Brewing

I’ve been homebrewing since the mid-1990s and experimenting with gruit or herbal brewing since 2001. During that time I’ve progressed to all-grain brewing, mostly to save money, while also keeping my equipment basic and my methods primitive, at least compared to the average American homebrewer’s geektastic set-up. Though I’m still very much a learner, I want to use this space to share a few of my techniques and discoveries as time permits.

Recipes

• Sweetfern Chamomile Gruit Ale
• Pennsylvania Native Plant Gruit Beer
• Brewing with red raspberries: two approaches
• Alcoholic root beer, Prohibition-style
• Meadowsweet, Heather and Gentian Gruit
• Fugwort Stout (A.K.A. Muggle Stout)
• Sassafras-Black Birch Beer
• Juniper-Yarrow ESB (Extra Scandinavian Bitter)
• Juniper-Ginger Beer
• Mugwort Chamomile Oatmeal Stout
• Mugwort Spicebush Stout
• Summer Meadow Ale
• Ground Ivy Gruit Ale

Background

• What is beer?
• What is gruit?
• All-grain homebrewing made slightly easier
• Brewing and foraging links

Articles on brewing from Via Negativa

• A beer thinker’s guide to life
  Beer-related proverbs from around the world.
• Brewing without a recipe
  Yes, you can pretty much just wing it and the beer will probably be fine.
• Brewing with gruit
  A typical summer brewing session for me.
• Sweet flag
  A meditation on an important brewing herb, Acorus calumus.
• Meadow in a bottle
  The origin of my Summer Meadow Ale.
• Devil’s Plaything
  Some notes about yarrow and how to brew with it from 2004.
• Beer Tasting 101: Yarrow Sarsaparilla Ale
  Only slightly facetious. (But really, I do need to take a beer tasting course.)
• Sassafras beer: a short history
  It might seem strange to think of beer as a health drink, but for many centuries, it was far safer to drink than most available sources of fresh water.
• Digging for Beer
  Hunting for aniseroot (Osmorhiza longistylis) and American black elderberry blossoms.