Craft Brewing & Distilling

Intro To Herbs And Spices

Beer didn’t begin with hops, it began with herbs and spices.  While beer has been brewed for many thousands of years, hops have only been a major ingredient for the last 500.  Herbs and spices have long been a dominant beer flavoring, and that tradition still carries through today with flavors like coriander and juniper being indispensable additions to some of the oldest beers in the world.  While these ingredients are still commonly found in many breweries, we push the envelope by offering a wider range of ingredients to choose from, along with unparalleled freshness.

Seasonal Spices

One way many craft breweries showcase their creative prowess is through the release of seasonal beers.  These unique brews are a way to bring fun new ideas to market and capture the essence of each season, spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Spring and summer beers usher in the warmer weather with fruitier herbal styles with crisp mouthfeels and less malt.  These styles include weiss beers, IPAs, lagers, and more.  For these seasonal styles, brewers should be exploring fragrant herbs like spearmint, lemongrass, rosemary, cilantro, chives, and dill.  These refreshing herbal notes in combination with a bright hop selection will help your beers pair well with anything that comes off the grill during the hot summer months.

In the fall and winter, heavily spiced beers are king.  With the colder weather comes the desire for a stronger drink with higher alcohol content, and stronger flavors that almost stick to your ribs.  Brown ales, stouts, dark ales, pumpkin beers, and the famous Oktoberfests reign supreme.  Popular winter spices for craft brewing include juniper, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and more.  Take a look at our “Off the Beaten Path” section for some ideas on how you can get creative with your flavor profiles towards the middle and end of the year!

Gruit

Hops are the most prominent herb in beer today, but beer is an ancient beverage and in the beginning, there was Gruit.  Instead of hops, the original craft brewers experimented with a wide variety of herbs and spices to add delicious flavor to their beer.  These included but were not limited to aromatic ingredients like elderflower, mugwort, heather, fennel, sage, and a wide variety of teas.  Today this style of brewing lives on as gruit, the German word for herb.

Gruits have been quietly gaining in popularity on today’s craft brewing scene due to the overwhelming demand for new experiences amongst beer drinkers.  This is in spite of the fact that gruit can be hard to find, with under 300 gruits being produced in volume today.  Help modern beer drinkers discover this age-old beverage by brewing some of your own!