Elderflower v Lavender v Nettle

Friends visiting was the perfect opportunity for a blind tasting of the three current brews. In the photo above from left to right are: Elderflower champagne, Lavender champagne and Nettle beer.

First thoughts on the identity concealed Elderflower champagne was that it looked like barley water. It smelt of flowers, sweet and nice a little like perfume. Opinions on the flavour were mixed. One person found it very sweet another thought it was not to sweet. Gorgeous and thoughts of soaking raspberries in it. L thought it was dangerous “give me a bottle of that and I’d soon be going out”

The Nettle beer was suspected of being a vegetable brew on smell – most likely suspect was potato. They thought the taste was crisp and herb like. One person thought it reminded them of something. Beautiful.

Onto the Lavender champagne which was instantly identified on aroma as “100% lavender”. The distinctive scent was fresh and floral. They thought it was pleasant. Comments varied from wanting “to bathe in it rather than drink” to how refreshing it would be on a hot day.
On marks out of 10 averages scores were as follows: Lavender champagne 6, Elderflower champagne 7 and Nettle beer coming out top with 8.5. The general feedback was that they would very happily purchase anyone of them from a shop. One person had drunk some nettle beer before – bought in a bar. But they felt the one they had previously had tasted a bit chemically.

All three drinks were fermented enough for drinking purposes, but I think that the flavour of the Lavender in particular will develop more over the next couple of months. I know from experience that the nettle beer, if you can bear to wait, becomes even lighter and crisper a year on.

Several more bottles were drunk and some is now making its way up to London on the train.

Nettle Beer

If you have located your patch of young nettle tops you are ready to make nettle beer. They must be young leaves as older leaves can be a kidney irritant. Young leaves are fresh green and luscious looking. If the plants are flowering the leaves are definitely too old. Older leaves are discernibly greyer.
I would recommend using leaves as soon after picking as possible. There is not much point in harvesting fresh leaves and then using them at the end of the day or the next day when they are somewhat wilted.


Nettle Beer recipe
Ingredients:

• 12 litres water
• 1 carrier bag loosely filled with young nettle tops - rinse to remove dust
• juice of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 orange
• 1.5kg sugar
• 55g cream of tartar
• 15g yeast


Method:

• Boil the water in a large pan, drop in the nettles and stir to ensure all the leaves are below the level of the water
• Leave to stand for at least an hour to infuse the flavours from the leaves (I usually leave it overnight as this allows the liquid to cool till room temperature)
• Strain the mixture into a large pan or food grade bucket
• Add the cream of tartar, lemon and orange juice
• Put about 3 litres back in a pan add the sugar and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and add back into the rest of the liquid
• Leave to cool until tepid and stir in the yeast (never add yeast to anything over 40°C because this will kill the yeast rendering it ineffective as an ingredient)
• Cover and leave for 2-3 days (the mixture should be lightly fizzing)
• Remove any scum from the top and gently pour liquid of the top to bottle the beer leaving sediment behind


As always when bottling use sterilised bottles (same as sterilising baby bottles) and never use screw top lids on glass bottles. Use plastic bottles with screw top lids or glass bottles with corks. This ensures that if fermentation builds up pressure to explosive levels the cork will slide out, or with plastic bottles have a bit of stretch in them and if they are shattered they are not hazardous the way exploding glass bottles are

In theory the beer is ready to drink about 5 days after bottling. At this stage I find it is pleasant but still fairly sweet. It is worth waiting until about 10 days after bottling. The year old bottle that I found was very good and worth waiting for if you can hold a few back that long.

When brewing I find it helpful to taste the beer at different stages – from the first stage in the recipe that is effectively nettle tea, to adding the cream of tartar, citrus juice and sugar, having a taste at the bottling stage and then sampling at various stages after bottling. Doing this helps you understand how the acidity, sugar and alcohol levels change through the process of fermentation, as well as getting a sneak preview of the flavour.

Lavender Champagne

Lavender champagne is a new one for me. I have had lavender in tea, with meat and seen recipes including it in shortbread and ice-cream. The champagne recipe doesn’t add any yeast so I am assuming that fermenting microbes will come from the flowers, sultanas or the air. My friend who gave me the recipe has never tried it so I will be leaving this bubbling away in my caravan for a week and hopefully return to a fragrant beverage.

I had to adjust the recipe to use limes instead of the suggested lemon - because I had no lemon and I fancied the aromatics of lime more. I converted amounts from ounces and pints to grams and litres. Being brought up with the metric system and with the simplicity of multiples of ten I find it easier to tailor recipes to the abundance of ingredients using metric.

As well as adding sweetness, flavour and possibly yeast the sultanas are included as a source of tartaric acid and this has a role in supporting the growth of yeast which is the element that turns the sugar into alcohol and adds the bubbles.

When collecting your lavender watch out for bees as lavender in bloom is a bee magnet. Don’t put in the flower stalk, just the tip of the stalk that the flowers are attached to. Lavender produces different secondary metabolites in the flowers and stalks to suit the different purposes of those structures. The flowers are attractive to insects and the leaves and stems contain chemicals that are repellent to insects. Hence the noticeably different smell of those two different parts of the plant. I am definitely going for the light floral flavours of the flowers rather than the sharper flavour of the stem.

Lavender champagne recipe

Ingredients:

• 40 lavender flower heads
• 100g finely chopped sultanas
• 300g sugar
• Juice of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 litres boiled water that has cooled to room temperature

Method:

• Mix the lavender flower heads, sultanas and sugar in a large ceramic or glass bowl
• Add lime juice, white vinegar and boiled water
• Cover with muslin and leave to stand for 7 days (the muslin stops flies getting in and allows the yeast to grow in aerobic conditions)
• Bottle in sterilised bottles; either plastic screw top bottles or glass bottles using new corks. 

The original recipe states tht it should be ready to drink straight away. However I suspect it will be worth leaving in the bottle for at least a few days to have a fizzier and less sugary drink.