Meadowsweet Beer

[xhalmers_860]

Hi,

I have some dried meadowsweet plants that I picked in early summer, about an armful. Supposedly the leaves can be used as a bittering agent, and the flowers as aroma (they have a sort of eldeflowery quality, but sweeter smelling).

I was planning on doing the whole thing without hops. Does anyone have any experience with this, or an idea of how much would be good to use per gallon?

I was thinking of a light beer.

Thanks

Paul

 

[phettebs]

There's a thread on here about gruit which is what you'd be making.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=31296

That might help a bit. I'd think qty would be similar but it's always kind of a guess with these non-hop bittering agents. Sounds like fun though.

Baz

 

[xhalmers_860]

Hey,

So I just racked this off - tastes pretty good! I did an all grain brew, and did add a very little bit of hops along with a good amount of both leaves and flowers at the end of the boil.

Just going to keep in the secondary for a while because its cold and I think it could start again when the weather warms up - then try bottling.

Hopefully pretty good for my first beer.

 

[Dr Mike]

Will be interesting to see how this turns out.

I've just finished reading 'Amber, Black & Gold' which is about the history if Britain's beers and has a chapter on herb flavoured beers. There isn't much record of Meadowseet being used to flavour ale but it was used in mead. It acts as a preservative and contains salicyclic acid (aspirin) so might be good for a headache !

 

[fbsf]

Yeay, mead that includes a hangover cure :