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Intro to Herbal Ales

At one time, not too long ago, the alewifes of yesteryear used simple herbal ales to soothe the spirit, heal the body, and nourish her family and community. The ales were primitive, brewed often in open gourds, hand formed clay pots, and yeast was called into these brews with ceremony and sacred speak.

Yeast, as Spirit, was called in with evocative manner, and each alewife's brews were specific to her household, to the yeast her kitchen's air..........her ales were a spiral of this continuum as the starter of successful batches was used over and over again, taking slight and more pronounced changes with each brew.

When we think of ale nowadays, we think of hops ales. Hops beers. But the world of ales was not always a monocrop of hops ales. The history and herstory of ales and the domination of hops is a deeply political one, motivated by greed and money and power, and our herbal ales of yesteryear, herbs that helped heal the community with their tonic digestive effects, nutritive and medicinal values were trampled underfoot. Like birth, and the art of the midwife, the art of the sacred alewife was tamped down, taken from, and co-opted, and standardization, mass production, and rules pushed alewifes out of the picture. Where at one time, this sacred art of calling in Spirit was woman's domain, a spiritual act and communion with unseen forces and the mysteries of life, an earthy and empowering art, it now is more often than not the domain of sanitized factories and corporations, sterile rooms and exacting measurements.

Slowly the art of the alewife has died.To reclaim the art of the simple wild ale is to reclaim the art of the alewife, to reclaim the sacred healing context of ourselves as women, as healers, and feeds the revolution of the wild woman within.

I am just an ale baby, delving into ales this year with passion and exploration. While I have enjoyed lacto-fermented herbal drinks for years, this brewing with yeast is quite new. I have been having a ton of fun. Tasting an herb that you have worked with for years in a new and different way is wild!

This is night and day when you sit down with an ale that has the flavor and aroma of herbs wildcrafted by you, straight from your backyard. These ales are imbued with your personal medicine. And how simple it is to brew ales! How empowering it is to create your own brew for pennies!

These ales are very heady, and deeply flavorful. It's obvious using the herbs to brew the wort that they have herb specific medicinal qualities as well as being tonic in nature. Each herb used is chosen for its specific attributes. These brews are markedly different than lacto-ferments and contain significantly more amounts of alcohol than lacto-ferments. These are not ales to slug down and have a party, but rather, a half glassful sipped slowly while sitting on the back porch, and enjoyed in small amounts nourishes and strengthens the weary soul. Truly, a small amount goes a long way.

Here is a recipe to get you started- these are adapted from the excellent booklet Alewife's Garden: 7 Radical Weeds for Brewing Herbal Ales by Jillian VanNostrand and Christie V. Sarles. There are many, many ways to brew herbal ales. Many ways different than I am playing with, but here is what I am doing.

You will need a fermenting vessel- this can be as simple as half gallon mason jars with a couple of plastic bags you can use to fit on the top and tighten with, well, I just used a pc of elastic from my sewing basket.

A big huge glass fermentor bottle with a tapered top and airlock is nice but pricey. I paid about $25 for mine. But it does hold like four or five gallons of brew at a time. So not a bad investment.

Some yeast. I use and have had excellent results with SafAle. You apparently can use your starters from previous batches for new batches, but I have not done that yet. These yeast packets cost just a dollar and brew five gallons.

Brown sugar, or other sweetener. They say in alewife that white sugar will ruin ale but I don't understand that as brown sugar is just white sugar with some molasses added, no? You can use honey, and if you use honey alone, it is called a mead. Meads are very lovely, but be of mind they also take quite a bit longer to ferment, three months or so, and then up to a year of proper aging.

Herbs. The sky is the limit really. You can use many different kinds of herbs. Fresh is better.

Nettle Molasses Ale (adapted from Alewife)
I do it in batches of 3 gallons or more

1 gallon water
1 pound brown sugar
2 tbs blackstrap molasses
2 oz fresh nettles
1 t yeast (SafeAle)

Boil nettles and sugar with water in a large stockpot for 30 minutes or so. Cool to temp of about 70, strain plant out and pour your wort into your fermenter (either the mason jars or the big jug) Add yeast (you can mix with a little water, or I just pour on top) Cap it with a plastic bag over the mouth of the mason jar, held tightly by an elastic piece, (I have also used the screw lid around the base with great results) or cap your big jug with the air lock.

Now you get to stare at it and watch the fermentation which is really cool! It will bubble and fizz up on the surface until eventually in about 2 weeks, or could be four, all that activity will kind of settle down, and your surface will look like a smooth glassy lake. Its ready to be bottled now. So bottle it (you can use flip top bottles like Grolsh bottles, or use bottles and buy caps and a crimper) store in a cool place for a week or two before drinking.

How easy is that? And that is a heckofalotta ale!

Happy brewing and long live the art of the alewife!