Stinging nettle and dandelion beer taster- Fingers crossed!!

Well after a good 3-4 weeks of waiting, its finally time to give my Stinging nettle, dandelion, juniper berry and honey (note to self...think of a catcher name) beer a try. Unlike most beers I've brewed, I have absolutely no idea how this is going to taste and I'm really hoping I don't end up with 10 bottles of a crappy beer that I end up pouring down the drain....because that's the kind of thing that can make a grown man cry.

If all goes well, I may brew it again some point soon, but with a few slight changes such as using a wild yeast strain or adding more flavourings (ginger might be nice??), but lets see how its goes first. My next batch of home brew is looking like its going to be just a basic English bitter (oooooh yes, I really know how to make things exciting :P) but I'm gonna try a few variations on what hops and grains I use so it makes it a tad more special. Right...enough of me banging on. To the beer!!


The beers appearance is a deep, hazy amber colour that has a very small white lacing head, but it does seem to have plenty of carbonation, with plenty of bubbles racing to the top of the glass. The aroma starts with the sweet smell of honey, but it also has traces of apple, mandarin and a faint herbal nose. Its mouth feel is crisp and refreshing but its body is lacking something and it is pretty thin. Wow. The flavour is very surprising. Its starts of with a pretty tart, almost citric flavour that gives me the feeling that its infected with some wild strain of yeast (which can be a good thing...and also now means I wont have to bother brewing it again!), but after the initial sourness, the honeys sweetness come into play and coats the tongue and slowly balances out the flavour. I'm also getting a faint juniper taste lurking in the background, but no sign of grassy/herbal notes from the nettles or dandelion. Totally unexpected and not bad. Maybe a bad thing to get a wild yeast in the brew, but I think I should give it some proper ageing before trying again so that the flavours develop and hopefully improves the beer as a whole.





My next blog post will be a tad of a long one, but its taken a week or so to write and its not ALL crap (well OK....no guarantees), but its all about beer and reading, so it could be worth a look!! Bye, bye all :)