopped with an additional 4 ounces of each. It was too strong so next time I will cut it back to 2 ounces of each. Also, the American Honey Ale is a pretty simple recipe, so next time, I am not buying a kit. I'm not going to post MoreBeer's recipe here but will tell you the hops are all cascade, and it contains 6 lbs DME, some American honey, and a little light grains for steeping. The chamomile was harvested from my garden (flowers only). The yarrow and rose hips were purchased from Monterey Bay Spice Company. Monterey Bay offers bulk bags of flower only or flower mixed with herbs.
 
I found myself rereading through Buhner's book again, and noticed that a recipe for Yarrow Beer called for 1/2 of the yarrow to be boiled and 1/2 of the yarrow to be added to the fermenter prior to pitching the yeast.

Does any one have experience in adding Yarrow (or other herbs for that matter) PRE fermentation and leaving them in through primary?
 
Yes, that is what I did and described above. I put half of the herbs in the last 5 minutes of the boil and half of the herbs in before I pitched the yeast and allowed them to stay in there the entire primary fermentation.
 
More specifically, I am wondering if there is any benefit to having the yarrow in during primary as opposed to just dry-hopping with it in secondary...?
 
Ahh, I guess I was confused on the definition of dry hop. I did add the herbs in to primary prior to fermentation and allowed them to stay the entire time, just short of two weeks. I did not move the beer to a secondary, just bottled when I was sure primary was finished.
 
I've always put the yarrow in the boil so as to kill off any wild yeast that would most def. be covering the plant.
 
After finding little to no solid advice on how much dried Yarrow to use for some herbal beers I am developing, I recently embarked on an extended experiment.

Just kegged part one of this experiment, a light session herbal beer with Yarrow as the bittering addition. My idea was to create a small base beer I could later split and dry-herb in different ways.

I will post the full recipe soon and put a link here, but for the purposes of this thread I just wanted to share some results....

• For this 10 Gal batch of 1.030 OG beer I boiled .4 oz dried Yarrow in a hop sack for 60 minutes. (Originally estimated for twice that amount but after I measured it out instinct told me it was way too much)

• Result was a pleasant bitterness with a clean, lemon-like tartness, nothing harsh or unpleasant at all. I also noticed that final pH was considerably lower than that same recipe brewed with hops which I think contributes to this tart cleanliness, though I cant say for sure that the Yarrow is responsible for this.

• Overall impression is that a little Yarrow really does go along way. For higher SG's I'd tick the Yarrow up only very slightly. This way the Yarrow, like any good bittering addition, allows for more interesting flameout / dry hop / aroma based flavors of your choice to shine though.

More info to come as these beers come though the pipeline!
 
I've joined this discussion as I'm just currently experimenting with a lavender and yarrow beer. Again like the yarrow the lavender packs quite a punch. I added a small fistful, say 10 flowering tops, to 5 gallons. The lavender was boiled and the strained water added to a finished beer. It's given it a lovely floral first taste but is a little too lavendery on the finish. I've added a v. small amount of fresh yarrow flowering tops, again maybe 10 tops boiled and strained on the basis that I can add more but can't take it out. Stories 2 pints and a headache are giving me pause. I feel a word of caution may be needed in terms of how to add leafy herbs to brews. It is clear that some folk on this thread are boiling and straining the herbs but it seems others may be adding the leaf to the fermentation process. This is something that should NEVER be done. Green leaf in an active fermentation bucket will produce METHANOL due to the fermentation of the cellulose. I wonder if this has resulted in the headaches mentioned earlier in the thread. I'm aware that yarrow has strong effects including 'sense of well being' but also enhancing the effects of other 'actives' you may have consumed and some people chew a little wad and leave it in their cheek for such effects. Never heard mention of headaches from it's use though! I'm going to try some hops to help ease the lavendery finish - although now I've finished the pint it's less powerful!
 
Wow, Zombie thread...

For Yarrow and pretty much any other herb that you are unfamiliar with, I recommend making a strong tea (technically a "tisane") instead of adding it to the boil. Always weigh the quantity of herbs and add them to a measured volume of boiling water. Filter press coffee makers are perfect for this.

Make your beer without any herb additions and when it has fermented, take a measured aliquot (say 500 ml), measure out a dose of the tea (say 10 ml), mix together and taste. Make notes. Add a second dose of tea to the beer, taste, make notes. Repeat until you reach a point where your notes say "this is way too much." Now you have an idea of how much of the tea should go into the whole batch.

You can also experiment with boiling the herbs in the tea for various times; often this will profoundly affect the flavor, as bitter substances are released at boiling temperatures. I think Yarrow is a great example of this. If you boil it, you get a lot of bitterness; but if you just steep it in hot water, you get much less bitterness but still plenty of the floral character.

I ended up using 18g of fresh Yarrow flowers in a 20L batch of light Gose (only 3.4% abv) for a delicate floral character. You could easily use twice that; fresh flowers are not very strong. A friend used freshly-dried flowers (dried on his dashboard) for a stronger effect. He added them directly to the fermented Gose, as if dryhopping, because he likes a little wild character (and Gose is sour anyway).

If you are using Yarrow flowers in a "regular" beer I'd start with an ounce of dried flowers to 5 gallons, added post-fementation as a strong tea; more for stronger beers.
 
Zombies!!! So what kind of yarrow? Dried? Any consesus on using it in the boil, or fermeter or making a tea?
 
No worries. I seriously would like to make a gruit at some point.

I need some reassurance that yarrow: 1. Is non-habit-forming and 2. Doesn't cause permanent cognitive impairment.

I'm also wondering if this is true:
Bill da Stone said:
Green leaf in an active fermentation bucket will produce METHANOL due to the fermentation of the cellulose.
Click to expand...
Seems unlikely.

@Miraculix any comments?
 
RPh_Guy said:
No worries. I seriously would like to make a gruit at some point.

I need some reassurance that yarrow: 1. Is non-habit-forming and 2. Doesn't cause permanent cognitive impairment.

I'm also wondering if this is true:

Seems unlikely.

@Miraculix any comments?
Click to expand...
To my knowledge, methanol is produced when pectine is present, this has nothing to do with green leaves. Hops are made up of green leaves.

I brewed a lot with yarrow. It can have a urin taste, bumps up the alcohol effect and has the potential to leave a hangover on the next day although you only had one or two pints.

I'd prefer ground ivy, potentially with mugwort. Ground ivy has, after a bit of aging of the beer, a really pleasant taste.

All of those herbs play well in a sour, I'm quite surprised you haven't done one yet!

On page one, third post I write a bit about the zoom that some herbs can impart. Again, ground ivy is my favourite so far.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/the-gruit-beer-thread.629637/
 
Throwing in my 2 cents, since I just tapped an ale brewed with mugwort and yarrow. It was meant to be a scotch ale, but my kettle caramelization didn't really take off and it's lighter than expected. 5 gallon batch, about 7% ABV, brewed with Pearl malt and nothing else in the grist.

All herbs were collected wild; I have a ton of mugwort growing around the edges of my lot in downstate NY (it's about half forested), which I collected in July, and the yarrow was collected at my dad's place up in the catskills around Labor Day.
I "first mugwort hopped" ("first wort mugworted?") with 1/2 ounce of mugwort, then another 1/2 ounce added when it hit a boil. 90-minute boil in total. Added 1/2 ounce dried yarrow leaves at 45 minutes. After 2 weeks in primary, I added 1.5 ounces of fresh flowering yarrow tops, and "dry-yarrowed" for about 2 weeks. Keg conditioned to about 2.0 volumes.

It finished at about 1.020, and is a bit on the sweet side, but that's slightly offset by the yarrow flavor in the finish. It's not astringent, but has a kind of medicinal flavor, in a pleasant way. I can see how this flavor would work well with chamomile. It's fairly subtle, but definitely noticeable, and the flavor is about the same as what you get if you chew on yarrow flowers. I'm purely estimating, but I would guess the herbs gave me about the equivalent of 25-30 IBUs. About right for the style, although it lacks the complexity of a good wee heavy (but that's because I didn't reduce my first runnings enough - not the fault of the herbs).

Not sure I can comment on the alleged intoxicating effects of the yarrow. It definitely gets me drunk, but then it's about 7% ABV, so that's hardly surprising. Need to spring it on some unsuspecting civilians to test the theory further . . . .
 
Oh, and I have not experienced a "urine taste," or any sourness to speak of. Fermented using WLP0028, with a proper starter. And proper sanitation.
 
MSAstoria said:
Oh, and I have not experienced a "urine taste," or any sourness to speak of. Fermented using WLP0028, with a proper starter. And proper sanitation.
Click to expand...
When "dry yarrowing" your proper sanitation went out of the window. Hops are antiseptic, yarrow is not. I guess the higher alcohol amount killed everything sitting on the flowers, so you're lucky.
 
Kegging let's you get away with a lot more mistakes. Cold suppresses the wild microbe growth pretty well, in combination with other factors.
 
I shook the fresh yarrow in a jar with a tablespoon or two of grain alcohol before adding to primary, so that probably did something.

Whatever you may say about the vaunted antiseptic properties of hops, they are a plant, and wild yeast in the air will settle on them as much as any other plant. As you say, though, that doesn't make much difference once primary fermentation is completed on a beer with high enough gravity.
 

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