Thinking of a Gruit Garden

[bigvalen]

It's a real pain in the arse to get most herbs for Gruit ale. I've been thinking about doing some sort of a garden for a while. But...it's a lot of work or expense for one person.

Maybe...find some boggy ground in Howth (most brewing herbs are bog-based), cut out 10 or 20 square meters, and seed it with all the herbs I can think of. Maybe half-heartedly weed it for the first year, to give the plants a chance to seed and spread gruit herbs around the place. Then let it go wild.

Would this be of interest ? Does anyone know a friendly horticulturalist who could source said seeds without buying from 20 different websites ?

[Will_D]

BV,

How many varieties are you think of/ You mention 20!

trouble is that the more rare and exotics are few and far arounf the big comercial growers. The REAL specialists ask you to registers to access their seed banks like the RHS in Uk and SeedSavers in Ireland.

Knowing a horticulturist is not a "one stop shop" for seeds.

So stick up a list of what you want and where you can source the seeds. I will help fill in the gaps!

[Tom]

I can offer up some yarrow, wormwood, wood sage and so on if you like.

[mr hoppy]

I was wondering about this recently. I think yarrow, bog myrtle, and wild rosemary are the most typical herbs for fruit. I've seen yarrow and some other possibles for sale in health food shops.  Bog myrtle grows wild in the west of Ireland:

http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=411&wildflower=Bog-myrtle

Don't know about about wild rosemary, seems it's not native to Ireland - but it's not supposed particularly pleasant either, and perhaps (according to Martyn Cornell, I think) an inferior substitute for bog myrtle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron_tomentosum

[nigel_c]

When I first started brewing, on my second or 3rd meetup in the bull and castle for the Beoir monthly meet ups The Beer Nut had a gruit which was at the time a lightning strike for my seances. It was a pizza beer he called iGruit. All the herbs he gruit in his garden. Was like a pizza beer and for me has and still is an inspirational beer. It was pizza beer!!!!. Basil, oregano , rosemary. Delicious. I don't know how much of it I could actually drink but as a concept it it is probably one of the best beers I have ever had.

[bigvalen]

Will, no, I wasn't going to go for 20 varieties, that is overkill Artistic licence..

Yarrow grows all over the place. Not sure about Wormwood, I've used it before, and it was really strong. Mugwort might be an alternative, as it's slightly less toxic.

Meadowsweet is apparently really good (I used too much wormwood the only time I used Meadowsweet, so I couldn't taste it).

As MrHoppy said, Wild Rosemary isn't native - it's not found west of the Elbe river, and in historic docs, is considered inferior to Bog Myrtle (and considerably more toxic). So..yeah. Maybe stick with Bog Myrtle. What does wood sage taste like ? Sounds interesting...

Growing from seed is quite hit & miss. I was hoping to try get 'dry roots'. wildflowershop.co.uk seems to sell dry roots, but seems not until March.

Nigel; I'm really curious what a Pizza Beer tastes like. I may have to try a 5-litre batch of something similar now...

[mr hoppy]

Where were you thinking of getting the bog myrtle?