Fall Gruit

Hey all,

Good to see you all that made the Passport event at Strawbery Banke last night. We were pouring the Fall Gruit on cask in the VIP tent. But even if you didn’t have a chance to get into the VIP tent you can now enjoy the Fall Gruit down at the brewery because it went on tap last night.

For those of you who are unfamiliar to the gruit style here is a little background. Beer has been made for many, many years and using only hops for flavor and bitterness in a beer is a new brewing tecnique.  Back in the Medieval days, Meads and Beers were fermented out with locally harvest herbs and flowers to add some interest to the flavor profile and change up the flavoring from batch to batch. So staying with that mindset I went over to Strawbery Banke Museum and Gardens and met up with John Forti who is the head gardener for them. We walked over the grounds and went from garden to garden harvesting herbs and flowers that were in bloom. We were able to harvest some Horehound, Hyssop, Mugwort, Burgamont Flowers, Lavender, Purple Sage, shade grown Rosemary and of course some Hops off a vine that has been growing for 100 year at Strawbery Banke.

We didn't have the "big three" gruit herbs of Yarrow, Sweet Gale and Marsh Rosemary that you see in most traditional gruits out there. But the herbs we did find made this beer taste amazing. The burgamont flower gives a nice honey sweetness right up front that plays nicely with the malt of the red ale beer back bone. Then the flavors of the Purple sage and Rosemary play so nicely with the herbal/floral flavors from the rest of the herbs.  Get in and try this one.

I am excited to see what is in bloom in the spring!

Cheers,

Tyler