Every year, the Oregon Brewers Guild hosts Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers where any brewery can brew a special Belgian Style Beer for a festival held mid-spring in Portland. Each brewery must make a beer that is either dark or light and strong or weak based on a dart throw at the famed Horse Brass pub in SE Portland. This year we threw strong and dark and decided to make a Belgian Style Gruit. A Gruit is an ancient style of beer using no hops. Before hops were commercially cultivated for the use in beers, special blends of herbs and spices were used in beer for bittering. We used a combination of Mugwort, Dandelion root, Dandelion leaf, Burdock Root, Licorice Root, Milk Thistle Seed, Blessed Thistle, Chamomile Flower, and Grapefruit peel to bitter and flavor this special Belgian Style Beer. We call it Mountain Rose Gruit after the local and organic herb company, Mountain Rose where we sourced all of the herbs.
Mountain Rose is a mahogany colored ale with herbal, licorice, banana, and fig notes in the aroma. It is medium bodied with a sweet malty middle yet finshes dry. Hints of spice and dark fruit linger in the finish. 7.0% abv
Mountain Rose Gruit is a rare style of beer and of course will not be around long so give it a try while you can. Cheers!
Matt
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[...] beer that is either dark or light and strong or weak based on a dart throw at the famed Horse Brass… Read More… Oakshire Brewing Tags: Batch, beer, Gruit, Mountain, Rose, Series, Single Posted in [...]
[...] Oakshire Brewing: “We used a combination of Mugwort, Dandelion root, Dandelion leaf, Burdock Root, Licorice Root, Milk Thistle Seed, Blessed Thistle, Chamomile Flower, and Grapefruit peel to bitter and flavor this special Belgian Style Beer. We call it Mountain Rose Gruit after the local and organic herb company, Mountain Rose where we sourced all of the herbs. [...]
[...] For more information, visit Oakshire’s website: http://oakbrew.com/2011/04/21/single-batch-beer-series-mountain-rose-gruit [...]
[...] the end. A sign that that we were enjoying ourselves, I suppose. In the end, my vote went for Oakshire Brewing Mountain Rose Gruit. While Oakshire didn't win the people's choice, I'm happy to see that the people voted Logsdon [...]