Where to buy gruit ale ingredients

[Gastronaut]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest where / if I can buy yarrow, bog myrtle etc. online? Are they likely to be available in garden centres as plants?

Thanks,

Andy

[Thorbz]

Sweet gale/bog myrtle and yarrow are available on Ebay.

[Gastronaut]

Brilliant - thanks! Should have thought of that really!

[Eadweard]

There's http://www.bogmyrtle.com/

[smbenn]

Let us know how you get on. I've been reading up on non-hop ales recently.

[Gastronaut]

Have had success on eBay and have yarrow and mugwort, with bog myrtle on the way. It's going to be a few weeks till I get to brew this but will post an update when I do.

[smbenn]

Nice one, G.

[Martin G]

Great thread, thought about this a while ago, but got put off by conflicting articles about the safety of mugwort. Sounds like uou know what you are doing and will be interesting to read about how it goes.

[Gastronaut]

Right - apologies for the long delay, finally got round to making this.

I used pale, smoked and brown malt, plus roasted barley. The gruit blend was sweet gale, yarrow, mugwort and juniper berries. It's been in the bottle about 10 days now and I'm really pleased with how it's coming on. No one flavour dominates and it's vaguely like an alcoholic coke but less sweet. Unusual, but I really like it.

Will post the recipe in due course - being a bit cagey at the moment as it's for a competition...

[Rookie]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest where / if I can buy yarrow, bog myrtle etc. online? Are they likely to be available in garden centres as plants?

Thanks,

Andy

You don't have to use those to make a gruit beer. You can use whatever herb(s) and/or spice(s) that you like.

[Gastronaut]

The competition is now over - it was run by http://littlebeer.co.uk/ (well worth checking out) with the theme of brewing 'a beer that tastes like Guildford'!

50% of the marks were awarded for the concept, and 50% for the beer itself, and I was very pleased to come 3rd out of 18 entrants. I was happy with the beer too - a nice blend of flavours, with no one ingredient dominating. Hard to compare to other beers as I've never brewed or drunk anything quite like it, but I am enjoying it!

Here's the recipe - I originally intended it to be around 6.5% but toned it down to fit a cometition criteria of 'sessionability'.
For final volume of 23l

Guldeford Saxon Ale

4.00 kg Pale Malt 71.8 %
0.80 kg Smoked Malt 14.4 %
0.50 kg Brown Malt 9.0 %
0.27 kg Roasted Barley 4.8 %

75 minute boil -all herbs were dried weight
10g Juniper 60 min
10g Mugwort 60 min
10g Yarrow 60 min
10g Sweet Gale 60 min

2g Sweet Gale 7 mins

Dry English Ale Yeast (White Labs #WLP007)

10 days in primary and two weeks in secondary - the flavour mellowed out a lot during secondary.

[Gradie]

Well done on third! I was one half of the team behind Wonderland in fifth. Sadly I was the half that couldn't make it on the day !

[Gastronaut]

Thanks Gradie, sorry you missed it, it was an enjoyable couple of hours. Would you mind sharing the Wonderland recipe?

[Gradie]

Will check before releasing the detail, but essentially it was pale malt with some crystal made up to an og of 1.064, chinook as bittering then cascade and centennial at various stages (15, flameout and dry hopped). We designed and tested the recipe before we'd read the 'sessionability' criteria and since we're very inexperienced, decided against dumbing the abv down lest it through out the balance of flavour. Plus as well as the comp, our aim was to see if we could brew the same beer twice. Went really well, but highlighted the need for some better temp regulation - I've got an aquarium heater setup which was fine on the first batch, but the ambient temps were higher for batch two and the temp hit ~24 in the first 12 hours of fermentation .

We're already working on ideas for next year .

[Gastronaut]

Thanks! It was a lovely beer!