Tag: beer

Gruit

an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops. Gruit was a combination of herbs, some of the most common being mildly to moderately narcotic: sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, heather and Labrador Tea.

Better Brew

wherein we learn why dogfish rules, and why the large brewers have no taste

Dogfish is something of a mascot for this unruly movement. In the 13 years since Calagione founded the brewery, it has gone from being the smallest in the country to the 38th largest. Calagione makes more beer with at least 10% alcohol than any other brewer, and his odd ingredients are often drawn from ancient or obscure beer traditions. The typical Dogfish ale is made with 4x as much grain as an industrial beer (hence its high alcohol content) and 20x as much hops (hence its bitterness). It is to Budweiser what a bouillabaisse is to fish stock.