Gruit
Gruit (or sometimes grut) is an old fashioned pre-hops herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer. Gruit or gruit ale may also refer to the beverage produced using gruit.
Gruit was primarily a combination of three or four mildly to moderately narcotic herbs: sweet gale (bog myrtle), mugwort, yarrow, heather and wild rosemary. Gruit varied somewhat, each gruit producer adding additional herbs to produce unique tastes, flavors, and effects. Other adjunct herbs were juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, aniseed, nutmeg, and cinnamon; many of these ingredients may have psychotropic properties too. Some gruit ingredients are known now to have preservative qualities.
External links
- Gruit recipe] from Sean Sweeney