Beer with juniper berries

The next step in the process of making beer with herbs, berries and spices found during medieval times was beer with juniper berries. These kind of berries could be found growing wild in several parts of Europe and was used to spice food. There are modern beers with juniper berries but I wanted to try and make one myself. I did not take any pictures this time, the steps are basically the same as the other beers I've made so if you want to look at how to make beer feel free to open one of the earlier ones!

I didn't use much hops this time, just a few grams of each since I didn't want it to take to much precedence over the juniper flavour. I reused a yeast that I woke up again, and I will continue to use these two kinds of yeast (Irish ale yeast and old Sonoma yeast) to have some kind of base line and not switch around while conducting this long term experiment.

As it is in the middle of the winter I had to settle for dried berries but at some point I need to go out and hunt for fresh ones in order to see if there is a difference in flavour to it (which there should be). Perhaps even try to cultivate a spontaneous fermentation, although that is a subject for later.

Depending on the outcome of this one and the gale beer I am considering a mixture of the two, which is not too far fetched as an idea for beers that could have been made in these parts during medieval times.

The outcome of the experiment was pleasing, rather smooth taste and easy to drink. Not fancy as such but what could be considered a standard drink with ingredients that are easy to come by. So the next step will definetly be to replace the hops with some other herb that was common in this area to see if I can replicate the outcome and by doing so, finding a beer that was very likely made in this area.