Gruit

Gruit (sometimes grut) is an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops. Gruit or grut ale may also refer to the beverage produced using gruit.

Gruit was a combination of herbs, some of the most common being mildly to moderately narcotic: sweet gale (Myrica gale), mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), horehound (Marrubium vulgare), and heather (Calluna vulgaris). Gruit varied somewhat, each gruit producer including different herbs to produce unique flavors and effects. Other adjunct herbs included black henbane, juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, aniseed, nutmeg, cinnamon, and even hops in variable proportions. Some gruit ingredients are now known to have preservative qualities.

Some traditional types of unhopped beer such as sahti in Finland, which is spiced with juniper berries and twigs, have survived the advent of hops, although gruit itself has not.

The 1990s microbrewery movement in the USA and Europe saw a renewed interest in unhopped beers and several have tried their hand at reviving ales brewed with gruits, or plants that once were used in it. Commercial examples include Fraoch (using heather flowers, sweet gale and ginger) and Alba (using pine twigs and spruce buds) from Williams Brothers in Scotland; Myrica (using sweet gale) from O'Hanlons in England; Gageleer (also using sweet gale) from Proefbrouwerij in Belgium; Cervoise from Lancelot in Brittany (using a gruit containing heather flowers, spices and some hops); Artemis from Moonlight Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, California (using mugwort and wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, also known as bee balm or horsemint); and Bog•Water from Beau's All Natural Brewing Company in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, Canada (using Myrica gale, also known as bog myrtle). Brasserie Dupont in Wallonia, Belgium produces a gruit (Cervesia) for The Archeosite D'Aubechies an open air museum that interprets life from the Iron Age to the Roman Era. The recipe is based on archeological research. In the United States this beer is sold as Posca Rustica.

Historical context

The exclusive use of gruit was gradually phased out in favor of the use of hops alone in a slow sweep across Europe occurring between the 11th century (in the south and east of the Holy Roman Empire) and the late 16th century (Great Britain). In 16th century Britain, a distinction was made between ale, which was unhopped, and beer, brought by Dutch merchants, which was hopped. Currently, however, ale usually refers to beer produced through a top-fermentation process, not unhopped beer.

The phasing out of gruit from brewing is linked to various factors. A possible political factor would be the general emancipation of princes (mainly German) from the political influence of the Roman Catholic Church in a movement that eventually was to lead to Martin Luther's protestations turning into a fully-fledged uprising of those princes against the authority of Rome, in what is known as the Reformation. Princes wanting to undermine the power of the Church therefore tended to promote brewing with hops rather than gruit, to try to cut off this revenue for the monastic orders who had a monopoly on it.

Some authors present the switch to hops as a Protestant crackdown on feisty Catholic tradition, and as a Puritan move to keep people from enjoying themselves with aphrodisiac and stimulating gruit ales by imposing the sedative effects of hops instead. However, the switch to hops started in Germany some four or five centuries before the Reformation. Its later gradual enforcement in the 15th and early 16th centuries can in part be traced through legislation drafted by political rulers before the Reformation started.

For example, the Bavarian Purity Law, which stipulates that the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops, dates from 1516, the year before Martin Luther initiated the Reformation by posting his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Earlier still, in 1434, the Statuta Thaberna in Weissensee, Thuringia, already restricted beer brewing ingredients to malt, water and hops.

Another factor behind switching from gruit to hops may have been concern about public health. With stimulating, psychotropic and ultimately poisonous plants such as henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) or even deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) being used routinely in brewing, local lords wanted an herb which would be easier to monitor than a complex mix. Hops are easily cultivated in much of continental Europe and, their innocuousness being relatively clear, were ideally suited to the task.

The use of hops also has the advantage, in perception or fact, that beer made with hops lasts longer and resists spoilage better than that made with gruit. For example, as recently as the late 19th century, India Pale Ale was developed with a higher alcohol and hops content to withstand the voyage from England to India. This preservative effect is thought to have had a large impact on the early movement to switch over, although other plants commonly used in gruit mixes, for example sage, rosemary or bog myrtle, also have antiseptic properties likely to extend the shelf life of beer.

See also

• Adjuncts
• Spruce beer
• Prohibition (drugs)
• Walter de Gruyter (the old occupational surname "de Gruyter" means "the gruit-beer maker" in Low German)

References

• Buhner, Stephen Harrod (1998-10-25). Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Siris Books. ISBN 0-937381-66-7.

Further reading

• Behre, Karl-Ernst (1999). "The history of beer additives in Europe — A review". Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. 8: 35. doi:10.1007/BF02042841.

External links

• Gruit history, brewing and recipes at gruitale.com
• Gruit recipe from Patrick Kaeding
• Vanberg & DeWulf profile of Posca Rustica