Nettle beer

Nettles tend to be regarded with scorn and fear. We often leap out of their way on walks in the countryside and parks, and for good reason too. Childhood memories of mottled pink rashes on legs, formed in the summer holidays, have put paid to that. I have to say though, now that I am all grown up, I am rather fond of the vicious, stinging little blighters. Sadly, this newfound respect is not down to any botanical or historical education. No, this fondness comes down to the fact that I can make beer from them. Lovely, lovely, beer.

Saying that, the term 'beer' is used fairly loosely when it comes to nettle beer, as traditional recipes don’t include hops (or grain for that matter). The resulting beer that you get from home-brewing with nettles tends to be sweet in flavour and more like cider in structure. But once fermented, bottled and cooled down, it is a glorious thirst-quencher.

I quite like the fact that I can spend a day in the garden in the sunshine, and rather than head for the green bin to dispense with all the weeds and trimmings, I can tip a large proportion of them into a stock pot and boil them up for a refreshing hooch. If I get really organised, I can even grab a bottle of nettle beer out of the fridge afterwards to quench my parched throat, thus completing a marvellous circle. Why, it’s almost enough to make you want to cultivate and cover your whole garden in stinging nettles.

The kids don’t seem to be too keen on that suggestion though. Perhaps I sent them off foraging for nettles at too young an age. You see, at the age of three they were the perfect height for plucking the newly formed tops off – don’t worry, they always wore gloves, though I think making them wear shorts was probably a bad idea. Their poor knees!

The real secret to successful home-brewing, in my own honest opinion, is to make sure that all the equipment you use is scrupulously clean. Pots, demijohns, bottles and tubes to siphon should all be sterilised. Forget that and you might just head towards a sad, vinegary demise, instead of nettle beer happiness.