Backyard Anarchy

So after my somewhat successful attempt at a gruit I decided to make a real recipe using grains of my own choosing and quantities of herbs from the yard. I decided I wanted to use the Sweet Cicely and Monarda (Bee Balm) that are growing in the yard. We had also been harvesting a lot of Rasberries at the time so I decided to use some raspberry leaves in the brew as well.

I used the green seeds of the sweet cicely plant, well muddled and added them at the beginning of the boil. I added a handful of raspberry leaves and a lot of monarda (both leaves and flowers) at 30 minutes and then some more monarda leaves and flowers at 5 minutes.

The grain bill consisted mostly of Belgian Pils with a little cara-pils for body (which is stupid when you’re using a wild yeast that most likely contains brett) and some Belgian Special B for color and flavor. Here’s the full recipe on Brewtoad.

The brewing went well enough, the herbs smelled pretty good, obviously the Monarda dominated everything. Once the wort was cooled I pitched my wild yeast that had previously fermented the Backyard Suburban Nightmare and set it aside to ferment.

Then it got hot. I’m pretty sure the beer fermented at over 80F the entire time. I believe it was the hot temp combined with the lack of hops that led to the emergence of the lactobacillus. At least I’m pretty confident it was lacto, though it could simply have been the brett yeast, but it added a lot of lactic acid. It also formed this fun pellicle.

I bottled it anyway, it wasn’t terrible, just fairly sour and tasting/smelling of Monarda.

The beer pours a beautiful reddish hue with little head that dissipates quickly. The aroma is very distinct, smelling of Monarda, and some of the sourness is also detectable here. The taste is very sour and herbal with a slight malt background. I don’t think I’ll brew this again, but I’m glad I tried it. I’m not terribly displeased with the results and I’m sure I will slowly be drinking these beers until they’re gone. The lacto wasn’t intended but I really can’t be upset about it especially when the beer is called Anarchy.