I ordered New Belgium's latest in their Lips of Faith series, their Dandelion Ale. I suspected it might be a hop-free Gruit, but wasn't sure and the internet on my phone wasn't working very well so I went for it. Sure enough, gruit. And I have to say - it's the best one I've had yet. First of all, it tasted more like beer than the others. It didn't have the mouth-numbing experience the others imparted (from wormwood, anise, or whatever the breweries were using) and it had significantly more bitterness than the others. It tasted a little like tropical or summer stone fruit: apricot, peach, or maybe mango. I'm sure a large part of that came from the Belgian yeast New Belgium uses. The mouthfeel was awesome for a beer this light in color and taste, and I've never experienced something like that before. At first "creamy" and "velvety" came to mind, but then the perfect word hit me: silky. This beer is silky! Overall, I'd rate it a top-notch gruit and a perfect accompaniment to the meat & cheese plate we ordered. I could also see drinking this with a slice of cheesecake or maybe a bowl of fruit salad. Fresh, summery, fruity, and easy to drink - I wouldn't have guessed this beer was anywhere near 7.8% ABV.
This is a very well-executed version of Gruit and I recommend trying it, even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool hop head and skeptical of anything under 70 IBUs. After all, part of the fun of drinking beer is trying something different.
I have a first year chinook and a first year cascade that are full of hops. I was very surprised because I have always heard the same thing about the 3 year rule.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seems pretty consistent - we have a couple of other friends who are growing their own hops for the first time this year (including KC Hop Head) and they've had pretty good harvests. I wonder what's allowing for such decent crops this first year.
ReplyDeletewith all this fresh hops, any plans for a wet hop brew? How much would you need to do that?
ReplyDeletebtw ~ like the new header logo, I still need to redesign mine
I've heard of people making Dandelion whine before which appearantly isn't too bad. I guess Dandelion's just make good alcohol!
ReplyDeleteAnd to think that all this time I've been killing dandelions when I could have been fermenting them! Turns out there's a use for them after all.
ReplyDeleteThe dandelion wine sounds pretty easy... I might check it out some time.
DM - you need 5x the amount of wet hops for dry. So if you're using 2oz of dry hops in your beer, you need 10oz of wet. Hm... I'm thinking another blog post might be in order...