no hop beer

[PD]

I have a recipe for what is described as a " straight bitter " made up of Maris,Crystal,wheat and a bit o black, Malts.
There are no hop additions at all. abv is suggested at 3.83% while the IBU is of course 0.

Has anyone made a similar beer without hops ? what could I expect...an " ordinary draught bitter " ?

does it make a good standard drinking beer ?

 

[Dunfie]

One of the SCB members split a batch and boiled up some unhopped wort as an experiment. He reported that it was far to sweet and sickly to be an enjoyable drink.

My gut feel its that it wouldn't work very well. You really need to balance the sweetness with something.

 

[PD]

thank you, that was my first thoughts.
I'll keep the recipe tho and probably use it as a base for one hop additions to get an idea of hop flavours.
any idea what balance ratio I should be looking at with the additions, what weight of single hops to aim for ?

 

[Ceejay]

Only thing I was thinking when I read this, was "you need some bitterness from somewhere". I assume that's what the black malt is there for. I imagine you'd need to use a lot more than you usually would though, so it may turn out like an unhopped dry stout. :hmm:

 

[PD]

cancel my last post. I've found a recipe in Marc Ollorsons book for country bitter which is more or less the same as I was proposing but he has one lot of hops added a couple of times during the brew. I'll use this one for experiments. Bitterness comes out at around 29-30

 

[oldjiver]

Ale of course originally had no hops. They were derided as a "weed". Stinging nettles were used, and the berrys from the chequer tree. Thats why a lot of pubs have "chequer" in their name. I have made wild hop brew which had no hop aroma, just a little bitterness. It was malty and delicious. I would love to try the chequer tree berry ale, but we dont have any round here (north Essex) I believe.

 

[jonewer]

Ale of course originally had no hops. They were derided as a "weed". Stinging nettles were used, and the berrys from the chequer tree. Thats why a lot of pubs have "chequer" in their name. I have made wild hop brew which had no hop aroma, just a little bitterness. It was malty and delicious. I would love to try the chequer tree berry ale, but we dont have any round here (north Essex) I believe.

True, but most of the herbs and stuff they put in did have a bitter flavour to offset the sweetness of the malt.

Sorbus fruit are rather bitter. As always, dont eat or drink anything growing in the wild unless you are 100% sure you know what it is. 99% is not good enough....

By the way, I'm not sure the reference citing hops as a "wicked and pernicious weed" were referring to its flavour or use in bittering beer. If anyway has ever tried to dig one out of their garden (as I did on monday), they will certainly not have many kind words to say about it, given its extraordinary capacity for putting down deep roots and invading in all directions laterally too! A wicked and pernicious weed indeed! :evil: