Rise of the gruit

[bpgreen]

click here

[mashani]

Out of that list, so far this year I have used:

Mugwort
Juniper Berries (many times)
Wormwood
Spruce Tips
Sage
Ginger
Lavender (many times - make sure you use the culinary type if you use it)

Before it is over I will have also used some of the above again, and:

Heather (I'm going to make a Fraoch Ale in the fall)
Rosemary (the culinary kind, not the marsh kind)
Marjoram (not on his list but I will have used it)

Maybe also some of these if I can find some:

Sweet Gale (aka Bog Myrtle)
Yarrow

Things I will not use:

Marsh Rosemary / Labrador Tea.

Those are kind of like European and North American versions of the same thing. They are highly toxic.

A bunch of the herbs above are actually toxic in theory but we just don't eat enough of them for that to be a bad thing. But the Marsh Rosemary / Labrador Tea are pushing it too far for my liking.

[The_Professor]

I made, what I called, "The Monks Of St. Paul's Cathedral Gruit" a few years ago.

I had tried my hand at making a gruit a couple times using the 3 often mentioned herbs, Marsh Rosemary, Sweet Gale, and Yarrow from WildWeeds. Do not use too much Yarrow or you get lemonade flavor.
For the Monks Gruit I used home malted oats, barley, and spelt with the 3 herbs (half as much Yarrow) in the boil only by my notes. At first the flavor was herbal with slight spearmint. After some aging it was more apricot.

The Bragget that jimjohnson and I made for the RCE could qualify as a gruit. It had rosemary tops, bay leaves, sweet briar, angelica, balm, thyme, ginger, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, cloves, and zero hops.

Here's a couple pics of the Monks Gruit:

[bpgreen]

I've used wormwood, sweet gale and juniper berries in my gruits.