Hop free?

[mazza]

im about to start brewing my own beer as I'm allergic severely to hops and am sick of not being able to drink beer. I've been told it's way easy to home brew without using hops and just wanted to hear from anyone that's done it successfully.
Thanks

 

[sandyeggoxj]

So you want to make ale and not beer? historically in england in the 1700s you could only call it beer if it had hops.

Maybe consider bog myrtle or yarrow? There are quite a few herbs that were historically used in hop free beer.

 

[d3track]

Do a quick search of un hopped beers. I had a Sati that didn't have hops, right away it was fantastic but it doesn't age at all

 

[Gameface]

The book "Amber Gold & Black. The History of Britain's Great Beers" by Martyn Cornell has a long chapter on all the things that have been used in place of hops. Worth picking up the kindle edition just for that section if you want to brew hop free, imo.

 

[Zwerski]

I recently had a gruit that was bittered with redwood tips and was delicious.


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[feinbera]

As I think everybody else has implied without outright saying – you can brew without hops, but you can't brew without something bitter to balance out the residual sweetness from the malt.

As Zwerski said, "gruit" is what you're looking for, these are beers which are bittered with herbs and spices other than hops. I'd recommend looking up some existing gruit recipes for inspiration and a general idea of what ingredients/quantities produce a tasty, well-balanced hop-free brew, if not just picking a single recipe to follow for your first time out of the gate.

 

[slcalex]

Look up Paardebloem by Red Rock Brewery. Bittered with dandelions.


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[Komocabo]

Brewdogs did it with dandelions... Not sure if I would go that route, but you would get the bitter!

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Look up Paardebloem by Red Rock Brewery. Bittered with dandelions.


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That is a great beer! I love a good dandelion beer.

 

[riderkb]

I experimented with some bitter botanicals from a health food store. The two that seemed most likely to work in a beer were black cohosh and horehound. Cohosh is more earthy and horehound is more herbal. Both are more bitter than hops, so start with very small amounts. Try brewing an unhopped 1 gallon batch and adding a few drops of cohosh tea to it.

 

[ProfessorWoland]

I've had a gruit made using heather and it was amazing. It was called Fraoch by Williams Brothers and here's a link to a clone recipe:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/fraoch-ale-heather-ale-recipe-please-90363/