All grain Nettle ale

[snakepie@hotmail.com]

So I thought I would draw up a test batch of 10 litres of nettle ale. Goes hand in hand with SWMBO's hobby of foraging and this way I get maximum enjoyment too ....minus the nettle stings. We picked the top of young nettle heads mid April and I have had many a happy evening with this rather stunning and surprisingly summery ale.

Recipe size
OG: 1.030
FG: 1.008
Alc % 3%
Colour - lovely light brown and perfectly clear.

Grain bill:
1.5kg Pale malt
80g Crystal malt
20g Chocolate malt
25g Wheat malt

Hop bill/ Nettle bill

120g Nettle (fresh tips) - 60 mins
30g of fresh nettle tips / 20g Saaz - flame out
2 tspn Irish moss 15 mins

Yeast - Saf-ale S-04
Cost - £2.50
Boil time - 60 mins

Mash Schedule - 60 mins
8 Litres Strike water (inc 1 crushed campden tablet) 74oC
Mash - 67oC
3 litres Sparge (accounting for 1 litre boil off) - 85oC

Fermentation schedule - 20oC for 10 days




Enjoy and let me know what you think.

[seymour]

Wow, very cool! I love it. What else do you guys forage for? Used anything else in brewing?

Yesterday I noticed my wormwood tops are flowering, so I might need to do something about that...

[snakepie@hotmail.com]

Thanks!! Would definitely do this one again.
This is the first foraged beer we have done, but in general we forage for salads, nuts, fruits, flowers, roots - so plenty to go at to expand the hobby into AG beer making. Would be interested to see someone post up an elderflower beer, but the really floral nature of the flower tends not to go great with ales.

Also I used lemon balm in a ginger beer recently which has turned out really well - will wait for it to mature before I post the recipe (don't want to post a bad recipe)
I plan on doing a heather ale from a heatherbush we have nearby then also an elderberry stout when in bloom - but this could prove exquisite or totally disastrous.
Other variants I want to try in various beers is yarow for bitterness in a beer, lavendar for aroma in a beer. Need to do more research before diving in head first, but it's a new twist in the hobby for me.

What do you plan on doing with the wormwood - that could be a nice beer?

[timbo41]

For the nettles ..any particular species( common,Roman etc) and just the tips like tea? How would you describe the taste?
There are quite a few threads regarding elder on here, seems to work well in an APA.
Am brewing a kit tomorrow..no time for AG at present, and am adding 50g steeped elder, probably another 50g in hop bag when primary nearly over..Wilkos hoppy copper. Have been considering lovage in a future brew. Also ash bark,as an old English herbal recipe mentions highly bitter,used as a stomach soother...so to replace bittering addition

[Hanglow]

I've done nettle beer before but that was just basically alcoholic nettle tea - your recipe looks a lot better.


I've never used elderflowers in beer before but I've made elderflower champagne and cordial in the past and both were terrific, can thoroughly recommend them. I can see them working in a nice flowery golden ale though

[snakepie@hotmail.com]

Hello Timbo - I used Common Nettle and it was just the young tips I used as old leaves depart a nasty taste. The taste is really hard to describe as nettles have a very distinctive taste, -ever so slightly floral and sweet, however it's extremely mild due to the moderation and overall balance of the grain, hops to nettle ratio.

I will defintiely have to try an elderflower beer - sounds great. I think that may well be my next one since they are in bloom currently. Thanks for the tip.

Hanglow - sounds like your winemaking is more up to scratch than mine - I have made elderflower champagne before and I either get it way too sweet or far too dry. Any tips on elderflower cordial to ensure it doesn't go off - thats the one thing stopping me giving it a go?

Cheers

[suitsyousir]

Nice one mate. I bought a couple of bottles of Stinger nettle ale from Cornwall last year, and it was rancid!! Glad to know a good brew can be done with it.

I have done a few batches of elderflower champagne, turned out lovely. I used the Hugh ferny-Whittingstall recipe on the channel 4 website.

[seymour]

Lots of cool ideas, snakepie, I love the way you think.

...What do you plan on doing with the wormwood - that could be a nice beer?

Not quite sure yet. As you surely know, wormwood is the primary herb used to produce absinthe, though you must distill it to bring out the hallucinatory agent. I understand it's the bitterest herb after rue, so I used some dried flowering tops once in a dark mild, added along with Goldings hops at each addition. I didn't notice any profoundly different flavours or aromas, but it had an interesting husky, perfumey, wild edge to it. Hard to describe, and I didn't especially like it at first, so I left the bottles alone. After several months, everything had come together nicely, and I couldn't stop drinking it til it was gone.

[timbo41]

Mmm...brave brewing Seymour. Absinthe remains a mystery to me. Not sure its even legal here. It crops up in a lot of literature, both cited for its effect on characters and the " creative" effect on authors. Always seemed a bit like peyote in its mystique,or the worm in agave tequila.,if I remember young guns correctly.
Often occurs to me, craft brewing in the u.s is more avant-garde than here, often because the range of possible ingredients is more extensive. Do you agree that could be the case?

[DaveyT]

I've used elderflowers to great effect. They went in with the flavour hops which were Progress and N Sauvin.
For some reason I decided to add some crystal malt at the last minute which I wouldn't do again. I think the beer needs to be straw coloured for elderflowers. Having said that, it is very good with the crystal.
The hops I would use again, though, and I should think EKG would be perfect.

[seymour]

Mmm...brave brewing Seymour. Absinthe remains a mystery to me. Not sure its even legal here. It crops up in a lot of literature, both cited for its effect on characters and the " creative" effect on authors. Always seemed a bit like peyote in its mystique,or the worm in agave tequila.,if I remember young guns correctly.
Often occurs to me, craft brewing in the u.s is more avant-garde than here, often because the range of possible ingredients is more extensive. Do you agree that could be the case?

I think it has to do with our Lone Ranger/Young Guns mentality, as you say, nothing to do with availability of raw materials. You just have to let your creativity soar, and don't let anyone tell you something won't work.* It's stubborness and arrogance run wild. Case in point: I grow my own wormwood (Artemis absintium) but it isn't native here, it's yours. I had to order the seeds from Chiltern UK! Read up on gruit ale. There's practically nothing we can brew which your UK/European forefather's didn't already think up.

*Y'know, like your proposed spent grain experiment? You should just punch me in the gut and do whatcha want. What's to lose?

[timbo41]

Dignity!!

[seymour]

*Y'know, like your proposed spent grain experiment? You should just punch me in the gut and do whatcha want. What's to lose?

Dignity!!

Well, only because you told us your lame plan before you tried it. See the trick is do all the audacious stuff on the down-low, then when one out of ten or so goes really well, that's when you start bragging about it. The other nine flops never get mentioned.

Nah, just kidding. It's obvious from your posts you "think outside of the box." Just make sure to put as much creativity into crazy cool recipe formation as you put into cost-savings, and you'll be unbeatable! Cheers!

Snakepie, sorry about the thread hijack.

[timbo41]

Ooops sorry snakepie. Anyway the nettlebbrew looks lovely!

[jmc]

Nettle ale sounds like a very quaffable lawnmower ale.

Ages ago I made a nettle wine, one of C.J.J.Berrie's recipes and it was OK.
You do need to just use the newly sprouted tops as they have the flavour and sweetness you want.
Worth the odd looks you get while picking them.

Avoid the edges of nettle-patches as dogs like to leave their mark and that's a flavour you don't want.

I normally do an Elderflower and Honey ale this time of year, following on from floydmeddler's suggestion.
Critch posted an Elderflower recipe a while back too.