All grain Nettle ale

[Jambo]

Picked 100g of fresh young nettle tips today, vacuum packed and froze for when I next get a chance to brew. Planning to try the nettle beer in Greg Hughes' book. Now is the time of year to pick these fellas!

[basswulf]

How does the taste of nettle beer compare to nettle tea (nettle tips infused in hot water)? Is there a clear link or does the latter give no clue of the former?

Wulf

[Cully]

You can buy Absinthe in Tesco and Asda but don't make the mistake of thinking that you'd be drinking what Wilde, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gough quaffed and hallucinated on. Its very inferior, much weakened stuff. Still gets you pished though.

[Jambo]

Well this (Greg Hughes' recipe) is now in the fermenter. When I opened the nettles which I had vacuum packed and frozen, the smell was surprisingly delicious, quite sweet.

I'm hoping it won't be 40 pints of justification for switching to hops however many hundred years ago!!

[Jambo]

It's drinkable! I would need to make the same beer without the nettles to really detect what (if anything) they add though.

[Jimmymck]

Do you think this will work? http://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/ne ... oCsz_w_wcB

[Jambo]

Probably, but paying money for the dried form of one of the most abundant weeds in the country would upset me!

[Cully]

Goosefoot used to be abundant all over the local area and I read once that bit was a used in brewing beer in alden times. I always fancied trying it out but it seems to have largely disapeared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenopodium

[JamesF]

I looked at the picture in the "description" section and thought "that looks a lot like fat hen". Turns out it is fat hen. Never heard it called goosefoot before. I've certainly seen it in our garden, though it's nowhere near as abundant as nettles.

James

[Jimmymck]

I've missed the spring picking and really fancy trying this ale.

[JamesF]

I did wonder if you could snap the tops of the stalks off and take the new leaves after they sprout again.

James

[Jambo]

Hi James

I don't know - worth a shot. All the sources I've read say you want the young shoots. They're incredibly fleshy, surprising to me really - I've lived in the sticks all my life but never really observed young nettles until doing this.

I'm going to upgrade my assessment of this beer (Nettle Ale from Greg Hughes' book) though - it's a lovely summer ale. Timing of it is really good as well, brewed in the spring and ready for drinking in the summer. As I said before though I think I would need to try the same recipe without the nettles to figure out exactly what they are adding.

[jmc]

Elderflowers go really well in a Saison. They seem to match the spicy notes you get from a Saison yeast.
Spicy hops work well too, but you dont want to overpower the elderflowers.

Still a few Elderflowers left around here. Make sure you pick them at their prime, fully opened on a sunny day.... like today.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

But beware of overdoing the elderflower. 200g of flowers (destemmed) in a 25l batch is too much.