Brewing with no hops

[Motorbikeman]

Has anyone done this. 

I have a few kilos of pale ale grain left over.     I have a some hops as well,  but would like to taste a brew with no hops.   Would it be a waste of time and electricity . 

Would it be drinkable?

[mr hoppy]

I made a gose last year which I mash hoped with 5g of Hallertau Mittelfruh - basically the closest thing to no hops without actually being no hops. Mind that was intended to be a sour beer.

In medieval England ale wasnt hopped. Hops only arrived from Flanders in 14 - 15 century and until relatively recently (17-18 century) beer meant hopped and ale meant unhopped.  They did use other herbs - google gruit and you'll get the right idea. Nettles would be an option.

An unhopped non-sour beer would probably have a relatively short shelf-life and it would certainly be different.

You could also make your own malta (as in the Latin American soft drink, not the country).

[LordEoin]

i have a beer conditioning at the moment made with just LME, yeast and water.
I think it's a good exercise to get to know your ingredients better
I probably wouldn't make a full batch though

[Will_D]

Just pour off the liquor from your starters (which you do, don't you? ) and taste it!

Thats unhopped, fermented out 1.040 wort for your tasting delectation!

HTH - Will

[Qs]

I tried the Brewdog/flying dog International Arms Race (no hopped IPA) a couple of years ago. I did not enjoy it.

[mr hoppy]

My kids love the taste of unhopped, unfermented wort - pure sugary goodness!

[biertourist]

Berliner weiss is traditionally made with no hops and no boil, so you sure could do it, but you want to shoot for a very fermentable wort.  Personally it will taste boring unless you get some interesting critters eating it and creating some good flavor chemicals and acids.

Buy a yoghurt culture and make a starter with it and pitch it to your no hops beer at the same time you pitch your yeast and you'll get slowly increasing, but fairly mild acidity.  Unless you get really lucky and happen to get a homofermentative yeast strain (more likely with a yoghurt culture than a beer culture) in which case it will be able to eat more diverse sugars and therefore produce more acid. If you can find a bottle or two of a Jolly Pumpkin beer you can culture the dregs out and get a highly alcohol tolerant lacto strain.  There's a few breweries who maintain hop tolerant lacto strains, too. 




Adam

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

It's a little hard to get the herbs for hop free beer. I have one on the go now using alecost, horehound and yarrow. I made a meadowsweet and hops lager recently. The alecost, horehound and yarrow one is fermenting at the moment, so I don't have much of a sense yet what it will be like. The wort was very biscuity and gingery, spicy tasting (especially interesting given there was no ginger in it). With meadowsweet, a little goes a long way. I used 100 flower heads for 20L and it was off the scale way too much. I added the meadowsweet in to the steep post boil. With the other beer, I added some at the start of boil and some at the end. I pretty much just used them like hops. One thing that interests me is whether I will get any infection problems without hops.

There's a book on the subject called 'Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers'. It's a bit outré but it does have some handy hints and recipes.

[Rossa]

I did a bunch last year. Mainly Saison. I did yarrow, elderflower and as few other things. Those two stand out. There is a book called sacred and herbal healing beers. Its worth a look.

Just watch out yarrow is psychotropic!