Beer History 101: The Gruit Ale
The history of beer goes nearly as far back as the existence of man itself. Beer pretty much, single-handedly prolonged our survival and helped build our civilization. The oldest known piece of writing to modern man, is a beer recipe carved into a stone tablet. We developed trade, currency and taxation out of mankind’s love for beer. It even kept man safe from disease due to filthy and undrinkable waters that plagued the world. Everyone drank it, man, woman and child. It provided vitamins and nutrients essential to our existence.
Now, this may come as a shock to most people, but the earliest forms of beer did not include hops (I know, I’m sorry to all you extreme hop-heads out there!). Ancient ales were spiced and bittered with everything from sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, ground ivy, horehound, juniper berries and heather. This mixture was known as Gruit, or Grut (pronounced: GROOT). Just as brewers today use different varieties of hops for different levels of bittering and flavor, ancient brewers used many of the ingredients as listed above to do the same in their recipes.
Hops were not widely accepted as an ingredient for brewing with until sometime between the 11th and 16th centuries. Even then, it was a slow and gradual switch from gruit to hops. It is said also that gruit has aphrodisiac qualities to it unlike hops, which have more sedative characteristics. During the Reformation era, lead by Martin Luther against the Roman Catholic Church, it is said that brewers made the full switch from gruit to hops in a Protestant stance against feisty Catholic tradition, in order to take revenues away from the monastic orders who had a monopoly on brewing.
What finally won people over from the use of gruit to hops, was the fact that hops are extremely anti-septic and prevent beer from spoiling. Which in a time when refrigeration did not exist, that was a big deal. The production of Gruit ales had went relatively dormant for hundreds of years, with a few exceptions of select European brewers that still clung to the old world traditions.
Fraoch Heather Ale from Williams Brothers Brewing of Scotland is a great example of an ancient gruit ale. This ale has been in production since 2000 B.C. (Pretty cool, huh?). Fraoch uses a mixture of heather, sweet gale and ginger for their gruit. It pours a slightly cloudy, medium golden that appears to be bottle conditioned. The malt base is simple, slightly sweet with smooth body. The aroma is very earthy with nice floral and ginger qualities. The best way to describe the flavor of the gruit is that it tastes like you’re walking through a bountiful garden on a warm spring afternoon, when all the flowers are in bloom. There is a touch of woodiness in the background of the flavor as well. It is extremely easy drinking, and I do believe that this type of ale does truly have such stimulating properties to it. I feel alert and ready to take charge of the day. Most gruit ales have a relatively modest alcohol content as well, this one in particular only clocks in at 5% alc.
Many American micro-brewers are slowly trying their hand at brewing up gruit ales of their own now. I look forward to seeking some out in the future. I hope you enjoyed this history lesson in beer, and come away with more knowledge to spread unto others. Until next time… Cheers!
Here are some Gruit Ales you might want to try:
Cambridge Brewing Co. Heather Ale & Weekapaug Gruit Ale – Cambridge, MA
Elysian Brewing Co. Rapture Heather Ale – Seattle, WA
Zero Gravity Craft Brewery / American Flatbread Solstice Gruit Ale – Burlington, VT
Fraoch Heather Ale & Alba Ale by Williams Brothers Brewing – Scotland
Craft Beer Explorer 