If there’s one thing that grows well on the allotment, it’s nettles. At the end of the plot there’s a shady patch under a beautiful, enormous oak tree. It was clearly used as a bit of a dumping ground by the previous plot holder, as there was a lot of rubble and broken glass there when we took it on. Since clearing away the junk, nettles have sprung up with enthusiasm, which – to be fair – nettles do tend to do.
We’ve made nettle wine before in the past. It came out wonderfully, though a bit stronger than we’d planned. We thought we’d try something new this year, so this time we looked up recipes for nettle beer…
It was a fairly straightforward process, especially compared to how we’ve made beer in the past. Unlike the process for most beer brewing, there were no grains and no hops added in later. It was pretty much just nettles, lemon peel and yeast. Essentially the resulting brew that comes from this recipe is closer to a cider than a beer, and comes from a pretty ancient process – I’ve seen people call it ‘Celtic home brew’.
We mainly harvested the very tips of the nettle plant, but I also got a bit carried away at one point and just started clipping bigger stems from the plants. Possibly this hasn’t helped the recipe as the newer leaves tend to be sweeter.
In terms of how you make it, you wash the nettles to remove any unsuspecting bugs that may have hitched a ride, then boil water, adding the nettles in once it’s bubbling and boil those for about fifteen minutes. Stir in sugar, lemon juice and cream of tartar and allow it to cool down. Once it’s cool, we pitched the yeast, left it overnight and then transferred it to our 30l fermenting bucket where it bubbled away merrily for a week. After that, we poured it into sterilised bottles and left for seven days before trying it.
The first taste… wasn’t immediately prepossessing. As I say, it’s not really what you think of when you think of a beer. It doesn’t have the rich, malty body of an ale, nor the bitter depth you get from adding hops. I think calling it a cider makes a bit more sense – I’m drinking a glass as I type this, about a month after we bottled it, and thinking of it as a nettle cider means it doesn’t taste so odd. Maybe that’s just a mind game, but if you’re interested in making this and are expecting it to taste like a beer, then you might be disappointed.
I’ve seen a few recipes for a nettle beer that involve more malts and grains, as well as hops, so I think I might come back to it later in the year and give it another go. If nothing else, it helps provide an incentive to keep on top of the nettles!
If you want to try it yourself, I’ve included the recipe below. Do give it a go and let me know what you think – or, if you’ve already made it and found a recipe you like, what are your top tips?
The recipe
- 1 kg of young nettle leaves (we filled a couple of biggish carrier bags to get the right quantity)
- 4 litres of water
- The juice of one lemon
- 750g sugar (brewing sugar is a good shout if you do a lot of homebrew, otherwise simple granulated sugar will be fine)
- 25g cream of tartar
- 1 sachet of ale yeast (we went for Mangrove Jack’s Belgian Ale yeast)
You’ll also need:
- A big pan in which to boil the water and leaves – we have a big 10 litre pan that we got initially for brewing, but basically get the biggest you can. 1 kg of nettle leaves takes up a lot of space and we nearly had to boil it in two batches!
- A demijohn or fermenting bucket (with a close-fitting lid and airlock) – we got ours from The Home Brew Shop.
- Some sanitiser. You can just boil everything you’re going to use and then leave it to dry, but it’s often a bit quicker (and less messy) to get some sanitiser.
The process
- Really rinse out those nettles. All sorts of bugs and beasties can get in there, and while it’s always good to get some extra protein, it seems a bit harsh to accidentally boil a spider.
- Sterilise all your equipment while you bring the water to the boil, following the instructions for whatever method you use.
- Bring the water to the boil in your massive pan. Add the nettles once the water’s boiling and let it go quite fiercely for about fifteen minutes.
- Strain the liquid either into another massive (sterilised) pan, or into your fermenting bucket if it has a wide neck. Then add your sugar, lemon juice and cream of tartar. Stir vigorously until the sugar has dissolved, then cover with muslin and leave to cool to room temperature.
- Add the yeast – depending on what yeast you use, you might need to activate it first, or you can just sprinkle it onto the surface of the brew. This is called ‘pitching’ the yeast. Cover, and leave to ferment. This is why I like using a fermentation bucket, as I can just put the lid on tightly with an airlock fitted and leave for the whole fermentation period. If you’re using a demijohn though, it’s a slightly different process. You’ll need to pitch your yeast with the liquid still in the bigger pan (from step 4), cover it and leave overnight, and then siphon off into a demijohn to ferment.
- Either way, fit a nice tight lid and airlock, and leave to ferment for between three and seven days. We left ours for the full week, and then siphoned into sterilised swing-top glass bottles.
- Leave the bottles for at least a week, if not two. If your liquid is really lively and bubbly, you may need to occasionally open the lids to release a bit of pent up gas, otherwise the bottles might explode.
- Once you’ve left it as long as your curiosity will allow… chill a bottle in the fridge and give it a try! And then let me know what you think.
Basically, I don’t dislike nettle beer, but I’m still not sure what I think about it, so I’d love to hear from you if you’ve tried it!
Havenwards 