Baltimore Brew Festival hosted a Gruit Ale competition last night. I asked whether they would post their recipes on their website – don’t have an answer yet. One of the competitors did send me his. Good gruit is hard to find, so I thought I’d share.
Ryan Boddy’s Gruit
My beer went thusly:
Base malts:
17 lbs of 2 row base malt
6 lbs of rye malt
Sparge only malts:
1.25 lbs of Carafa
8 oz. of Special B
Strike temp was 149F for a half hour
Decocted twice, once at strike + 30, one at strike + 15.
First wort “hopped” with
1 oz of wormwood
1 oz of yarrow
half oz of mugwort
Boiled for an hour.
Knockout addition of
half ounce of yarrow
half ounce of mugwort
once of heather tips
“hop-backed” through freshly cut birch branches, leaves and bark.
Fermented with wyeast 1007 for 10 days.
Dry “hopped” with 1 ounce of birch bark.