Brewing With Herbs and Spices

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/brewing_with_spices

The use of spices and herbs in beers predates the use of hops by many centuries. The first primitive beers of Sumeria and Egypt were very likely made with some type of early spice or flavoring material such as dates and herbs. In 1985, Neolithic pottery was discovered on the island of Rhum and it contained a fermented beverage made with heather, meadowsweet, and royal fern (1).

The fact that herbs and spices have a long history in beer making should not be surprising. Beer made without hops (the original ale) tended to be a very sweet and cloying beverage. Even the early beers of the Middle Ages in Britain used a complex blend of herbs and spices called gruit to help balance some of the sweet malt notes with the often sour or wild yeast flavors and aromas (see box).

Modern-Day Use of Specialty Ingredients

While today’s beers are almost exclusively brewed with hops, there are some modern versions of spiced beer crafted with heather, and other beers whose primary flavors are derived from herbs and spices. Today’s home brewers, with their propensity for experimentation, will find it a natural progression to look to the herb garden to recreate a bit of history.

The use of herbs and spices in beer today is usually associated with the spiced ales of Belgium, the heather beer of Scotland, and the spicy, sometimes strong, holiday ales of the United States. Belgian ales have long been known to require some spices in their brewing, including coriander, cumin, Curaçao bitter orange peels, sweet orange peels, anise, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, ginseng, vanilla, woodruff, and nutmeg (2).

The notion of using hops in beer did not come into vogue until the Middle Ages. Spices were probably added to ales to balance the flavor of sweet malt. (Un-hopped malt beverages were then referred to as ales; the terms “beer” and “ale” have now become interchangeable.) The use and composition of these spices was a highly controlled industry, and the state had an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Gruit was a particular blend of herbs and spices sold under state control for brewing beer. The blend usually included sweet gale (Myrica gale), sage (salvia), common yarrow (Achillea millefolium), pine (pinus) resin, wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and broom (Cytisus) in varying quantities 

In the United States, spiced beers are primarily found during the holiday season; Anchor Brewing’s Our Special Ale is one notable trend-setter. This beer usually has generous spicing from the use of such ingredients as ginger, nutmeg, and clove, although the particulars of the recipe are said to change from year to year. Chili beer, made with whole chili peppers, is another popular type of spiced beer. It’s not for everyone, but if you have a taste for chilis, it can make an excellent beer with some real hot finishing touches.

Brewing with Specialty Ingredients

The recipe: As for all types of beer, spiced beers require careful design with thorough consideration of the desired balance of flavors, aromas, alcohol, bitterness, and finish. Once a base malt bill and alcohol target are established, the next step is to decide whether to use multiple spices that blend and marry the individual spices into a more complex sum of the parts, or to focus on just one spice. Many brewers choose to make a beer with an extremely one-dimensional spiced character, but even then some forethought to the malt foundation and the strength and type of spicing is important.

I feel that the most successful spiced or herbed beers are the ones that retain a notable malt foundation and a moderate amount of bittering hops, where the spices or herbs complement but do not overwhelm the basic beer flavors.

Brewers often choose to boil one or more spices for a longer time to focus on the flavor contributions of the spices rather than just the aroma content. Just as with hops, the longer the boil, the less the volatile aromatics persist into the beer. The more delicate herbs, on the other hand, should not be boiled. Most would not survive the boil and still be detectable. Like dry-hopping, adding dry herbs or an herb tea is a better way to get the aromatics you desire. Some brewers, however, boil for just a short time, 5 or 10 minutes, to achieve a more subtle contribution.