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It has been my experience with a variety of botanicals as well that where something grows (terroir) and the climate it grew in (variable for each season) have fast effects on flavor and efficiency. In the case of bog myrtle specifically, have you considered brewing with the catkins? They are...

It is totally possible beers were more sour back then than we are used to! we won't know for sure until we put our hand on a deLorean :) But I do find it interesting to read that gruit beer was described as sweet. And I know of another 17th c recipe of an early 16th c beer style (called Mol)...

The bog myrtle beer we made was with roasted barley (for a smokey flavor) and bog myrtle, no other herbs. We're trying to replicate historic gruit ale and mugwort and ground ivy are not part of that herb package. Not sure I would personally add those two either, as mugwort can be quite bittering...

I was amused by the thought bog myrtle gave the assumption of a swampy taste, as another name for it is sweet gale ;) Mugwort is indeed an Artemisia, like wormwood, and especially when harvested at the wrong time (after it bolts) will be rather bitter. We recently brewed some beer with wild...

From what I have read in the extant medieval recipes, if herbs and spices were used, often many would be used. The idea to brew honey for the taste of the mead with a herb here or there to support the flavor I think is a purely modern perception. Back then honey was just sugar (it took until the...

I'm a bit late to the party - this thread came up in a general google search on 'drestis' (medieval for lees) and I figured you all might be interested in this collection of medieval recipes, and other brewing related information...

Not sure about this part tho, as Dutch brewing houses all seem to have malting facilities like drying ovens, attics and other equipment... I think it is more a yeast delivery system then an enzyme delivery system, but this theory has been postulated in recent Dutch research.

I think that is a very likely possibility - there are two indications for using grain hulls or chaff as part of the gruit, one in the recipe (oat chaff) and one in a german city account (spelt chaff). The archaeo-botanist who worked on the spelt chaff postulated the theory that since the outside...

There certainly was trade between England and the Low Countries, but it seems not until the beer was able to travel and be traded. Gruit ale has a short shelf life especially compared to hopped beer - the one reason gruit ale disappeared nearly overnight in the northern part of the Low Countries...

The historic purchase accounts (Latin, Dutch & German, most 13-15th c), a 16th c recipe (in Dutch) and a beer type description (in Latin) are surprisingly consistent and only mention a few different herbs, in combination with some sort of grain: bog myrtle (also called sweet gale) wild or marsh...

Hi Greeneslaede, of course I can share a copy, you can download the file from Academia for free here: https://www.academia.edu/35704222/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Gruit I also have a more practical recipe, brewed for a Medieval Reenactment competition...

yes, I have all three in hand. The laurel berries are easy to buy, the bog myrtle I hand harvested myself, and the laserwort seeds I was able to buy from a small seed exchange company (apparently I bought the whole harvest, but I also plan to seed and grow it myself). And I like the idea of...

Bog myrtle, also called gagel in native Dutch, is a Low Countries plant used to brew gruit in 9-15th century gruit beer (tho by the 13th c most of northern Low Countries had switched to hopped beer to follow the Hamburg style imported beer). It is the key ingredient in Low Country gruit beer, it...

Hi, I am a new member, and I am looking into brewing a historical gruit beer, and therefore are looking into brewing with bog myrtle, laurel berries and laserwort. While it is relatively easy to find information on brewing with bog myrtle, I am not so lucky with laurel berries (according to the...