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GRUIT
hello all,
Has anyone here ever made gruit before???? For those who don’t know what that is...its beer that uses certain psychotropic herbs for bittering instead of using hops. It therefore gives a slightly different "buzz" than just the beer alone. Anyhow, if someone has made it what was you experience with it and what recipe pointers could you give
Thanks in advance
hello issac
Some of these hopeless beers, or gruit contained herbs that had psycodelic or poisonous properties.
I have also heard of using heather, sage, and other bittering herbs, but as far as the other buzz herbs I would think that these are very oily, which would give you no head retention, and probably illegal to use for consumption. I remember hearing of a drink made with worwood, that is illegal, and possibly quite deadly. Do yourself a favor and just make a good Belgian triple, or barley wine. they'll get you seen double just fine
all the best
hello guys,
No hops, what about it?
thanks
hello issac,
I have only read about it, but it follows that they stopped making it as soon as hops were available so it might not be too good.
all the best
there is a lot of history in it, and the reason for the change from gruit to hops was political, laws were passed. gruit was monopolized by the catholic church and with the protestant revolution came hops. hops is a seditive, gruit is a stimulant (usually). hops is an anaphrodesiac and gruit is ususally an aphrodesiac.
i am also about to make my first gruit and here are some of the herbs i am considering: mugwort, yarrow, wild rosemarry, sage, sweet gale. wild rosemarry, sweet gale and yarrow are the basics. here is a site with an all grain recipe
http://www.gruitale.com/rec_basic_gruit.htm
heres an herb source
http://wildweeds.com/index.html
I have only read about it, but it follows that they stopped making it as soon as hops were available so it might not be too good.
That's just loaded with falsehood. Most gruit brewers and drinkers resisted hops for a long time, especially where hops didn't grow natively. Hops have a lot of characteristics that aren't desirable, and brewers and drinkers alike were a great deal more aware of these qualities at the time. Others have touched on a few:
- hops are a sedative: while gruit ales were often incorporated into week-long celebrations and other festivities, hopped drinks were seen as sleeping aids or non-social drinks;
- hops are an anaphrodesiac: ever heard of brewer's droop? hops can cause impotence in men, and sexual dysfunction generally (especially for brewers, because the effect is also present when handling the herb);
- hops were a means of political control: the introduction of hops and concomitant drift away from other herbs in ales helped in taking brewing out of the hands of women in particular, and the people in general, and putting it in centralized control;
- hops don't taste like other herbs: with hopped beers, there is a certain range of variety available... add unhopped beers and the potential mushrooms exponentially.
Hops are great for some beers, but not for all. As a matter of fact, using some gruit herbs in addition to hops is also delicious. I made a wonderful IPA with sweet gale, for example.
My advice to everyone is to research other herbs, and try them out. There's a lot of resources out there...
Learn something new everyday. Never made a gruit but I might have to check it out someday. I've handled a lot of hops in my day luckily never had any brewer's droop. HAHA! I won't argue with you as I have no facts to back it up. But I 've sure seen hopped up ales act like aphrodesiacs around a fair amount of beer drinkers. Even heard it refered to as panty lube before.
andrew jensen wrote:
Learn something new everyday. Never made a gruit but I might have to check it out someday. I've handled a lot of hops in my day luckily never had any brewer's droop. HAHA! I won't argue with you as I have no facts to back it up. But I 've sure seen hopped up ales act like aphrodisiacs around a fair amount of beer drinkers. Even heard it refered to as panty lube before.
Well, the alcohol is still an aphrodisiac. I know that in my experience with being very drunk from beer, at a certain point I have disagreements with my body about how excited I really am... after a lot of beer, sex just isn't going to happen, no matter how interested I am.
thats hilarious, too drunk to fu*K. been there
but seriously, i have seen people offering wormwood for use in homebrew, now to my understanding this would be illegal, too close to absinthe, has anyone tried it?
as far as herbs go, legal or otherwise, i have heard that cannibus and hops are very similar, and have had some hemp beer about 6 or 7 years ago, but i didnt like it. now that i an homebrewing, i have been thinkin about adding cannibus to my beer, maybe dry "hopping" with some leaves. anyone with any experience with that? i'd love to hear some ideas.
if this isnt the forum for it, let me know.
Don't have any experience doing it, but have definitely considered it. Should be a nice sweet addition in the secondary. If I ever did do it thats probably the way I'd go. There was some discussion of soaking it in vodka or everclear before adding to secondary, but it seems that would be more to get the effects of it rather than the sweet taste that I'd be more interested in.
well, from what i understand dry hopping, is more for aroma, but maybe not, i googled it and found
http://www.onr.com/user/liberty/Marijua … MBeer.html
pretty interesting, in my opinion, that they implied Mr Jackson actually got "high" in the article.
I can't wait to start a brew of gruit myself. That's a great website that nameless wanderer put down. Here are some others I have been looking at.
http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/brew … /gruit.htm an introduction with some recipes and pictures of ingredients.
http://www.pbm.com/pipermail/hist-brewi … 05659.html some recipes with out pictures.
http://www.thewestermark.org/recipe/gruitale.html a bunch of different recipes.
also about the marijuana hop comparisons... apparently, according to wikipedia, hops are a sister plant to cannabis.
I've added wormwood to beer instead of hops. It was very strong ale. As for "extra ingredients” I added .5 ounces of wormwood and boiled put it into the boil for the entire time. Then I added 7 grams star anise last half of boil and 7 grams of mint the last five minutes of boil. The alcohol content was around 9%. After it aged it was a very good beer. The intoxication was different than beer, a more awake drunk? I am definitely going to make another batch.
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