Leaf beer?

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lacto

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Can anyone advise me please.

Having followed a recipe for dandelion leaf tonic beer I began to look about me and wondered if there were any other delicious beers made from leaves - I am surrounded by nettles (this I have tried and enjoyed), endives - I think some people call this chicory (an experimental beer is fermenting now) ... but there are also borage, sow thistle, Jerusalem artichokes, hawthorn, gorse, broom, oak, walnut, to name just a few ... and of course a variety of herbs - sage, thyme, rosemary, marjoram.

I have looked for leaf beer online but have found none. I am not interested in melomels or wines - it's the bitterness like beer taste I am looking for.

So if any of you know any simple recipes then I will be glad to read it. I am only interested in the more rustic, straightforward recipes - leaf, sugar, water, yeast.

Please be aware that I live in central France so I will not be interested in any leaves that only grow at or near the equator.
 
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I have seen beer recipes that add things like pine needles, juniper and spruce tips to standard beer recipes but nothing with just leaves. My suggestion would be to do some 1 gallon batches with what you have available to see how it works. I'd be interested in what you find. Good luck!🍻
 
Ah yes! Thank you aktom and rish. I vaguely remember this word gruit back in the military.

So I am brewing at this moment an initial experiment of lemon balm, chicory, rosemary, nettle, caraway, fennel seed, anise, lemon.

It smells like it might be a pleasing taste once I have added some treacle, sugar, and honey.

I will be using a cheap bread yeast which, judging from what I have made already, will be more than acceptable ... but we shall see.
 
I have looked for leaf beer online but have found none. I am not interested in melomels or wines - it's the bitterness like beer taste I am looking for.

So if any of you know any simple recipes then I will be glad to read it. I am only interested in the more rustic, straightforward recipes - leaf, sugar, water, yeast.

Beer is by definition a fermentation of grain-derived sugars. Typically bittered with hops, but traditionally bittered with a wide variety of bitter herbs (gruit).

What you're calling for (leaf, sugar, water, yeast) is an herbed hard seltzer.

If the sugar is honey, it'd be a mead.

Honey+fruit=melomel. These can be sweet, they can also be super-dry.

Honey+herbs&spices=metheglin. Again, you can make it sweet or super-dry. A recipe by Bray Denard named Fidnemed might be of interest.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/excellent-short-session-meads.630776/
 
Wow thanks for that - I guess leaves would come under seltzer.

Ah - just looked at info online - I do not think this right.

I want to know if there are any old recipes that do not use chemicals but basically water with added sweetener of some kind, to which something like dandelion flower yeast water is added, perhaps then added to a "tea" which will have been steeped in boiling water. The tea could be something like young oak leaves. Does this make sense? Is there such a thing? Especially if perhaps treacle or sugar beet molasses is included to offset any strong bitterness - whilst retaining a little bitterness so that it is not too sweet. I am not interested in adding anything like vodka or shop bought beer.
 
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Especially if perhaps treacle or sugar beet molasses is included to offset any strong bitterness - whilst retaining a little bitterness so that it is not too sweet.

Simple sugars (fructose, glucose, sucrose) will be 100% completely fermented into just alcohol and CO2. No sweetness will be left in the beverage at all. Something like molasses would leave flavor (not sweetness) behind, white table sugar would in theory be rendered completely flavorless with no sweetness.

Beer remains sweet (and requires the hop bitterness to balance) because the grain-derived sugars include big, heavy compounds such as maltose, maltotriose, and dextrins. These three are more or less non-fermentable and remain in the beverage because the yeast can't digest them.
 
This is amazing info - thank you. Sorry if I might sound a bit confused, it's just that I am trying to find a slightly bitter lightly alcoholic drink from whatever is locally available. Therefore my list of available things includes dandelion flower yeast (or even wild yeast from the air), sugar beet molasses for the yeasts food, and any flavouring such as nettle leaf made into a tea.

... Just had a thought. I have a big bag of whole barley berries - can they be used? Would I need to malt them or can I just either use them raw or maybe cook them in some way?
 
Yes, raw grain must be malted and kilned, then mashed. I[n] their raw state, they are merely starch. Malting accesses enzymes which are then used in the mash to convert starch to sugars.
 
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If you're just working with sugar and leaves, you're really making more of a leaf wine than a beer. If you look up oak leaf wine, you'll find a lot of recipes like this.

Leaves work as a flavor addition in a beer to complement a beer rather than expecting them to hold up the entire beverage IMO. I brew from time to time with the dried red oak leaves from the tree in my front yard. They add an interesting oaky vanilla flavor but I'm adding them as a flavor addition to a fairly simple pale beer recipe. I also have a spruce tree and brew with the tips, and sometimes the branches, but that's different from brewing with leaves.

If you are going to experiment with leaves, make sure the leaves are safe to consume, especially at volume. Some plants carry compounds in certain parts of the plants that are safe in small amounts but can have unpleasant side effects in volume. You also want to consider dried leaves late in the season versus green summer leaves. Green leaves are going to be more vegetal while the dried fall leaves may have more spice, woody, etc. type flavors.
 
Thanks for this. So if I make a tea from strawberry leaves then add sugar and yeast and water I should get a strawberry leaf wine?

Ok I will try it.

This leads me to bread wine but that is another thread which I will post now.
 
If you count dried flowers, I have made hibiscus wine on several occasions. 1 to 2 ounces of dried hibiscus per gallon, sugar to achieve the desired OG, Yeast nutrient, water and wine yeast. Boil the water to dissolve sugar, add nutrient, flowers go in a grain bag, soak for 5 to 10 minutes, pull bag and chill. You will need pectic enzyme or a huge fermenter, Add yeast when cool. Keep below 68F, should ferment until dry. Comes out as a pretty good red wine, Improves with age, peaks at 2 to 3 years. Got the original idea from Jack Keller's website, but he just pured the boiling sugar water over the flowers, I prefer to soak a bit. The hibiscus is not local to me, i am too far north, but the hispanic grocer in town sells them by the half pound..
 
I have just made a leaf Koelsch, and added Ruo leaves, the raw material of Chinese zongzi, during the secondary fermentation. It tastes very refreshing, and I feel that the body of the wine is clearer and brighter after adding leaves, which may be the reason why it is involved in the fermentation. In the process of experiment, I feel that it is better to use dry leaves to participate in the secondary fermentation, which will not deteriorate, and the taste is rich; If you are trying to add leaves at the time of boiling and a single fermentation, then you will want to consider more uncertainties, as many substances can affect the wort. It is best to use the same batch of raw materials to do different time into the leaf test, record the data. Forgive my messy table, I hope it can bring you help, I wish you a happy fermentation.
 

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Sahti. Vienna Malt, Juniper Fronds
Sounds intriguing ... I don't know what Vienna Malt or Sahti is ... I guess I'll have to ask at the local supermarket - I'm sure they will have some - somewhere!

Seriously, I shall look into these things - especially the first two - I live in central France and I am seeking herbal tonicsthat are of my terroir.
 
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