Experimental Holy Roman Empire Like Belgian Abbey Ale/Gruit

[mashani]

So this is my first attempt at a beer like they would have made in a monastery during the times of the Holy Roman Empire.

So these beers were Gruit or Gruit / Hopped beer hybrids - they had just started to use hops, but were not fully committed to them. They used the Gruit herbs/spices for flavor, not the hops. Also a good bit of the bitterness comes from them as it is extracted not just in the boil but from alcohol extraction.

The malt was roasted over an open fire by hand. That means a few things - inconsistent "doneness" - mostly like pale malt, but with a bit burnt, and a bit in between, and that means the beers were darker more like what we would call a dubbel not light like what we would call a pale. And also that the malt picked up a good bit of a smoke character. They would have used wheat because they had a lot of it, as well as barley, and/or whatever was on hand if they had to - and the breweries and bakery were joined at the hip, they all were located near and connected to each other in the monastery. Likely more barley then wheat though, unless they had a glut of wheat and were low on barley.

They used common gruit herbs of the time, the writings that exist mention many different herbs used in various types of beer. A little bit of rock salt also wasn't uncommon to be added.

So I went with that, and rolled up this to see what I think of it and will likely do a v2 and v3 later once I see how this came out. I did it as a PM with MoreBeer Pils extract as my pils base, but it would be easy enough to do AG with some Pils.

For 3 gallons:

PM of:

1.5# Malted Wheat
1/3# Oak Smoked Wheat Malt (I probably should have used twice this much, but I don't really like Rauchbier, so I wanted to be conservative)
1/4# Dark Munich
1/8# Aromatic
1/8# Chocolate Rye (it's the only burn't malt I had, figure its as fine as anything)

3# MoreBeer Pils LME Late Addition @10 minutes

60 minute boil.

1oz 1.2% AA Streisselspalt @60. That will give me around 8 IBUs. That would likely be about correct. The gruit herbs/spices will add the rest of the bitterness. I would have used a lot less hops if they weren't just 1.2%. But I had them, so that's what I used.

My gruit mix for this was (all dried herbs) and went in @5 to extract some stuff in the boil and kill bugs. Lots more flavor and bitterness will get extracted from them in the fermenter as alcohol is produced.

2.0 grams of Juniper Berries (I went a bit higher with them because I know I like them in beer - think of this as the piney bit of hops, plus a bit of bitterness)
1.5 grams of Wormwood (think of this as a good bit more AAUs, more bitterness will get extracted more in the fermenter by alcohol)
1.5 grams of Mugwort (think of this as earthy and slightly bitter/sweet bit of hops)
1.5 grams of Culinary Lavender *** (think of this as floral and herbal and bitter bits of hops)
0.75 grams of Sage (more herbal and bitter bits, and it's a good at suppressing beer infecting bugs like hops are, alcohol extracts a lot from sage)
1 rock salt rock, pulverized

*** This more likely would have been something like Rosemary in the real thing and half as much because Rosemary is more potent, but I have the Lavender and I also know I like it in beer. Or a mix of the two perhaps.

So that looked like this until I pulverized it more. It went in commando. They would have put it in a bag and suspended it in the fermenting wort during fermentation with a rock or something in it to keep it below the surface, but I don't have a great way of doing that besides a hop sack, and I didn't want a hop sack floating around in my fermenter.

gruit.JPG (120.38 KiB) Viewed 1269 times

The picture makes it look like more then it is by weight. In ounces that would be 1/4oz or so total. The mix actually didn't taste that crazy. Eating a pinch of it (I did to make sure I didn't turn into ) was no more whacked then a pinch of hops.

I used a full pack of Abbaye dry yeast

OG was 1.054, and FWIW, the wort tasted good. SRM was around 12 or so (it looks like a dubbel, but it sure will not taste like one)

That OG puts this up there as a beer for the Abbot and his guests, not the regular monks, their beer was more likely 1.04ish. The whole 7-10% "Big Belgian" thing didn't happen until later. This would have been a "big" beer for consumption in a monastery.

The second running's from a beer like this and the second running's from the regular monks beer would have likely been mixed together and turned into beer to give to the poor masses.

Unless I hate this, I will probably do another with some Heather along with some other herbs (if I can find some Bog Myrtle that is not stupidly priced I might try some of that instead of the Wormwood).

That said, I now have a lot of wormwood and mugwort to use up, so I guess I have to make more gruits with those too. Or just make tea I guess. Although wormwood tea is pretty hideously bitter. (the little bit I used here is plenty to make up for the lack of hop AAUs when combined with the other stuff).

If this is even remotely drinkable (LOL, I hope it's a lot better then that) I will bring or send some to the next borg meetup, unless you are too afraid of it LOL.

I probably should have used a bit of acidulated malt to get a bit of a lacto character to be really authentic (because you know it had some at least some of the time), and maybe I will next time if I think it needs a bit more balancing. But this time of year I might get some Brett anyways, so who knows.

[Beer-lord]

Extremely interesting!

[Kealia]

Agreed. I don't know that these would please my tastes, but I love the fact that we have people like you on this board that brew stuff like this. It's always interesting to read about (ingredients, process, history) because things would get boring pretty quickly if all we talked about were IPAs.

[BigPapaG]

Nice!

So, you could boil up a starter medium with lme/dme and water... No yeast.

Toss some random grains in and hold it a 108°F for 24 hours and then dump it in...

Or do the starter medium, cool it and add some kefir or yogurt starter with live lacto cultures... Give it some time and then add it...

If you want some lacto competing with the Abbaye that is...

[mashani]

I don't know that I want to add live lacto to my "Mini Cooper" plastic fermenter. Not ready to dedicate that to the sour gods yet.



Maybe some lactic acid at bottling time in some of the bottles? Could do various levels of "ramping it up"? Or just add some to the glass, to try to determine what is pleasing, so next time know how much acidulated malt to use...

[BigPapaG]

I don't know that I want to add live lacto to my "Mini Cooper" plastic fermenter. Not ready to dedicate that to the sour gods yet.

But, back in the Holy Roman Empire, I'm pretty certain they didn't treat their 'buckets' any different for sours / non-sours

Maybe some lactic acid at bottling time in some of the bottles? Could do various levels of "ramping it up"? Or just add some to the glass, to try to determine what is pleasing, so next time know how much acidulated malt to use...

Also good ideas!

[bpgreen]

At first, I though that was a lot of wormwood, but I looked at my notes, and it's in line with some gruits I've done. A little really goes a long way.

[Inkleg]

Dave, I might not respond to every post, but I aways enjoy reading them. I really enjoy the history lessons that a lot of them bring. Dogs permitting, I would love to see you at the next meet up and try one of these.

[BlackDuck]

I second Inklegs comment.


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[The_Professor]

I like the grain bill suggested by the Domesday Book (c. 1086) for the Monks of St. Paul's Cathedral. About 2/3 oats with about 15% each barley and wheat (I use spelt). Of course, the issue is what sort of malt was really produced. I have done a batch using that grain bill (home malted) for a gruit. I used the 3 supposedly common gruit herbs, Marsh Rosemary, Sweet Gale, and Yarrow. Never use too much Yarrow unless you like lemonade. But I got a nice apricot flavor once using little or no Yarrow. Pretty similar to a late hop addition only beer.

The next time I do that grain bill will be for a "Stout Oak Ale", once aging illustrating that exactly how the grains are roasted makes a huge difference in what the final product is.

I like the links here and here for info about the time period mashani is talking about. Real recipes do not exist for the herb mix and when they were added, but the first link mentions Brunswick Mum, and there are supposedly old mum recipes.

This is more modern, but I have wondered what a "beer" with Absinthe additions would be like.

Good luck with the gruit, mashini.

[mashani]

I might do one of the other batches with a lot of malted oats, but I didn't do that here because I was specifically going for the "Abbots Beer". The oats were for sure used in the monks and peasants beer. Monks beer and/or peasants beer (especially peasants beer if it was not just second running's) was likely anywhere between 33%-66% oats, but I really don't think the grain bill of the recipes were completely structured - they were going to brew with whatever they had, and keep on brewing all the time, because during the timeframe I am targeting here the monks were granted the right to drink anywhere from 5 to 10 LITERS of beer a day. (I don't think the monks drank that much of the monks beer a day, so they probably consumed a lot of the peasants beer which was probably closer to 2-3%). So they brewed a lot. And then they made more. They were certainly not going to stop because of some type or another of a grain shortage, they would just switch around the grains. Beer and bread was life sustenance.

But the abbot and his friends were "special" and they got the "better" ingredients. And stronger beer. The red nosed Abbot is not a myth LOL. I'm sure sometimes that abbots beer had oats too, but I'm also pretty sure sometimes it did not - because - poor people food.

@Professor or anyone else - if you can read some German, this is a good book about Monastic life - translated to German from Latin in the late 1800s.

https://archive.org/details/ekkehartsivcasu02knongoog

The original text is from 11th century and written by a monk who lived in the abbey. It has some interesting information, but as professor said, there are no "recipes". It just talks about the various things that were used. I really doubt that they followed any true recipes (beyond some basic foundation of what the "style" as such they were making was - as in yes there was certainly structure, but it would be flexible/fluid), because again it was always going to be about what they had on hand, and they were *gonna brew* regardless. I'm sure some of the beers were pure gruit, and some were slightly hopped, it would depend on what they could find/had available from their gardens/stock/etc.

I did drift potentially a bit less towards total authenticity (whatever that is since we don't really know what they did exactly) and more towards something I thought I could drink and enjoy perhaps. As in since things are vague, so I catered the vagueness to my own tastes. That's why I called it "Roman Empire Like" vs. "Style" or some stronger word. We do know they used some hops, at least sometimes, as they are mentioned in writings. We just don't really know where and how much and how often. But likely not a lot, which is why I kept this to only 8 AAUs.

At some point later in time in places like England, gruit herbs were more or less outlawed in commercial beverages known as "Beer" and only hops were allowed. Because the royals levied a tax on hops, which were starting to be grown commercially as opposed to the wild stuff folks gathered (coastal wormwood, etc). So commercial breweries paid the tax to claim they were making "Beer", so they could sell it in the pub, etc.. As opposed to "Ale", which was at that point considered by the royals/upper class to be some kind of country side homebrewed/home consumed "swill" made by the heathen masses who would not pay the tax man just to claim they were making "Beer".

Country folks kept making their Gruit Ale however and resisted using hops for a long while. It was like a rebellion of sorts. Tax man and the rich folks could stick it. And we know some of them just liked their Gruit Ales better. I've seen those thoughts written down in somewhat colorful ways.

[mashani]

In case your curious, this would be the blue print of the monastery the book above talks about "englishified" for your convenience LOL. There are actually 3 breweries and 4 bakeries in this monastery as designed in the original blue print. Scholars argue about whether they would have actually built it this way, but this was the "ideal" as far as how they would be made. I think those scholars just have a bug up their butt about how much beer these dudes consumed. It was a lot. It was good to be in the service of the holy roman emperor.

To save you time, the right side #7 room (there are two rooms #7 with a hall between) is a brewery and bakery for the common folks.

#14 would be brewery and bakery for the abbots guests, and likely the abbot as well.

#27 is the brewery and bakery for the monks.

Also one of the little rooms without a # to the left of the cloister/quarters (#3/#4) was also probably a bakery - the one where they baked the host bread (IE for communion).

Clickie the image and it will get embiggened.

[Jon]

That's a really cool image!

Looking forward to hearing how this one tastes.

With the monks brewing so frequently and drinking so much, there probably wasn't a lot of time for lacto infections to develop that much in most of their beers, so I think you're ok without adding a lot of any souring agent.

[mashani]

With the monks brewing so frequently and drinking so much, there probably wasn't a lot of time for lacto infections to develop that much in most of their beers, so I think you're ok without adding a lot of any souring agent.

Yes, this is likely true. I've said many times in posts before that there typically were two kinds of beer back in these times. Beer you drank young and beer you drank old and aged (and blended perhaps). Not much in between. At least not until lagers became a thing. Lager temps suppress the bugs, so a "clean" beer could be had even in "middle age" as such even if it got bugs. That's probably why lagers likely became so popular really, not necessarily because of the yeast being crisp and less fruity like ale yeasts like we think in our modern mindset. We have to shut off your modern mindset when we think about these things historically (or else we are simply being silly people)... cuz really, they didn't have sanitizer, so their idea of clean and our idea of clean are not the same.. so back in those days, "hey it's not getting sour/spoiling on me" would have been be a huge thing - beer we can brew and store and serve later, but not necessary needing to store for years for it to mellow? Koolio!. "Clean" is in the eyes (mouths/nose?) of the beholder.

So yeah, although they probably had lacto/brett/etc., they would have consumed it and made more long before it got totally funkified or radically sour. They were drinking this stuff right away and every batch was probably gone in a matter of days or at most a week as new batches were turning over. They always would have had multiple batches overlapping, using krausen from one to help get another going, as well as the shared yeast and sourdough bugs from the attached bakery that would be floating in the air. (there was a reason these places were connected, they knew that the stuff that made it happen was common to both). Maybe the abbots beer lasted a bit longer per batch, but maybe not - his guests drank it too, and I assume the abbot was a popular dude. But his beer might have held up a bit better / longer since it was stronger and loaded up with more gruit herbs and such.

All that said, the bit of lacto that did develop in that timeframe could still have acted as a balancer, so if this turns out too sweet for my liking, then a bit of lactic acid might be just the thing to help out a bit.

[mashani]

Well this fermented fast and furious. It went down to ~1.005 or so in 7 days and there it has stayed, so I just went ahead and bottled it. I don't know where 90% attenuation came from, since there wasn't any sugar in this. It did get up to around 80 degrees at one point, which I've not really done with Abbaye before, so maybe that's it. It doesn't taste brett infected or like some undead Bella Saison got into the mix. If some kind of wild yeast or bug survived being pulverized and boiled then I suppose, but it doesn't taste infected... so I dunno? MoreBeer pils is highly fermentable for extract, but still this was more then I figured. In any case, 6.4% ABV is what I have here. So it should keep well, I can probably let some stick around for a year if I want to. Maybe the herbs somehow affected the yeast metabolism.

I bottled it with carb levels closer to an English mild/bitter vs. what I would normally carb a Belgian. I don't think a lot of carb would be very authentic. This was likely just put into casks and any carb would just be pressure building up due to wild things working on it until they pulled the bung out of it. So it would have been light. I probably actually carbed it too much for authenticity, but that's brewers choice

So I am drinking my final sample right now because I figure that the monks would just start drinking it right out of the fermenter too. So figure I may as well take the raw sample and sip on it for a while instead of just chugging it or dumping it.

This sample is totally flat, no detectible residual carb out of the fermenter. It's been done a while and my fermenter was free venting, I did not use an airlock or tight lid or a gasket and it's warm. Just a lid to keep fruit flies out.

It tastes... remarkably good for a bizarre concoction right out of the fermenter. And remarkably like beer vs. I don't know what I expected ... "herbal tea" or something... it's not like that.

The abbaye yeast I used is not earthy like WLP500, but the herbs are giving it some of that earthiness, but it's not overpowering or like a WLP500 dirt bomb like if you fermented with it too cold. It has some slight banana and other light fruity esters and light phenols from the yeast. But not too much, nothing is strong or overpowering in any way - the 80 degree temps didn't make Abbaye do anything "bad". It is more bitter seeming then a dubbel, but not strongly bitter - somewhere between a dried out strong golden and a saison in that regard. That said, it does not come across as sweet, even with just 8 IBUs from hops. I can taste the herbs - but they are not strong or overpowering in any way. I did not use too much - I probably could have used more actually. This is mellower then some of the herb infused commercial Saisons I've had. The herb blend I used reminds me in many ways of Herbes de Provence but with a little bit of earthiness and slight pine mixed in. But it's not piney like an American beer, don't think that - it's just hints of it. Just hints of everything really - there is a lot going on, but all of it is subtle. The smoke/roast is just perceptible, but it does have a bit of a noticeable "oak" character in the background from it... it's actually a lot like the oak character you can get from WLP013, which I like a lot. I think I could use more smoked malt next time and still get a beer that I would not mind drinking (I think I said before I don't like smoked beer very much, but it's not bothering me at this low level and I am liking the oak in the background). The salt I added isn't making it noticeably salty, I think it's just helping the flavors to blend together.

So I'll reserve full judgement and tweaking ideas until later, but I think I'd call this a successful first try at this as far as producing something different, but something I still don't mind drinking. It is not like "Belgian Jägermeister" even with that plate full of herbs tossed into it commando. LOL. So I am now confident that I will do another one of these later.

EDIT: FWIW, the little dot on the lip of my glass is a fruit fly, who apparently approves of this beverage. The little bugger went right for it as soon as I poured it from my sample tube into the glass.