51. Imperial Noma Beer

This picture poses more questions than it answers

Foraging is great if you own a Danish restaurant. You get your team of foragers to pop down the local forest, pick a couple of kilos of grass and weeds and then arrange them tastefully on a plate. Idiots then come to your restaurant and pay you hundreds of pounds to go home hungry. Bigger idiots them come along and give you awards for excellence in cooking. Thank god that craft beer has not yet descended to this level of emperor’s new clothes.

If you are brewer in Cornwall and it’s December the proposition of foraging is a less attractive one. According to a very informative web site my trip into the wilds of North Cornwall should have yielded the delights of exciting herbs like sea beet, hairy bittercress, three cornered leak and moist mangina (I made the last one up). Even with this helpful guide I struggled. That was until my foraging expedition lead me to a clearing in the forest where, like a mirage, a range of potential brewing ingredients sat on a well-lit shelf under a sign saying fruit and veg.

The security guard didn’t seem to fully appreciate the concept of foraging for free food and after a short discussion I foraged via the self service till.

This brew would maybe be best undertaken in the summer when herbs are growing rather than rotting.

Tech spec

Malt: Low colour ale and crystal rye

Hops: Citra, Nelson Sauvin

Yeast: Unnamed Northern English brewery

Spices: Lime zest, pepper and tarragon

OG: 1081