When brewing experiments go bad
What to do with a staghorn sumac wheat beer and a root beer stout that fail to live up to expectations.
experimental beers with a botanical twist
dandelion root
Taraxacum officinale roots may be used interchangeably with chicory, and treated the same way: dried, then roasted in a 300F oven for about 20 minutes.
Some people brew with the leaves and blossoms, too. Here are a couple of dandelion beer recipes from the books Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers and Homebrewer’s Garden, and here’s a recipe from The Forager’s Feast.
Brewing with red raspberries: two approaches
Red raspberry imperial mugwort stout and raspberry-black currant wheat beer.
Mugwort Spicebush Stout
Mugwort and Indian sarsaparilla are an excellent combination; that’s why I brew with them so often.
Summer Meadow Ale
My idea was to flavor a summer ale with a mix of common meadow plants, all gathered at the time of brewing, and thereby to try and capture the essence of a midsummer meadow. Much to my own surprise, I seem to have succeeded on the first attempt!
Yarrow Gruit Braggot Ale
Braggot is half beer, half mead. I brewed this way back on July 24, 2002, when honey was cheap and when my technique involved a LOT of herbs, usually including roasted dandelion root.
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