Shred's Gruit Ale (Hop-free and Gluten-Free)

If you're new to my blog, I recommend you start at the beginning to have the opportunity to truly learn from my mistakes and laugh at my failures.

My intro post can be found here:

Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

From there you can navigate forward using the Archive on the right side of the page.

Click the "Recipes" tab at the top of the page to see my entire list of original recipes and tasting notes.

Shred's Gruit (Hopless, Gluten-Free) Ale(extract)

Description:

A friend of mine suddenly found herself violently allergic to hops a couple years ago.  She missed beer dearly and, hearing of my recent brewing addiction, asked me if there was a way I could brew a beer without hops... and oh, she also can't have barley due to a gluten intolerance.

Now, by most definitions beer can have all sorts of additional ingredients, but there are 4 which are absolute requirements;  Barley, Hops, Water and Yeast.  I'd been tasked with brewing something missing 2 of these crucial ingredients.

After a lot of asking around and a lot of research, I found that people had moderate success in replacing hops in beer and people had moderate success in brewing gluten-free, but there were virtually no examples of the 2 combined.

The first batch I brewed was horribly bitter and undrinkable.  I'll spare you that recipe.  Below is one that, while different than what you might think of as beer, was good enough to satisfy the cravings of a beer-drinker who'd been without for a couple years.


Batch Size:  5.25 Gallons
Measured Original Gravity: 1.055 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
ABV:  5.6%


Recipe:

6 lbs 9.6 oz Sorghum Syrup [Boil for 60 min]

0.25 oz Juniper Berries (Boil 60.0 mins)
0.10 oz Wormwood (Boil 60.0 mins)

1 lbs Liquid Candi Sugar, Dark [Boil for 15 minutes]

1 Whirlflock Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins)

8.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 mins)

0.25 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 mins)

0.25 Cup Heather Tips (Boil 0.0 mins)

1.0 pkg Windsor Yeast (Lallemand)

Carbonated to 2.3 vols of CO2 (about 3.9 oz corn sugar)

Tasting Notes:

An interesting flavor.  Not what I'd call a normal beer, but not undrinkable either.  The sorghum is well masked by the dark fruit flavors from the Candi Sugar.  Light to medium-light body.  Balanced flavor, though the bitterness isn't quite hop bitterness.  It'll satisfy the craving if you happen to be unable to ingest barley and hops but still want a beer(?).

Shred's Raspberry Wheat Champagne Ale 1

If you're new to my blog, I recommend you start at the beginning to have the opportunity to truly learn from my mistakes and laugh at my failures.

My intro post can be found here:

Intro & My First Home Beer Brewing Kit

From there you can navigate forward using the Archive on the right side of the page.

Click the "Recipes" tab at the top of the page to see my entire list of original recipes and tasting notes.

Shred's Raspberry Wheat Champagne Ale

Description:

An extract brew with frozen raspberries used in secondary.  This brew was, while unusual, very popular... especially among friends who claimed not to be beer drinkers.  It's light, bubbly, colorful and fruity.  I bottled it in Grolsch bottles, which popped like a champagne bottle when opened, and served in champagne flutes.  A huge success for my second original recipe and something so experimental.  Some people still say it was my best yet (as I type this a year later).

Batch Size:  3 Gallons
Measured Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.008 SG
ABV:  < 6%.  Impossible to accurately calculate due to use of fermentable fruit


Recipe:

1 lbs 9.6 oz Wheat Dry Extract [Boil for 60 min]
1 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner Liquid Extract [Boil for 60 min]
12.0 oz Corn Sugar (Boil 5 minutes)

1.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min
0.50 oz Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min

1.0 pkg American Wheat Ale (Wyeast Labs #1010)

4 lbs Fruit - Frozen Raspberries (Secondary)
Pectic Enzyme was added to secondary to break down the pectin in the fruit.

1 lb Lactose added into bottling bucket (for sweetening)

Carbonated to 3.3 vols of CO2 (about 3.6 oz corn sugar)

(This is what 4 lbs of raspberries looks like after fermentation.)

Tasting Notes:

A fruity brew reminiscent of champagne in body and flavor.  Bright pink to red color (note the beer in the siphon above).  The raspberries lend a fair amount of sour flavor balanced by the lactose.  The corn sugar used in the boil helps thin the body down to something more like a light Brut.  Very effervescent and the 6-8% ABV is well-hidden.  This light-bodied, refreshing, easy drinking beer can be dangerous!