Hopless beer

[Krausen89]

I know that there are beers that are bittered with herbs and thats how it was done. My gf asked me if there was any beer styles that didnt use hops. I wasnr sure there are any because without bittering it would be too sweet...or would it? So my qiestion is, are there any styles tjat dont use any bittering at all. Thanks, happy brewing!

 

[scottland]

Beer, no. Beer by definition contains hops. Anderson Valley makes a summer beer where they only add hops in the whirlpool. But ya, you'll always find hops in 'beer'

 

[LexusChris]

Krausen, when your GF asked about beer without hops, is it because she did not care for the bitterness? or the aroma/flavor of hops?

You can brew beer with very low IBUs, but keep the flavor/aroma additions, or vice-versa. There are many styles that are more malt forward with very light, subdued bitterness (e.g. < 20 IBU)... some with no aroma hops.. others with them.

As for beer without any hops, but with some bitter or aromatic herbs to balance the malt sweetness, there are many choices. You can start with herbs you know & like: cinnamon, all-spice, ginger, sage, rosemary, etc. You could also try more classic 'gruit' herbs like mugwort, yarrow, sweet gale, etc.

The gruits can be a lot of fun, but take an adventurous spirit.. They will challenge what you thought beer tastes like on some level. For a first try, I would suggest an english brown with some sweet gale instead of hops. It is a very pleasant/aromatic herb and the style is malty to begin with .. not meant to be bitter.

Good luck!
--LexusChris

 

[MotivationDedication]

A "no hop" beverage is a "Malt Beverage". I'm sure if you read over any of the drinks most ladies (probably not unlike your gf) enjoy (smirnoff twisteds, bacardi drinks, etc) it says "malt beverage"

The idea is that there is fermentable sugar and all flavor is artifically added either before/after/during any fermentation has occurred with a very clean and efficient yeast. Thus creating an easily manipulative drink (when it comes to flavors).

Hope that helps

 

[smellysell]

Not sure if it's "technically" a beer, but braggot.

 

[DMartin]

+1 Gruit Herbs.

This is how beer was made before hops were discovered, but the taste is totally different. Be prepared, as was already stated, to be flexible in your expectations of flavor.

You will also need to make this beer in small batches and drink it quickly; hops are a natural preservative and without them your beer will spoil early.

 

[usfmikeb]

You can also buy debittered hops...

 

[OldWorld]

Damn you all and your bad info. If you use a botanical that has preservative and antiseptic properties the beer will not perish fast. My no hop beers have been just fine after six months.

Hops were forced on the good people for puritanical interests. Hops make people sleepy and lethargic that is exactly what the religious orthodoxy wanted at the time.

I wish you people who insist hops are what makes beer research the history before you spew some irrational tripe. The Sumerians were brewing beer long before most of us even knew what we were doing.

It's really nonsensical to tell people beer brewed without hops will spoil faster. That is a big fat lie. Yarrow and Mugwort contain far great bacterial inhibiting properties than Hops...They also contain some Thujone You know the stuff that makes people crazy from absinthe poisoning (another stupid myth)

The most common error in brewing with yarrow and mugwort is using the prepackaged dried stuff sold at homebrew shops. It's lousy stale product. If you were only sold stale skunky cheezy hops then you'd probably be saying the same thing about all hops...

The bototm line is use your botanicals wisely and go for fresh aromatics and high oil content. For those who want to do a little experiment get some fresh yarrow from the nursery...poke you rfinger with one of those diabetic test monitor things...

Now take the fresh yarrow leaves and smack them right on that finger tip...I'll be it numbs right up. Yarrow...otherwise known as Woundwort...For the roman soldiers marched with it on their feet.

Ah folklore...I'd better take my viagra now I'm suffering from too many hops and seem to have come down with a case of fosters flop.

 

[DMartin]

OldWorld,

There's no need to be so abusive; we are all here to help each other learn. Thank you for the clarification and especially for suggesting specific herbs. Do you know of any online resources we can turn to for reliable information in the future?

 

[Revvy]

Oldworld, I'd like to see some sources to substantiate your "cliams" and don't hand me "sacred and herbal beers" as you reference, that book is pretty out there. Back up your claims with some historical references, because we can back up hops being used as a preservatives...it doesn't take a genius to look at the entire history of the IPA as the use of hops as a preservative for beer.....

Rather than be abusive show some facts to back this up....otherwise you're just full of ****.



I think you got your history wrong...it was the church that had the monopoly on GRUIT, not hops....

From= Hops: A Brief History

Without the hop's preservative qualities, beer could not keep. Without the hop, there could be no beer stored for the summer when heat and pollen made fermentation unreliable. Even highly alcoholic ales -- sweet, thick and sticky -- were prone to spoilage, especially if subjected to the motion of travel. They needed to be drunk quickly and close to home.

So without the hop, brewing could not be pursued successfully on a large scale. No legendary brands, no huge breweries, no big advertising bucks, no ESPN, no Women's Pro Beach Volleyball.

As you can see, the hop changed more than flavor; it changed history. It was the addition of hops to beer that enabled brewers to ship their beers, to taste their first real commercial success and to relegate the homebrewer and pubbrewer to the status of novelties for several centuries.

The Rise of the Hop

Among the earliest references to hops are those of the Romans, who brought hops to Britain for use as a vegetable, and the Babylonians, who took a step in the right direction and used hops to brew a strong beverage. People who eventually migrated from Babylonia into Central Europe probably carried the knowledge of hops with them.

The earliest reference to hops in continental Europe is a mention of a hop garden in the Hallertau district in 736 AD. The first European mention of hops being added to beer dates from 1079, but it would be six centuries before the hop was universally accepted. As Michael Jackson notes in his New World Guide to Beer, wherever hopped beer was introduced, it was met with suspicion and hostility from established brewers and those whose livelihood depended upon the cultivation and sale of other plants used in brewing.

So it was in Germany. In Cologne, brewers who wanted to use hops ran afoul of the archbishop who held the monopolistic rights to gruit. But the hop flourished in spite of such roadblocks, and its preservative quality made the brewing, storing and eventual shipping of the German lager style possible.

HOPS: The Bitter Herb
University of Atlantia Master Rhys Terafan Greydragon
[email protected]

Hops were first used in beer in Asia 10,000 years ago

It appears that hops were used in Babylon before 200 AD. Hops Latin name appears in records of Jews&#8217; captivity in Babylon. They mention sicera (strong drink) ex luplis confectam (made from hops).

Hops spread into Europe from Asia through Eastern Europe. The most consistent fact about the spread of hops is that in almost every country, the use of hops was resisted.

Hops are a distant relative of stinging nettle and cannabis. This is a major reason for the relaxing effect of hops. They have been used for insomnia since their earliest mention in literature.

lupulus.jpg (8254 bytes)

Pliny (61-113 AD) discusses hops in his study of natural history. To the Romans, it was Lupus Salictartius, from the way they originally grew. As the ancients said, hops grew "wild among willows, like a wolf among sheep," hence the name Humulus Lupulus.
The hop has its place in folklore. Along with the animals who are supposed to receive the gift of speech late on Christmas Eve, the hop is supposed to turn green in the same night.

The first mention of hops is in reference to a hop garden in the Hallertau district in 736 AD.

The first EUROPEAN mention of hops being added to beer was in 1079 by Abbess Hildegarde of St. Ruprechtsberg. "If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops.

Brewing was traditionally a monastic task, and much mention is made of hops gardens in monasteries.

In Germany which was the center from which hops conquered all Europe, it was not until the 13th century that the traditional flavoring of gruit was seriously threatened.

In some places, like Cologne, monopolistic rights were associated with gruit, generally the Church&#8217;s. The Archbishop of Cologne possessed the "Grutrecht" (gruit rights) and tried to suppress the use of hops, which of course the brewers saw as a commercial as well as technical advance.


While the composition of gruit was subject to local variations, it commonly contained bog myrtle, rosemary, yarrow, alecost, and many others. The herbs were not chosen only for their flavor, but for their reputed medicinal properties as well.

The hopped beer of the Middle Ages was extremely heavily hopped. 7 lb. to the hogshead, or 5 lb. to the barrel were not uncommon.

Records reflect the use of hops in beer in France in 1268 during the reign of Louis IX. the law stated that beer should only contain good malt and hops.

In Holland, by the 14th century, the Netherlanders had already developed a taste for Hamburg beer, which was hopped beer, in contrast to the normal Dutch beer, which was still based on gruit.

The Dutch nobility tried to exclude foreign beers by prohibition and high import duties, but the reputation of Hamburg beer as so great, that it all came to naught. In 1376 there were no less than 126 &#8216;braxatores de Almsetlredamme&#8217; (Amsterdam breweries).

The Dutch were apt pupils and by 1517, Antonio de Beatis stated the "the beer in these regions is better than in Germany and brewed in larger quantity."

The English developed a taste for hopped Dutch beer while soldiering in the Low Countries. Hopped beer, or beer (as opposed to ale) was imported into Winchelsea as early as 1400, with the first hops being planted in England in 1428.

In 1524, hops were condemned as an adulteration by Henry VIII, and an injunction against their use was issued. However, in 1536, Edward VI (Henry&#8217;s successor) commended hopped beer as "notable, healthy, and temperate."

The Brewer&#8217;s Company, formed in 1437 and made up of ale brewers, concerned about the spread of beer petitioned the Lord Mayor of London in 1484 that "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made--but only liquor, malt, and yeast." This was intended to keep clear the demarcation between ale and beer.

In 1493, the beer brewers themselves became a definite craft (guild) and ale and beer were to remain quite distance for over 100 years.

Although unhopped ale had ceased to be brewed in England by the sixteenth century, it could still be found in Scotland. We read of Jerome Cardan, a French physician, who traveled to Scotland in 1552. He frequently mentions food and approves of Scotch ale and says that it "it differs from beer in the omission of hops."


ADVANTAGES OF HOPPED BEER

Beer was the one drink that had been sterilized and was safe to drink.

Prior to hops, the stronger (more alcoholic) beer was, the longer it kept. The addition of hops is a preservative, thus allowing beer to be weaker and still keep longer.

Hops allowed you to produce more beer from the same amount of malt. Reynold Scot, in A Perfite Platforme for a Hoppe Garden, states "whereas you cannot make above 8-9 gallons of a very indifferent ale from a bushel of malt, you may draw 18-20 gallons of very good beer."

Hops also aid in clarification as well as head retention.

Hops as a preservative

One reason hops won out over other herbs is the preservative effects hops have in beer. Gruits also lent a preservative effect, but hops are especially--and consistently--good for this purpose.

The preservative effect of hops also affected the development of certain beer styles; for example, India Pale Ale and several other styles intended for export had higher hop bitterness to preserve them on their travels, and often correspondingly higher alcohol levels to balance the beer's flavor.

Modern homebrewers rarely have to worry about adjusting hop levels to preserve beer, although they should be aware of the need for increased care if they are attempting to brew a gruit or other unhopped beer style.

Another important historical quality of hops is their preservative ability. When hops first starting being used in beer, brewers quickly learned that they prevented many air and water-borne bacteria from infecting their beer. Modern brewers are able to maintain very sanitary brewing and packaging conditions and they have refrigeration and pasteurization at their disposal. So, hops' stabilizing quality on beer is less important to them than their

I'm willing to learn something new all the time, but if you have more to back up your "opinion" which contradicts years of "common wisdom" then back it up with some facts, otherwise you're just a blowhard.

 

[Revvy]

More info....

Hops, when it began to be suggested for use as a primary additive to beer, was bitterly resisted - it was thought to be decidedly unhealthy as a primary ingredient in brewing. And hops' introduction was fought through the legislatures, proclamations of the royalty, writings of the day's medical practitioners, and through church edict.

Brewers in England complained to the Mayor of London about hops and noted that there was "a deceivable and unholesome fete in bruying of ale within the said citee nowe of late [that] is founde in puttyng of hoppes and other things in the said ale, contrary to the good and holesome manner of bruynge of Ale of old tyme used. . . . Pleas it therfore your saide good lordshyppe to forbid the putting into ale of any hops, herbs, or other like thing, but only licour, malte, and yeste." (5)
In Germany, as beer historian John Arnold comments:

"Hopped beers, not alone their manufacture but also their importation into the domains of the Archbishop of Cologne, were strictly prohibited in various edicts, and infractions threatened with severe penalties. The reason for this was two-fold. First, the manufacture of gruit was a privilege, exploited or granted by the archbishop and bishops, hence a source of large revenue for them, a veritable ecclesiastical monopoly. Second, "gruit" contained herbs and spices, meeting the taste of that time (and of succeeding centuries), its composition being a mystery for the common people, and in any event a trade secret for the privileged manufacturer. This privilege was now threatened in the highest degree by the hops and hopped beers which began to appear from different localities." (6) . . . "How determinedly the archbishops for the reasons mentioned opposed the introduction of hopped beers [can be seen] from a decree issued, April 17, 1381, by Archbishop Frederick of Cologne, in behalf of the maintenance of the gruit monopoly, according to which not only the brewers, but also the clergy, the military and the civilians, in fact, anybody who wanted to brew beer were commanded to buy their gruit in the episcopal bruit-houses; furthermore, the importation of 'hopped beer' from Westphalia was prohibited, and so was the brewing of such beers in Cologne itself, under pain of the severest penalties which the Church could inflict." (7)

Hops, until this time, was merely one of the plants used all along in the production of beer - the earliest mention of its use probably being in Hildegard of Bingen's (1098-1179) Physica Sacra. It finally gained herbal dominance in Germany (the first place its use was legally required) nearly the same time that Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic church in 1520. This, I think, is not mere coincidence.
One of the arguments of the Protestants against the Catholic clergy (and indeed of Catholicism) was Catholic self-indulgence: in food, drink, and lavish life style. And it was this Protestant outrage that was the genesis of the temperance movement. (It would not stop, of course, with the assault on gruit ales but would continue on to include ale itself and any kind of psychotropic or inebriating plants and drinks by the twentieth century.) The Protestant reformists were joined by merchants and competing royals desiring to break the brewing monopoly of the church. The result was, ultimately, the end of a many-thousand-year tradition of herbal beer making in Europe and the narrowing of beer and ale into one limited expression of beer production, that of hopped ales or what we today call beer.

Seems to me that it was the church that hated hops over gruit, not the other way around...

I don't really give a flying **** about it....most of the time when a noob comes on here asking about a hopless beer, they don't know a gruit from a hole in the ground, it's us, usually ME who tells them about them, and the use of herbs and stuff as preservatives....they OP isn't thinking about them, because he's never heard of them...he's usually just thinking about "what happens if I don't add hops (or anything else that might have had a preservative effect.) and just boil my extract and pitch yeast, what will happen?" And we tell them that it will usually sour...because without something to preserve it, it will...All you need to do is make a yeast starter in the middle of summer, and taste it after a few days on your counter to know that without ANY sort of preservative (be it hops or something else) it will be sour....

 

[Bob]

Oh, great. Another Buhner disciple, thinking that his twaddle is gospel.

OldWorld, realize something: You may like your gruit beers and the results you get from them. That's fine, and I applaud you for it. You should also realize that Buhner is someone I and other responsible historians have been saying "Damn you and your bad info" since his book was published. It's nothing more than piss-poor "research" packaged in a New Age pile of dreck which appears to be specifically designed to separate suckers - who want something different, something maybe from older, wiser, simpler times - from their money.

The big fat lie you reference is Buhner's work. Buhner has been widely discredited as the purest form of quack. When you come in and behave so offensively, so indefensibly, and so blatantly based on Buhner's work, you only paint yourself as a credulous twerp more to be pitied than censured.

You do have a point that botanicals other than hops have antiseptic qualities. So does alcohol. Read up on parti-gyle brewing, strong and table "ale" in the medieval sense. No botanicals whatever, and yet the strong, keeping beers kept for some time. The other stuff had to be drunk up quick or it would go off. Revvy has the right of it, and has cited (I'll tell Terefan you cited his work next I see him, Revvy; he'll be chuffed ). If you want to be taken seriously, OldWorld, you'll cite, too.

Just don't cite Buhner, or I for one will laugh in your face.

Cordially,

Bob

 

[Revvy]

Oh, great. Another Buhner disciple, thinking that his twaddle is gospel.

OldWorld, realize something: You may like your gruit beers and the results you get from them. That's fine, and I applaud you for it. You should also realize that Buhner is someone I and other responsible historians have been saying "Damn you and your bad info" since his book was published. It's nothing more than piss-poor "research" packaged in a New Age pile of dreck which appears to be specifically designed to separate suckers - who want something different, something maybe from older, wiser, simpler times - from their money. Buhner has been widely discredited. When you come in and behave so offensively so indefensibly, you only paint yourself as a credulous twerp more to be pitied than censured.

You do have a point that botanicals other than hops have antiseptic qualities. So does alcohol. Read up on parti-gyle brewing, strong and table "ale" in the medieval sense. No botanicals whatever, and yet the strong, keeping beers kept for some time. The other stuff had to be drunk up quick or it would go off. Revvy has the right of it, and has cited (I'll Terefan you cited his work, Revvy; he'll be chuffed ). If you want to be taken seriously, OldWorld, you'll cite, too.

Just don't cite Buhner, or I for one will laugh in your face.

Cordially,

Bob

I figured you'd jump in....Not only is his book historically inaccurate in terms of brewing information, it has also been discredited theologically as well. It's pure anti churches bias mashed up with some new age claptrap...it's not even an accurate portrayal of pre-christian religions either. It's a pretty bad book all along. As both a theologian who has an interest in ancient pre-christian shamanic and goddess based religions I choked my way through that book, it just made me bristle on so many levels.

 

[Bob]

I figured you'd jump in....Not only is his book historically inaccurate in terms of brewing information, it has also been discredited theologically as well. It's pure anti churches bias mashed up with some new age claptrap...it's not even an accurate portrayal of pre-christian religions either. It's a pretty bad book all along. As both a theologian who has an interest in ancient pre-christian shamanic and goddess based religions I choked my way through that book, it just made me bristle on so many levels.

You know, it's really disappointing that there are still people out there ready to fall for his quackery. I ought to be able to recognize it, for I was one of those credulous twerps before I really figured out how to recognize a credible source.

I mean, look at OldWorld's post - it's almost verbatim dreck from Buhner:

Damn you all and your bad info. If you use a botanical that has preservative and antiseptic properties the beer will not perish fast. My no hop beers have been just fine after six months.

True, and could be true from independent observation. But read on...

Hops were forced on the good people for puritanical interests. Hops make people sleepy and lethargic that is exactly what the religious orthodoxy wanted at the time.

Classic Buhner dreck.

I wish you people who insist hops are what makes beer research the history before you spew some irrational tripe. The Sumerians were brewing beer long before most of us even knew what we were doing.

No they weren't, dude. Take another look at the definition of "beer". Modernly, it means barley-based beverage alcohol brewed with hops. Even historically - and here I mean the Middle English bere and Old English b&#275;or, which were cognate with Old Saxon, Old High German bior, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch b&#275;r and Old Norse bj&#333;rr, which probably predates Old English - the word was of disputed and ambiguous origin. The "ale" as unhopped barley beverage alcohol vs. "beer" as hopped barley beverage alcohol linguistic distinction dates at earliest to the 14th century, and didn't become crucial until Shakespeare's time.

So the Sumerians weren't brewing beer, not by a long shot. They weren't even brewing primarily from barley, if U Penn's research is any indication. But I don't expect a Buhner disciple would realize that, so I forgive it.

It's really nonsensical to tell people beer brewed without hops will spoil faster. That is a big fat lie.

Bollocks. Cite.

Yarrow and Mugwort contain far great bacterial inhibiting properties than Hops...They also contain some Thujone You know the stuff that makes people crazy from absinthe poisoning (another stupid myth)

More Buhner drivel.

The bototm line is use your botanicals wisely and go for fresh aromatics and high oil content. For those who want to do a little experiment get some fresh yarrow from the nursery...poke you rfinger with one of those diabetic test monitor things...

Now take the fresh yarrow leaves and smack them right on that finger tip...I'll be it numbs right up.

Oh, goody. Responsibly given advice about herbology. Some day someone is going to follow advice like this, have an allergic reaction and die, if it hasn't happened already. You people ought to be stopped before you hurt someone.

Yes, your precious herbs are mildly psychotropic. Yes, linguistically any herb with the name "wort" in it can arguably have been used in a beverage (note it could also be tea, not barley-based beverage alcohol). They are also quite dangerous in quite unpredictable amounts. Extreme care and caution should be used in their application. Caution beyond "go for fresh aromatics and high oil content", which is hopelessly irresponsible and frankly idiotic.

Yarrow...otherwise known as Woundwort...For the roman soldiers marched with it on their feet.

Ah folklore...

It certainly is. There sure isn't any solid, non-anecdotal historical evidence supporting such a claim.

It's all there, all the Buhner nonsense. It is enough to make a person with the future of the human race at heart despair. I tire of gainsaying idiocy like this, because no amount of reasoned response will ever convince a disciple that his Messiah could be mistaken. I only hope that others reading my words won't be taken in by the drivel.

Bob

 

[OldWorld]

Why the use of Hops became standard practice is no mystery...It's a helluva lot easier to create consistent beers with only few ingredients and one botanical. I'm just saying that being delusional about beer and it's preservative nature is not a good thing.

A beer brewed without hops will not necessarily go sour...Even a heavily hopped beer can go sour if the environment is right. All I'm saying is...get outside the box and brew something without anxiety...No hopped beers can be fine and dandy...

I like a mugwort bittered beer...sometimes the bitter can be even more offensive than the best hops. But an unbalanced bitter can also be tough to swallow...I mean really tough to swallow.

Of course Buhner is a new age fruit cake...I'm not going to dispute that. But one can find that religious orthodoxy eventually embraced hops. Today we have hops as the primary botanical in beer because it's easy to produce good beer with hops.

Step outside the box and the variables are much more variable All I'm trying to say is it's a helluva lot more fun to brew with more than one botanical. Hops are one way to make beer taste like "beer"

I homebrew to avoid tasting like Stone or Russian River...I'm sick of this hophead nonsense. Give the other thousands of botanicals a chance. Some of them will yield astonishing results.

I had some very advanced home brewers stumped as to what all went into it. They thought I had used Citra Hops and fresh Cascades...when in fact there were no hops in the brew...and to top it off the recipe was 100 percent extract.

Botanicals make the fun go round.

 

[Bob]

I know that there are beers that are bittered with herbs and thats how it was done. My gf asked me if there was any beer styles that didnt use hops. I wasnr sure there are any because without bittering it would be too sweet...or would it? So my qiestion is, are there any styles tjat dont use any bittering at all. Thanks, happy brewing!

Commercially, all barley-based beverage alcohol must by government regulation contain hops. Doesn't have to be much - on the order of 7 lbs per 100bbl, or 0.04 ounces per gallon - but they have to be there.

Historically, "ale" was brewed for hundreds if not thousands of years with only water, barley (and other malted cereals) and yeast. Ale brewed without balancing bitterness is an acquired taste. There are threads galore on HBT talking about medieval ale, and many of us have tried it.

Alternately, there are the other brewing herbs mentioned in the furor above. Just be very, very careful when using them, because many of them are dangerous.

Cheers!

Bob

 

[Revvy]

It's all there, all the Buhner nonsense. It is enough to make a person with the future of the human race at heart despair. I tire of gainsaying idiocy like this, because no amount of reasoned response will ever convince a disciple that his Messiah could be mistaken. I only hope that others reading my words won't be taken in by the drivel.

Bob

Yeah. My fear in not calling nonsense like this out is that some hapless new brewer is going to wander in here and read his drivel, and believe that he can make hopless beer...I don't mean gruit or anything like that...I mean he's going to one day forget to order hops, decide he wants to brew and boil his dme, and pitch yeast and get all po-ed because he read Oldworld's postings and actually blieved that hops don't have a preservative property.

Or he's gonna grab some weed that will make he and all who drinks it ill...It's one thing to do REAL research into things like gruits, and explore them, in fact haven't you done a few yourself? I vaguely remember learning what little I ADMITTINGLY know about them from you? Haven't you done some work with them?

 

[Revvy]

Commercially, all barley-based beverage alcohol must by government regulation contain hops. Doesn't have to be much - on the order of 7 lbs per 100bbl, or 0.04 ounces per gallon - but they have to be there.


Bob

So even these that I've seen or in the case of Fraoch have tasted have SOME hops in them???

Commercial examples include Fraoch (using heather flowers, sweet gale and ginger) and Alba (using pine twigs and spruce buds) from Williams Brothers in Scotland; Myrica (using sweet gale) from O'Hanlons in England; Gageleer (also using sweet gale) from Proefbrouwerij in Belgium; Cervoise from Lancelot in Brittany (using a gruit containing heather flowers, spices and some hops); Artemis from Moonlight Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, California (using mugwort and wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, also known as bee balm or horsemint); and Bog&#8226;Water[1] from Beau's All Natural Brewing Company in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, Canada (using Bog Myrtle).

 

[Bob]

Of course Buhner is a new age fruit cake...I'm not going to dispute that. But one can find that religious orthodoxy eventually embraced hops. Today we have hops as the primary botanical in beer because it's easy to produce good beer with hops.

Right. So we completely don't need the unsupported - because it's false - claptrap about religious orthodoxy imposing the use of hops. A responsible historian will tell you it was economics that made hops, a nobleman jealous of the gruitrecht's massive profits. Hell, there's the Reineheitsgebot!

Step outside the box and the variables are much more variable All I'm trying to say is it's a helluva lot more fun to brew with more than one botanical.

True.

Hops are one way to make beer taste like "beer"

False. Linguistically and by definition, if it doesn't have hops it doesn't taste like "beer". It might taste fantastic and be a barley-based fermented beverage, but it is not and by definition cannot be "beer".

I'm sick of this hophead nonsense.

We are in perfect accord on this one.

Give the other thousands of botanicals a chance. Some of them will yield astonishing results.

Again, d'accord. Just do so responsibly and for true reasons.

Bob

 

[Bob]

So even these that I've seen or in the case of Fraoch have tasted have SOME hops in them???

I don't know about imports. I know that TTB require hops in order to call it "beer" on the label of a beer sold in the United States. You may find the beverages listed are labeled "malt liquor" or something else, not "beer".

Bob

 

[lowtones84]

Sure Buhner is out there, but I personally love Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Mostly for entertainment, but there is a lot of great information in there as well. That said, I mostly brew "regular" beer with hops etc. and enjoy it. Yes, his opinions differ vastly from modern brewers, but saying that none of his information is researched or factual is just wrong. I really don't want to argue because I respect everyone's opinion here, but I don't believe that he just made up many of the medical test results involving the plants in question or the hundreds of citations and references in the back of the book.

Some of the herbs in question are dangerous, but Buhner very clearly states which those are in the book. Things like yarrow are so mild to anyone who isn't pregnant. And why can't folklore and anectdotal be used as information? Sure, you can't really cite it in an argument, but our ancestors weren't stupid. They didn't have labs to test the active chemicals, they had to use them to find out. Now lab tests have shown -some- of the properties of these herbs long attributed to them by folklore are true. I don't have the book in front of me unfortunately.

As far as hops being a preservative...duh, of course they are. As far as the church's involvement, I've seen other sources suggest that theory. The economics and Reineheitsgebot seem like more probable causes, but it's also clear that churches had a hand in the economics of ale at the time, right? Either way, as far as I know no text claims to know for sure what caused the decline in gruits.

Do I like Buhner's work? Very much. Is it for everybody? Definitely not. Do I wish someone else had a similar viewpoint but more concrete modern evidence and theory? Yes! This is all just my two cents of course, and if you don't agree it's all good.

Safety first, but keep on brewin' whatever you're brewin'!

 

[McGarnigle]

For the record, Williams Brothers doesn't list hops as an ingredient for their Alba Scots Pine Ale. They *do* list hops for other ales they make, which is telling. They call it an ale and don't appear to use the word "beer." Not that I care about government definitions of beer.

Williams Brothers Brewery

It looks like Prism Brewing in Philly makes a hopless beer as well. Not sure what they do for preservation (they may not even bottle it).

Death March Hop-less Black Ale | Prism Brewing Company

 

[Bob]

Yes, his opinions differ vastly from modern brewers, but saying that none of his information is researched or factual is just wrong. I really don't want to argue because I respect everyone's opinion here, but I don't believe that he just made up many of the medical test results involving the plants in question or the hundreds of citations and references in the back of the book.

I didn't say he made up the medical stuff. I said his history is, frankly, atrocious.

And why can't folklore and anectdotal be used as information?

Because when you're writing definitively about "this is the way they did things" you need more solid ground than the shifting sand of folklore and anecdote. That's the difference between real history and New Age drivel. That's the reason why a responsible Wiccan will tell you about how their religion is a recycling of various neopagan stuff by people in the mid-20th century and why someone with Buhner's mindset will believe that Wicca is directly derivative of ancient British Druidism. On the one hand you have something to believe in; on the other, smoke and mirrors. One is real, the other is not.

Citation from credible sources makes "story" into "history".

As far as the church's involvement, I've seen other sources suggest that theory. The economics and Reineheitsgebot seem like more probable causes, but it's also clear that churches had a hand in the economics of ale at the time, right? Either way, as far as I know no text claims to know for sure what caused the decline in gruits.

You're right; there is no definitive source. We can make very well-educated guesses, however, by following the money toward the most likely causes.

Gruit declined because hopped beer was more economical to brew even when imported from Hanseatic cities, kept longer (!) and was cheaper for the consumer. Eventually consumer tastes drove gruit out of the market even in the old gruit strongholds like the Low Countries. Gruit never even existed in Britain, to the best of my knowledge; unhopped barley beverage alcohol was simply water, malt and yeast.

 

[BrewersKaramazov]

Wow, Bob and Revvy tag team! Thanks for the public discussion. I am years away from even thinking about brewing something without hops, and if I ever do, I will remember this thread.

 

[McCuckerson]

Oldworld, I'd like to see some sources to substantiate your "cliams" and don't hand me "sacred and herbal beers" as you reference, that book is pretty out there. Back up your claims with some historical references, because we can back up hops being used as a preservatives...it doesn't take a genius to look at the entire history of the IPA as the use of hops as a preservative for beer.....

Rather than be abusive show some facts to back this up....otherwise you're just full of ****.



I think you got your history wrong...it was the church that had the monopoly on GRUIT, not hops....

I'm willing to learn something new all the time, but if you have more to back up your "opinion" which contradicts years of "common wisdom" then back it up with some facts, otherwise you're just a blowhard.

What's a "cliam"?

 

[teucer]

No they weren't, dude. Take another look at the definition of "beer". Modernly, it means barley-based beverage alcohol brewed with hops. Even historically - and here I mean the Middle English bere and Old English b&#275;or, which were cognate with Old Saxon, Old High German bior, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch b&#275;r and Old Norse bj&#333;rr, which probably predates Old English - the word was of disputed and ambiguous origin. The "ale" as unhopped barley beverage alcohol vs. "beer" as hopped barley beverage alcohol linguistic distinction dates at earliest to the 14th century, and didn't become crucial until Shakespeare's time.

So the Sumerians weren't brewing beer, not by a long shot. They weren't even brewing primarily from barley, if U Penn's research is any indication. But I don't expect a Buhner disciple would realize that, so I forgive it.

It's worth noting that this distinction isn't made in all Germanic languages; in late medieval Dutch, "bier" gets applied to all the fermented grain beverages whether made with hops or gruit. Most Dutch beers of the day had oats as the primary ingredient, including many of those described specifically as "hopbier." (See this handy secondary source, which includes an Utrecht hopbier made from a 2:1 oat-wheat blend, hopped as the name would imply.)

 

[Bob]

I am aware that Medieval and Early Modern grists often had a larger percentage of oat malt than is usual today, often with oats as the primary grist constituent. When I say "barley based" I don't mean "exclusively from barley", or I would have written "exclusively from barley".

I figured wossname from SUABP would weigh in here. I wish he would, because I want to know why he's so confident koyt was gruit.

Please also note that I was showing that there was no distinction until very, very recently, and that in English.

Cheers,

Bob

 

[teucer]

I am aware that Medieval and Early Modern grists often had a larger percentage of oat malt than is usual today, often with oats as the primary grist constituent. When I say "barley based" I don't mean "exclusively from barley", or I would have written "exclusively from barley".

True, although the Utrecht hopbier contains only wheat and oats. (Evidence suggests that this is highly unusual outside the low countries - many medieval beers were probably primarily oats, but with some barley.)

I figured wossname from SUABP would weigh in here. I wish he would, because I want to know why he's so confident koyt was gruit.

Yeah, I really want to look at his primary sources on that one. (Although it contrasts with "hopbier," which makes it a plausible guess.)

(I'm also really quite curious to try to track down information on how often medieval non-hopped ales of various periods had gruit. I've seen bare assertions that they always did, and bare assertions that only those specifically mentioned as having it did; I'm assuming the truth is in between, but I have yet to see a primary source that says "ale is usually just barley" or one that says "ale usually has gruit in it.")

Please also note that I was showing that there was no distinction until very, very recently, and that in English.

I agree with you on that part (and was providing an example of the non-distinction found elsewhere), but I don't regard hops as a defining quality of beer even today. (EDIT to add: there's clearly a point in the history of the English language when it was, though, and "beer" contrasted with "ale." Nowadays our definitions of both words are different, with "ale" including all of that era's "beer" and today's "beer" including today's ales as well as lagers, which English-speakers could not have tasted back then. That is to say, I don't think today's definition should include hops as a necessary ingredient, though they are certainly a typical one.)

 

[Dan]

Thanks Revvy!

 

[LexusChris]

Wow! Some great information & tons of enthusiasm/passion on this topic... thanks to everyone for chiming in.

I hope the OP got something of an answer out of all this, as my guess is his question was more about making a beer that was not 'so bitter or so hoppy' .. something more agreeable for his GF to try.

However, side-stepping the historical & political topics of gruit & other herbs & spices in brewing, it can be very difficult finding good definite/scientific sources on herb lore. So much is 'folklore' from ages gone by, when written documentation was less used than verbal 'passing down to the next generation' by craftsmen or family leaders.

And many of the easily available sources of herbal data comes from folks who are more in the new-age camp... and write from a more spiritual & experiential point-of-view, than any scientific one.

So, what are some good books, online-sources, etc. to look for on herbs & spices as it pertains to brewing, imbimbing or consuming?

I've been through Buhner's book, mostly for reference on ingredient quantities & herb selection ideas, although I don't think I would brew many of the recipes as-is. I also have a really old copy of 'Culpepper's Herbal Guide', which again shows how difficult it is to read the old texts and come away with much meaningful data.

Would really love some ideas on good sources for herb & spcie data.

Many thanks all!
--LexusChris

 

[Krausen89]

Yes all good posts. Thanks. Ive just been explaining the concepts of beer to her. She does prefer beers that have more malt charachter. I think the question was mostly out of curiosity. I def want to try some herbal beers.

 

[GoHawks]

I didnt read this entire thread, so forgive me if its already posted...

But I did a small brew tour of Oregon (mostly Portland) over the holidays. There was a "no hops" brewery there called green dragon - buckman brewing. From what I understand they are technically owned by Rogue and brew 4-5 beers that do not contain any hops. I gave the saison w hemp (I think it was hemp) a try and it was a bit different for my taste... but then again I had just downed a ton of sours so maybe my palate was not ready for a lighter tasting beer.

Its worth checking out if your in the portland area.
(also laurelwood, but only because it was an amazing brewery)

 

[avidlad]

I used to make a lot of kit beers. I got tired of hops, plus I'm interested in history, so I made a few batches of unhopped brew, in an effort to see what it might have been like before hops. It was a bit like home brewed cider: crisp, tangy, and refreshing. It lasted just as long as beer, and it had all of the characteristics of beer, save for the bitterness and smell of hops. I've read that hops was just one of many nasty herbs that people threw in their brew, in attempts to keep the flies down, which is the only (dubious) preservative effect. (I never kept any brew long enough to need to preserve it.)
And stability? Well, my brews didn't change in any bad way, so only the imbibers lost stability. So I think the pseudo-scientific claims of the benefits of hops suffer under scrutiny. They did under mine.
The reason we put hops in is because we put hops in, and we haven't done it any differently for hundreds of years. Of course we've developed a taste for them: there are no options. If you don't like hops, don't add them. It'll be fine. (But it won't be beer.)