How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (2024)

Nettles, also known as Stinging Nettles, are delicious and versatile wild plants. Their signature sting disappears when the nettles are cooked, so they can be harvested as greens, drunk as a mineral-rich tea, or even used to make this delicious nettle beer recipe.

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Although nettles are so widely distributed that they are easy to wild harvest, when we arrived on our homestead, we could not find any stinging nettle, although we were wildly successful in foraging for wood nettles. I started some stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) by seed and planted them in a few moist and shady spots.

When I received a copy of Wild Drinks and co*cktails, by Emily Han,I was immediately drawn to the nettle beer recipe. With plenty of nettles growing in the backyard, I harvested the tender tops and began making this simple fermented beverage. Here’s the recipe, adapted with permission from Wild Drinks and co*cktails.

Recipe for Stinging Nettle Beer

Ingredients

8 ounces of fresh nettle tops or 4 ounces dried nettles

1/2 gallon water

1/2 cup turbinado or raw sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 teaspoon ale yeast

How to Make Nettle Beer

Step One: Harvest the top few inchesof fresh nettles – you will need 8 ounces for this recipe (I made 1/4 recipe). Be sure to wear gloves to avoid getting stung! If you do not have fresh nettles, you can make this recipe with dried nettles.

How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (2)

Step Two: Place the nettles and water in a pot and bring to a boil on the stove. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.

How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (3)

Step Three: Line a strainer with a fine mesh cloth (cheesecloth will work great) and strain the nettle liquid into a large bowl or crock. Be sure to squeeze the cheesecloth to extract all of the liquid from the nettles. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.

Cool the liquid to room temperature and then add the lemon juice, then sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid. Cover the bowl or crock with a towel and let it sit at room temperature, out ofdirect sunlight, for three days.

How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (4)

Step Four: After three days, strain your nettle beer through a fine mesh sieve and funnel it into bottles, leaving at least one inch of headspace. We like to reuse Grolsch beer bottles for this purpose (you can sometimes find them at thrift stores, or on Craigslist).

The author advises placing the beer in cool storage for one week and “burping” the bottles daily. However, we opted to not burp the bottlesto maximize carbonation. If you do not burp the bottles, be sure to check on them daily to ensure your bottles will not over-carbonate and explode!

Step Five: After one week, transfer to the refrigerator and drink within one year. Enjoy the lemony-tangy refreshing flavor of your homemade nettle beer!

If you’d like to try your hand at making other wildcrafted and seasonal beverages, check out my posts on how to make homemade sodaandhow to make shrubs, and my book review of Wild Drinks and co*cktails (and other inspiring homesteading books!).

Yield: 1/2 gallon

How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (6)

Tangy and mineral rich, this wild harvested and fermented nettle beer recipe is a delicious drink, reminiscent of hard cider, and easy to make at home!

Prep Time30 minutes

Cook Time15 minutes

Additional Time3 days

Total Time3 days 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces of fresh nettle tops or 4 ounces dried nettles
  • 1/2 gallon water
  • 1/2 cup turbinado or raw sugar
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ale yeast

Instructions

  1. Harvest the top few inchesof fresh nettles – you will need 8 ounces for this recipe (I made 1/4 recipe). Be sure to wear gloves to avoid getting stung! If you do not have fresh nettles, you can make this recipe with dried nettles.
  2. Place the nettles and water in a pot and bring to a boil on the stove. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
  3. Line a strainer with a fine mesh cloth (cheesecloth will work great) and strain the nettle liquid into a large bowl or crock. Be sure to squeeze the cheesecloth to extract all of the liquid from the nettles. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
  4. Cool the liquid to room temperature and then add the lemon juice, then sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid. Cover the bowl or crock with a towel and let it sit at room temperature, out ofdirect sunlight, for three days.
  5. After three days, strain your nettle beer through a fine mesh sieve and funnel it into bottles, leaving at least one inch of headspace. We like to reuse Grolsch beer bottles for this purpose (you can sometimes find them at thrift stores, or on Craigslist).
  6. After one week, transfer to the refrigerator and drink within one year. Enjoy the lemony-tangy refreshing flavor of your homemade nettle beer!

Notes

The author advises placing the beer in cool storage for one week and “burping” the bottles daily. However, we opted to not burp the bottlesto maximize carbonation. If you do not burp the bottles, be sure to check on them daily to ensure your bottles will not over-carbonate and explode!

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How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (7)

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  • How to Bottle Hard Apple Cider
How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (2024)

FAQs

How much honey to add to beer? ›

Their recommendations for amounts of honey added to a batch of beer (as a percent of total fermentables) are: 3 to 10 percent honey produces a subtle, floral flavor and delicate aroma; 11 to 30 percent produces a robust honey flavor that should be balanced by strong hop flavors, spices, or darker specialty malts; above ...

Is nettle beer good for you? ›

Aside from making a somewhat pleasant drink, stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) are a great source of vitamin C and apparently help alleviate rheumatic pain.

How much alcohol is in nettle beer? ›

- 500ml. A member of our Standard beer range, find out more on our Nettle IPA page.

How to use honey in home brew? ›

If you want a subtle honey flavor, add honey between 10 to 30 minutes left in the boil. To best preserve the aromatics of honey and obtain a stronger honey flavor, pre-process honey at low temperatures and add it at the end of the kettle boil so it is exposed to high temperatures for a minimal amount of time.

How is honey beer made? ›

Brewing Beer with Honey
  1. If possible, mix the honey with water to dilute it to approximately the same gravity as the wort you are planning to add it to.
  2. Heat the honey to approximately 176 F (80 C) and hold it for 60-90 minutes. ...
  3. After cooling the honey, add it directly to the beer while it is fermenting.
Sep 5, 2009

How do you make nettle? ›

To prepare nettle leaf tea, bring 10 ounces of water to a boil over a hot stove, then pour a tablespoon of fresh nettle – or a teaspoon of dried nettle – into the water. Allow the nettle to steep for 5-10 minutes, strain, and serve.

How much honey do I need to prime 5 gallons of beer? ›

To carbonate a 5 gallon batch of beer with honey, you can typically replace 5 oz of priming sugar and use 1 cup of honey. Bring 16 oz of water to a boil. Add the 1 cup of honey to the boiling water and stir vigorously.

How do you add honey to a beer recipe kit? ›

Adding honey to the fermenter:

Add the honey directly to your fermentor, perhaps a Big Mouth Bubbler, and stir gently, expect a renewed fermentation within a day or two. This will leave more residual sweetness and a more intense honey character in your beer.

Can you drink too much nettle? ›

The dose of nettle tea should be limited to 300 mg one or two times daily. Nettle should not be taken if you are taking any medications, herbs, or other supplements. Before continuing, consult your doctor if any side effects are observed.

When to pick nettles for beer? ›

Nettles are best eaten when the leaves are young and tender, so pick the fresh young tips of the plants in early to mid spring when they're at their seasonal best.

How to make homemade nettle tea? ›

-Clean your nettles under cold running water and place into a tea pot or tea strainer to brew. – Allow the nettle tea to brew for 2-3 mins in hot water before straining and serving. You can also make cold brewed nettle tea by leaving chopped nettles in a 500ml of water overnight.

What beer has the lowest alcohol content? ›

Samuel Adams: Just The Haze

A 0.5% ABV IPA that has been brewed and then de-alcoholised to retain as much flavour as possible. Just the Haze recently won a Gold Medal for Best Non-Alcoholic in America at the Great American Beer Festival.

What beer can has the highest alcohol content? ›

At 67.5% ABV, Snake Venom is officially the world's strongest beer.

How much honey should you add to beer? ›

A good place to start experimenting is with one to two pounds of honey per 5-gallon batch (~0.5–1 kg/19 L) of mid-gravity beer. One pound (0.45 kg) will tend to impart a fairly subtle flavor, while two pounds (0.91 kg) will yield a much more pronounced and noticeable contribution.

How much honey to raise ABV? ›

The Simple Answer. Each pound of honey added to a gallon of must (the pre-fermentation honey and water mixture) adds about 5% of potential alcohol when fermented completely.

Can you ferment just honey? ›

Because of the high sugar content of honey, it is easily fermented into an alcoholic, honey-wine beverage known as mead. Mead, in its most simple form, is made from honey and water. Like grape wine, mead can be made dry or sweet, depending on the amount of honey used.

What is a beer with honey called? ›

The Story of Honey-Beer

Mead is argued as one of the oldest-known fermented beverages ever uncovered, and the history of braggot is not far behind. Honey has been used throughout history as a primary source of sugar in the diet and a fortifying agent in fermented beverages.

Can you use honey instead of sugar in beer? ›

Honey will provide carbonation after bottling, and also impart a strong honey flavor. If using honey in this manner, it's recommended to boil honey in a water solution, pour the solution into the bottom of the bottling bucket and rack beer on top.

How do you make honey alcohol? ›

Making your own honey liqueur is dead simple. You don't have to do anything but heat the honey with some water and then mix it with vodka. I like to let the liqueur sit overnight to ensure the flavors are totally integrated, but if you're truly impatient you can use it right away.

What does nettle do for a woman? ›

The chemical compounds in stinging nettle have a variety of health benefits for women. Because of its astringent characteristics, it can relieve unpleasant premenstrual symptoms including cramping and bloating, as well as reduce blood flow during menstruation.

Who should not drink nettle tea? ›

Avoid if you're pregnant or breastfeeding because there isn't enough information on its safety. Use with caution if you're elderly because of the potential of causing low blood pressure. And use stinging nettle with caution if you have diabetes because of the potential that it may lower or raise blood sugar levels.

Can you mix honey with beer? ›

In short, honey is a living food. If this alone doesn't get you excited there are some less health-oriented, more brew-oriented reasons for using honey. When added to beer, much like any other simple sugar, it will raise the alcohol level and lighten the body. It can also add flavorful sweetness if desired.

How much honey should I add to my drink? ›

Ideally, the water should be warm. It can be hot, but it should not boiling. Adding honey to boiling-hot water will destroy the good enzymes in honey that make it so healthy. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 grams) of honey into the mug.

Why do you put honey in beer? ›

Honey is a versatile brewing ingredient that can be used in a broad range of styles to contribute flavor, increase alcohol content, and it can even serve as the priming sugar for bottle conditioning.

How do you add honey to alcohol? ›

There are two ways to go about it. If you're making a single serve, add all your other ingredients and then add the honey using a bar spoon. Taking your time, stir in the honey slowly until it's all dissolved off the spoon and into the co*cktail. Shake and strain as normal.

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