Inspiration
I admit, I was buzzing a bit from the
HBC when I planned my only brew for the year. Stan Hieronomous had
new book called Brewing Local, about expressing a sense of place in
beers, and the founders of Scratch brewery gave a lovely talk on
using various tree parts in beer.
These were things I was thinking about
already. Not necessarily using foraged ingredients, but ways that
brewers can create styles that reflect their homes. I always ask
those I interview about ways they show their nationality through
beer. Few have given a satisfactory answer despite agreeing that
there is an over-homogenization of beer styles in the world.
Norway has hundreds of years of brewing
traditions and it's shouldn't be a surprise that many of the antique
styles use forest ingredients. I called my first Norwegian homebrew
En Skarp Grein (“A Sharp Stick”) which was a juniper/spruce IPA.
I thought the pine notes worked well with the style, but that
shouldn't be a shock.
The very night I arrived this summer,
my father in-law was talking about trying to brew gruit ales and that
seemed like some sort of sign. When I awoke the next day, I flipped
through a book of local edible plants, cross-checked them with the
glossary from Brewing Local, and headed into the forest to see what I
could find. My reconnaissance yielded a plethora of options. It seems
the whole hill behind my in-law's home was edible. One side was a
field of blueberries (or rather bilberries as these are known in US),
the other was a continuous sheet of bog myrtle. The latter I had to
confirm with the family, which they did by its distinct aroma. I also
found tons of juniper and lingon berry plants, though no berries were
ripe yet. The spruce tips were also still young enough to be soft and
non-resinous.
I'd been quite taken by tropical
NEIPA's lately, having tried as many juice bombs or milk shakes or
whatever people are calling them, while I was in America. I wanted
something nice and drinkable that would be ready to drink quickly. I
was heading back to Hungary in two short months.
For those beer lovers who've not heard
of New England IPA (NEIPA), it's a style that's becoming super hip
worldwide at the moment (it's been very popular for a couple years in
the states). The typical American IPA is defined by a high, clean
bitterness and an up-front hop aroma and flavor, usually with New
World hops featuring citrus, pine, or tropical fruit flavors. It's a
polarizing style and many find the extreme bitterness to be
off-putting. NEIPA is still a celebration of hops, but takes the
focus off bitterness, instead making the fruity qualities of hops the
center point.
Hop flavor/aroma and hop bitterness are
not the same thing. It is possible for a beer to be hoppy, but not
bitter. The bittering compounds in the hop plant are utilized and
“locked” into the beer through exposures to high temperatures,
usually through a sixty minutes of boiling. In NEIPA, the hops are
usually not boiled (or only a small amount gets boiled). Instead,
everything is added to the wort after it begins cooling or during
fermentation. The same heat that bonds the bitterness to the flavor
also degrades the essential oils and aroma compounds of the hops. So
in the end, you have an IPA that is less bitter and more aromatic.
They are often very hazy (due to lack of filtering, the chemistry of
the water, yeast strains that don't flocculate/settle well, and the
insane amount of hops used). They end up having the taste and
consistency of a glass of juice. It's a friendly style, easy to like.
Many people think that style lacks
depth, especially in the bitterness. I didn't want to add leaves and
sticks to my beer just as a gimmick (though, in a way, it was) and
NEIPA is surely not the proper palate to express the lovely aromas of
these plants. So instead, I wanted to use the resin notes to provide
depth of bitterness to the beer and to provide some earthier notes to
a very bright style. Essentially, I'd be using the forest elements
instead of bittering hops, because the intense aroma of the hops
would dominate. That's what bog myrtle and juniper were used for
before hops became prevalent.
Excursion
This is Bergen, so I awoke on brew day
to a ton of rain, yet if I ever let weather prevent me from going
into the forest, I'd spend far too much time at home. I threw the
collars on the in-law's dogs, grabbed a pocket knife (fine, it was a
wine opener), and set off.
I noticed right away one of the first
problems with brewing using seasonal ingredients. Plants are living
things. The perfect spruce tips from two weeks before had darkened,
become normal spruce needles. From my own experiences, once they
darken, they loose their soft bitterness, the bit of sweetness and
become mostly just tar-bombs. I cut the lightest ones I could fine
and also a few juniper sticks that were still quite light with white,
unripe berries.
The bog myrtle involved a bit of a
hike. The hill behind the house had none, but the next hill over had
a ton. I descended into the marshy valley and once the swamp began,
so did the bog myrtle. It shouldn't have surprised me that I'd find
tons of it is a place called Myrdal (bog valley). The leaves were
tiny and I rubbed some between my fingers and sniffed. I could tell
why it was so prized for beer making in the past. It was a bit piney
and spicy, nothing like hops, but an obvious match for beer. I took a
nibble and though it had a nice herbal bitterness to it, it quickly
became astringent and green. Perhaps these leaves were too young and
small. In my head, I remembered the leaves I'd collected earlier from
the other side of the valley were much better.
 |
| Myrdal, more than just an inviting name. |
So crossed to the next hill and began
climbing the steep incline to the meadow of bog myrtle. No matter how
many plants I found, none of them had the larger leaves I was hoping
to find. I occasionally tasted more, but all had that sharp flavor.
By the time I'd found plenty of large leaves, I was a good distance
from home. My forage had become a hike, which is not the worst of
problems, except when you have a timetable.
I'd actually never been this far along
the hill before, but there was a path heading back in the right
direction. Somehow, I got disoriented, found myself in a different
place of the forest than I thought, even though I'd been in that very
spot many times before. Once I realized my folly, I took a short cut
I knew straight down a small cliff, ending up in a little pocket that
received very little sunlight. There was a single spruce tree with
bright yellowish green tips, shining. The lack of sunlight delayed
its development. Getting lost became a blessing. I cut a large
handful and tossed it in my bag.
I took the long way back, passing by my
secret chantrelle spot. I wasn't expecting much in mid-July, but I
was rewarded with a small patch that would go in my lunch.
On my trip, I also found a few meadow
sweet flowers. I wasn't 100% sure I was correct, but they had a
lovely aroma that would taste great in malty styles or mead (the
Norwegian name is Mjødurt or
Mead-herb). In the next couple weeks, the flowers had taken over most
of the swampy meadows of the area. I figured I'd make another beer
with it, but sadly, by the time I was able to do another batch, the
bloom had ended. Maybe next year I'll try something with it.
Execution
(This is a detailed description of
my brewing technique, which will be covered again in the recipe. If
you are not interested in brewing, just the effects of these plants
on the flavor of the beer, feel free to skip this part.)
It's usually not wise to try too many
new things at the same time, but I'm clearly a bit more relaxed about
operating in uncertainty than many. I had a new style of beer with a
whole new process, using an ingredient I'd never used before (and
wasn't well-covered online), plus, I was brewing on my
father-in-law's Grainfather brewing machine for the first time.
None of this proved to be an issue. The
machine is easy to use, just input your recipe with temperatures and
time, and it does the rest, using pump-recircuclation to keep it all
going.
My grist was 95% Maris Otter and 5%
Munich malt. There was meant to be some oats in there, but I forgot
to add it to the mash. I really love the malty backbone Maris Otter
gives and just a bit of nutty richness from the Munich Malt.
Recently, I've been reading articles about using shorter mash times,
with little sacrifice in conversion rates. So I only mashed for 45
minutes. I used a thin mash (the machine demanded I add 19L, making
it a 3.6L/kg) at 65C. After a 75C mashout for 10 minutes, I fly
sparged with 15L of water.
I threw no hops at all into the boil,
instead, I used the forest plants as the primary bittering agents. It
is never wise to throw any unknown ingredient into the boil. Randy
Mosher always recommended making either teas or tinctures from vodka.
I went the tea route, soaking my stick and leaves for in 90C water
for 20 minutes. I tasted the mixture and it didn't have any
astringent flavors, just a nice gentle piney taste. It was added to
the boil for 20 minutes to kill any natural yeasts of bacteria. If my
goal was aroma instead of flavor, I would have tossed it in at the
very end, to try to preserve some of the more volatile aroma
compounds.
After a 90 minute boil, I cooled the
wort to 80C and held my hop mixture (Azacca, Mosaic, and Kohatu) in a
whirlpool for 30 minutes. Based on some calculations I found on
brewersfriend.com, this still added about 60IBU to the beer. I then
quickly cooled the wort to 18C and added two packets of WLP007-Dry
English Ale (I had no time to make a starter.), my go-to yeast.
It's been a cool summer and the
fermentation went slowly. After two days, the temperature of the
fermentation had dropped to 15C, so I moved it to a warmer room.
After this, a nice, green krausen formed after two days. I was
worried of a potential mold infestation, but it had a pleasant hoppy
smell, so I figured it was just hop material floating on the surface.
On the fourth day of fermentation, the beer was fermenting at 20C and
I added 50g of my hop mixture (equal amounts of each). I added
another two days later. On the 13th day, I did my final
50g dry hop addition, the bottled two days later. (It was a very slow
fermentation.)
Recipe
TrePA
5kg Maris Otter (95.2%)
250g Muich Light (4.8%)
19L mash at 65C (3.6 L/kg) 45min
Mashout at 75C for 10min
Sparge with 15L water at 70C
Made herb tea:
10g Spruce tips picked fresh from the
forest
20g Juniper branch with some berries
5g Sweet Gale/Bog Myrtle
Steeped for 20 min at 90C
Added to boil with 20 minutes remaining
90 minute boil
Cooled temperature to 82C – Held at
80C for 30 min
50g Azacca (12.5% AA)
50g Kohatu (6.8% AA)
50g Mosaic (12.5% AA)
IBU 60 (predicted)
Cooled to 18C. Pitched 2 packets of
WLP007 – Dry English Ale
Three Dry-hop additions at 4 days, 6
days, and 13 days:
16.66g Azacca
16.66g Kohatu
16.66g Mosaic
OG 1.055
FG at bottling 1.011
ABV 5.78%
Bottle carbonated at 2.2 volumes of CO2
Ingestion
The beer was ready
to drink after a week. It poured an hazy orange and tan color with a
lasting head. Some bottles had floating hop bits in the head (300g of
hops is a ton!)
The aroma was
tropical fruits up-front as to be expected with noticeable pineapple,
passion fruit, and even some of the bog myrtle. It had some touches
of malt buried underneath it all, but not enough to be really
noticeable. As it warms, the tropical tones fade, leaving a clear
forest aroma, a bit green. The bog myrtle came out the strongest,
despite there being so little of it. I didn't get much juniper in the
aroma at all.
The body isn't very creamy, but not
thin either. I don't think it can be thick enough to be called a New
England IPA. The flavor is very smooth in the start with a bit of
sweetness mixed in with the tropical fruits. It finishes dry and
resiny, a bit too green in the end. I've founds some variation from
bottle to bottle, but a few of the bottles finish a bit dry and
resiny. As it warms, the character of the British yeast comes through
more. One interesting thing about it is that it does have some earthy
British hops flavors, but it could just be the British yeast
interacting with the hops. I like the way the resins and richness of
the Maris Otter play together in the end. It's pleasant and complex
for its strength. The forest elements turned out to be more than just
a gimmick addition. I feel they improved the beer and gave it a
unique and pleasant character.
In future experimentation with these
ingredients, I'd like to find a way to get the aroma and bitterness
of bog myrtle without the sharp green notes, the same ones that
worried me when I first nibbled the plant. I think that using spruce
and juniper can give interesting contributions in flavor, but it
needs be done with a light hand. A little can go a long way. I'm glad
that I didn't add the oatmeal in the end. I feel it would have
impacted the freshness of the beer, made it too heavy.
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| I think it's obvious that beer is secondary to the view. |
I must say there is a special
experience of tasting a beer that you not only brewed or designed,
but foraged the ingredients to make. With every sip, I can smell the
trees, see the land. There is a specific time and place connected to
it. You can't buy that from the store.
