Beer, as we know it today, is actually a fairly young beverage, historically speaking.  The first documented use of hops was in 78 C.E. by the naturalist Pliny the Elder, who recommended eating the shoots of the hop plant.  And it wasn’t until 822 C.E. that the first documented use of hops in beer was recorded.  But even then, there is a gap in history for another 300 years before another reference of hops was documented.  The Benedictine Abbess St. Hildegard of Bingen mentioned the preservative qualities of hops and their use in beer in her first work, Physica Sacra, which studied the scientific and medicinal properties of various plants.

Before this discovery of hops, most “beers” were spiced with gruit.  Gruit is a combination of various crushed herbs and spices.  Every culture had its blend of locally-found ingredients.  The Finnish used juniper in their farmhouse Sahti.  The Scottish used heather, meadowsweet, and other wildflowers.  Other European cultures used rosemary, ginger, star anise, mint, and sage to flavor their beers.

During the Holy Roman Empire reign, Emperor Otto II allowed local nobles to collect a tax on gruit, where brewers had to buy these unique spice blends from local Gruiters.  Because of this tax, brewers eventually moved away from gruit towards non-taxed hops (though ultimately, the gruit tax was replaced with a hop tax).  It was actually the German trading city of Bremen that was first to realize that hops helped to preserve the beer from spoilage.  This allowed them (and later other German cities) to ship their beer all over mainland Europe and even the British Isles because it would hold longer on voyages than gruit-spiced beers.

So do we see any gruit-spiced beers today?  At least in the United States, hops are required to make a Malt Beverage (aka beer) per the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).  American brewers have found ways to use hops where minimal flavor from hops is imparted on the beer and can still be labeled as beer.  Hops inhibit bacterial growth, so some of these techniques are necessary to make bacteria-soured beers like Berliner Weiss and various Wild beers.

Though Belgium is very close to the hop traditions of Germany and even used to be a significant hop-growing region of the world themselves, most Belgian beer traditions revolved around spices and spice-like fermentation characteristics of their yeast.  Historically speaking, these are the closest related styles to what was originally gruit.  The majority of Abbey-style ales produce notes of clove, allspice, and bubblegum, and farmhouse Saison can create notes of black and white pepper on the finish.  You will also see certain Belgian styles call for specific spices in their recipes, like Belgian Witbier that utilizes coriander and bitter orange peel to provide a refreshing fruitiness to the effervescent beer itself.  Belgians are also well known for their fruit additions in various beer styles, especially their spontaneously fermented Lambics to create Kriek (cherry) and Framboise (raspberry).  There are even a few modern interpretations of gruit being brewed, including Scottish brewery Williams Brothers Brewing’s Fraoch Ale made with heather, bog myrtle, ginger, and even some hops.

While hops are definitely the star of the show in beer today (especially in the United States), they weren’t always in beer.  So take a break away from those Triple IPAs and Hazy Pale Ales, and try something new that doesn’t bash you over the head with bitterness.  Here at Funky Picnic Brewery & Café, we have more than just hop-forward beers.  We have a varied assortment of beers with different intensities and flavors from different ingredients.  Also, being a restaurant, we design our beers to pair well with our food, often using spices and other culinary ingredients like ginger, basil, tea leaves, peppercorns, and various fruits.  And we also almost always have a Belgian-style beer on tap as well.  So the next time you’re in, come try one of these differently-flavored beers, and you just might find your new favorite beer.