I imagine the gruit brewers having a wall of potions (Photo by TW Collins)
Hops? We don’t need no stinkin’ hops!
That’s the idea behind gruit ale, an ancient unhopped style of beer that is making a bit of a comeback. In fact, I happen to be holding one in my hands right now.
A Mystical Brew
Prior to the 1700’s, before hops ruled the lands, beer was made with a mixture of herbs and spices. If you went into a bar before 1700, gruit is what you were served.
Sweet gale, Yarrow, and Marsh Rosemary were the main ingredients. Mugort, wormwood, and sage also found their way into many gruit recipes. These herbs were believed to have medicinal and inebriating effects.
GruitAle.com takes you further into this curious world. Described as “Dedicated to the Revival of Gruit Ale”, it brings to life gruit’s history, and even publishes recipes. Most interesting though are their articles about gruit’s aphrodisiacal effects and the fact that it was used as a sexual stimulant.
“Gruit ale stimulates the mind, creates euphoria and enhances sexual drive” – GruitAle.com
If that isn’t fun enough, gruit takes a shot at hops by blaming it for making you sleepy and for brewer’s droop, a male issue another word for whiskey…(I’ll keep it clean on Jim and Don’s blog, but I get a kick out of imagining the beer and whiskey brothers arguing over which term is correct).
I encourage you to head over to GuitAle.com and do some more reading, but on to this gruit I have in my possession. Â
Professor Fritz Briem 13th Century Gruit Bier
From the label, “This interpretation of a traditional Grut Bier is spiced with Lorbeer (Bay Leaves), Ingwer (Ginger), Kummel (Caraway), Anis, Rosmarie, and Enzian (Gentian). It is brewed with water, wheat & barley malt, “pollinated wild hops” and fermented using top fermenting yeast.”
If it wasn’t for the descriptions in the parenthesis, I wouldn’t have a clue what I was drinking (still no clue about gentian though).
So there are some hops in this one. Not exactly true to style but oh well.
It pours a hazy yellow straw color with a thin, 1/2 finger head and strong carbonation. By looks alone it resembles a normal wheat beer.
The aroma, however, tears away any thought that this is something normal. Ginger is the first thing that hits my nose. After that it’s like Emeril’s spice rack. Bay leaves, black licorice, mint, rosemary. If there are hops in there, I don’t smell them.
The first sip made me think I was drinking an alcoholic tea. Aha! That’s really what it is – alcoholic tea. Out of the spices in the aroma the ginger dominated, but the main player was a strong menthol taste. It was very medicinal and not all too pleasant. There’s a light malt sweetness which brings back some familiarity of normal beer, but again no hops. The mouthfeel is thin and fizzy.
This beer is really hard to judge, because it is so unusual. I did enjoy it, but let me put it this way – I don’t think gruits are going to come back and unseat hops from their throne any time soon. By the end of the beer I was actually missing my sweet sweet (err, bitter) hops. That said, I’m all about trying unusual styles and am glad I tried this. In fact I want to try more gruits. There’s such an array of possible combinations I wonder what else is out there.
Hell, I think I’ll even brew my own.
Billy Broas is a beer blogger at BillyBrew.com where he’s dishing out the homebrewing tips. Although after reading about brewer’s droop he won’t be brewing an IPA for a while.
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
Nice post, Billy. Thanks for enlightening us about gruit ale – very cool stuff. I’ll have to get my hands on some and see what it’s like.
Did you have any hallucinations or anything else wild from drinking this?
And, for the record, I’ve never suffered from “brewers droop” but that could be because I’ve only done extract brewing so far. Maybe it’s an all grain thing 😉
Nope, no hallucinations. I was looking hard for the little green men too.
No experience with “the droop” either. It might be a fair trade off for a hop-head like me though.
Thanks for sharing my review guys. This was a fun one.
I had Cigar City’s Gruit a couple weeks ago and it was rough. They aged it on cedar like the rest of their humidor series and all I tasted was the cedar and some white pepper. I know it’s a different type of style with no hops but that is definitely an acquired taste.
It’s something you gotta try, though, right? Like Absinthe. I’m definitely going to seek out a gruit and give it a shot, even if it’s like drinking cedar or menthol cigarettes!
Nice review, but I think I’d rather have brewers droop than drink this.
I bet all the dudes were real potent back in the day, huh? I bet Don wishes he could go back in time.
Yeah, this is like Viagra for conquistadors!
I’m just sitting here wondering what the HELL is the other word for whiskey??
you’ll need to be a real DICK Tracey to puzzle your way through that one, Don.
And Jim, you may not be the best judge of if you have ever had brewer’s droop. Perhaps we should put the question to Caryn?
Trust me, if it was a real condition, she’d have me out there whipping up a double IPA every day. Poor woman!
At least we all get to try other things in our lifetime. You got some really good information here. Thanks for a little trip to beer history. Cheers!
Question: What food choice would go best with a Gruit? We have ordered some for a tasting and would like to prepare a complimentary food. Any suggestions?
Hmmm that’s a tricky one Jackie. Great question though. Well gruit has herbs and spices, so you can pair it up with a dish is seasoned in the same way. It’s also not too heavy (at least not the one I had) so you don’t want to pair with something that is going to overwhelm the gruit. Match intensities. I think it’d be great with an appetizer type dish. Try bruschetta. I think it would go well with the basil and oregano. Or anything you might eat with tea, since this is sort of like tea. Let us know how the tasting goes. Cheers!
Awesome article! Me and my brother are going to be doing endless experimenting with brewing Gruits (we roll Hoptional). Perhaps we should party sometime?