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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> Anyone made a beer by walking?

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mutedog
Washougal, WA
29 Posts


by walking? WTF am I talking about? beersmadebywalking.com 

I think this started in Portland, OR but basically the idea is to get inspired to make a beer while out on a hike in the forest or countryside. Connect the beer to a local place and infuse the beer with the flavors or feeling of an area. Or make up your own hippie explanation if you prefer ;)

As I like to take walks and hikes around in my area, I love the idea of this. There are a lot of foragable plants in my area that could be incorporated into a beer: huckleberries, yarrow, salal, burdock, licorice fern, cedar, etc. Or I could even try to harvest some yeast out in the woods and see what I get.

Anyone ever done anything like this? How did the beer turn out?




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


That's kind of a dumb name of foraging.

"Connect the beer to a local place and infuse the beer with the flavors or feeling of an area. "

Terroir.  It's what I'm working to develop all my beers and blog around.




Posted 34 days ago.

mutedog
Washougal, WA
29 Posts


I agree the name is kinda lame, foraged beer doesn't sound too appealing and I'm not sure it's a great idea to be stealing terms from winemaking either? I could make two completely different tasting beers made from foraged ingredients from the same place, would they have the same terroir?



Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


Sure.  For example, you can grow Cascade hops in Washington and in the Midwest somewhere.  They'll end up tasting different because of soil conditions, weather conditions, altitude shifts, processing and harvesting differences, etc.  That difference marks the unique terroir of the place of origin.

>I'm not sure it's a great idea to be stealing terms from winemaking either? 

Stan Hieronymus has been using the term in regards to beer for over 10 years now.  It's been used to describe PDO's in NAFTA and various EU trade agreements for all kinds of food products.




Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


It seems terroir is more applicable to hops than grapes. The differences in taste are quite a bit bigger. A large amount of the wine terroir actually comes from the wild yeasts they catch (Brett). One of the problems that vinters seem to have is that over time even their "wild" wines are becoming dominated with the most used commercial yeast strains.

Yeast gone wild, actually I started tossing my preferred yeast strain in my garden about a year ago, will I eventually taste it in my Lambic?

As to foraging for beer, I used quite some herbs in the eighties and early nineties, since that time nearly none. Most grists have been two or three malts and some hop since.

 




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by ingoogni

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


> I used quite some herbs in the eighties and early nineties

Holy cow, man!  How long have you been brewing and what's your story?




Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


Started at least 35 years ago with an old cookbook and some snippets from an encyclopedia (you remember, the wiki-thing on paper). All improvising along the way, asking the blacksmith to crush the malt in one of his machines with rollers. First brew took about two days.

Knew about the rests but didn't bother with the heat up times too much and had a very small burner. Made a mess of my mothers kitchen trying to cook the decoctions. Had to stop when the night came and continued the next morning with filtering and cooking. Hops got picked from the garden while cooking and continuously added... the beer got very dry but somehow I managed to avoid the lacto's.

Then got some English brewing literature that made things easier, but the recipes in there where mostly based on LME so I had to find my own way.






Posted 34 days ago.

mutedog
Washougal, WA
29 Posts


What sort of herbs did you use? make anything delicious?



Posted 34 days ago.

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