June 11, 2021 • 32 mins
These ancient botanical blends gave beers a depth of flavor and antimicrobial punch (plus other properties, maybe) before hops came to dominate the scene. Anney and Lauren get mixed up in the history and pronunciation of gruit.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about grout. Grew it? Uh, yes, yes,
because peek behind the curtains, listeners, this is a re record. Yeah,
just the intro. Because Okay, the word is spelled g
(00:32):
r u I T so it looks like it should
rhyme with fruit. And I have heard humans call it grout,
and a lot of the time the articles written about
it in these are modern times reference like I am grout,
but I think that the more technical, scholarly pronunciation for
(00:56):
it is grew it. Yes, and you discovered this after
the recording was done, wrapped up you know, a nice
little bowl, wipe your hands of it, and here we are. Um,
I blame Marvel. Actually, I want to say, uh, that's
(01:18):
I squarely pin the blame for this on Marvel, because
how are we supposed to resist all the grout jokes.
I think that's ridiculous to ask of us. I agree,
and I love grout. I love that we live in
a timeline where James Gunn made a movie about rocket
(01:40):
and groot and it's very popular like that is wild
to me. I'm like looking at like Tromeo and Juliet
and going like that guy you hired that guy? I
love him? But what Marvel? And then Rocket Raccoon and okay,
but anyway, UM, yeah, so so I agree it's Marvel's fault.
(02:01):
Totally willing to place the blame on them. Excellent. I'm
glad we're on the same page here. So uh just
know that uh we did. This is one of those
episodes where the pronunciation is going to shift UM based
on who and when the episode. Who's talking when in
the episode you're listening. But at least we're aware and
(02:25):
now you are aware learning process and speaking of UM
when you suggested this, So, so when are your listeners
right in? UM? I and Lauren we have this like
big suggestion, very messy suggestions box. It's a single it's
two boxes in an Excel sheet that's just gotten out
(02:47):
of hand. UM. So somebody suggested this a while back
and I had put it in to the spreadsheet and
I was like, Lauren, what what topics are we gonna do?
And she responded groot And I was like, immediately, what
is groot? You you said you're the one that put
it on the sheet. Oh, come to find out it's
(03:14):
a beer. It's a type of ale or or a
type of herbal blend that can be used to make
beers and ales. But so I guess drink responsibly. Yes.
As always with these episodes, um and uh. I do
want to put in here that because you're you're missing
(03:35):
the existential crisis. I had um in our previous introduction
to this because when I asked the question what is groot?
It feels deep, It feels like an existential question, and
it reminded me of a time a couple of years
back that I couldn't prove my existence to a bank.
(03:57):
She looked at me and she was laughing, and she
was like, are you sure you exist? Uh? And I
went like completely still and kind of looked in the distance,
like do I exist? She's just trying to make small talk. Yeah,
you're not expecting a banking operator to uh, to like
put you into this kind of personal crisis. Yes, but
(04:22):
I still think about it every now and then the
back of my brain at niggles WHI like, am I
grout are all group? Oh? Marvel damn it marvel uh
(04:43):
International grou It day is February one, So we missed
that one solidly, solidly missed it. I don't think we
could have missed it. We're like right at the point
of not having been able to miss it. More. That's
almost impressive. I think we should, you know, to give
a bat on the back. We might have messed out
(05:05):
the pronunciation, but we really really messed up getting their
national grew it day. Um. And you can see our
past viewer episodes we've done sour beers. We did one
specifically on an ashell brewing that whole scene. UM. I
p a s stout supporters Guinness specifically Martinson or Meritson,
(05:26):
which also has a fun pronunciation that we've never really
knelt down. I think that's it, but it's possible there more. Yeah, yeah,
we've we've talked about alcohol a number of times. Yes,
this is true and related things, related topics about But
I suppose this brings us to our question grew it
(05:46):
or group? What is it? Well? Uh? Group spelled most
often g r u I t um is a blend
of herbs or other plants used in beer brewing for
flavor and microbe control instead of hops, and the word
(06:07):
can also refer to the beers created with these herb blends,
or some people would call those a groot beer or
groot ale or or what have you. Um. These blends
used have historically and modern ly varied. Um. They're often
bitter or bitter ish. But a grout will lend more
(06:28):
herbal or vegetal or earthy or medicinal flavors to the
resulting beers than hops will. Um hops being flowers that
tend more towards the floral and citrus flavors on top
of bitterness, less of the herbal digital stuff in there.
Three ingredients I've seen talked about most often historically in
grout or yarrow, sweet gale or bog myrtle, um and
(06:52):
wild or marsh rosemary. Uh. Yurtal flowers apparently taste sort
of like camemel, The leaves are sort of like lemon
balmb bog myrtle is apparently kind of resinuouce and sweet
and wild rosemary is apparently like bay leaf, kind of
kind of heavy and herbal, but oh gosh um. In
doing this reading, I saw any number of plants, just
(07:17):
plants that can be put in here herb spices whatever
you want. Uh cinnamon nutmeg, caraway seed, wormwood, lavender, nettle, lemon,
balmb sage, fennel seed, dandelion, carrot tops, clover, ginger, orange peels,
lemon peels, honey, hiss up, spruce twigs, elderberries, bay leaves, annis, basil, juniper,
(07:38):
rose hips. That's not a complete list. This feels like
you're making a potion and I love it. Brewing is
totally like making a potion. Yes, I mean, just some
of these ingredients sounds so mystical to me just because
I haven't encountered them, so yeah, I love this. Yeah, yeah,
(08:01):
I haven't encountered a lot of these outside of um,
outside of perfumes, so so the concept is really interesting
to me. Um. And I really I really want to
try like nineteen different kinds of group now. Um. And
because right, the resulting drinks can can vary widely in
terms of flavor and color and alcohol content. Uh, it
(08:23):
can be really really uh specifically developed by the brewer. Yes,
kind of a hard category to pin down. Yeah. Um.
And speaking of what about the nutrition, drink responsibly that's it,
that's all. Um. It's hard to find numbers on this one,
(08:46):
but I guess we got one. Yeah yeah, um uh. So,
although grout is an ancient style of beer, it is
making a modern comeback. Um. As brewers explores some beer's
roots uh pun pun intended in terms of putting roots
in beer. Yeah. Um. On beer advocate dot com there
(09:07):
are three hundred and twenty five examples of grout style
beers from various breweries. Listeners. If you know when we've
got to try, let us know, because I'm very very
keen on trying some. Yes, um. And we do have
(09:29):
some history for you, oh my gosh, we do. Um.
But but first we've got a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So beer is old at least thousands and
(09:54):
thousands of years old, like nine thousand years or more.
Like we invented alcoholic beverages before we invented the wheel.
So yes, I mean not us personally, but humans of
course absolutely mm hmmm um. And to make beer, people
(10:18):
generally used whatever they had on hand, um, the ingredients
available to them wherever they were. Early humans recognized that
in order to drink this alcoholic beverage they loved on
the regular, they couldn't do the sweet root like that
was too much um. They needed bitter flavors prior to
the discovery of hops um and particularly it's used in beer.
(10:39):
In this case, all kinds of ingredients were used, like yes,
pierro and bog myrtle, which were I had to look
up what all of these things were. But herbs and
shrubs um were popular. In the early days. People used
all kinds of things like dandelion's broom, which is an herb, rosemary, stage, wormwood, nettles,
laurel berries, laser work, poppy, ground diving, wild carrot seeds, heather,
(11:02):
and so much more. And essentially they were making group
beers what we would think of now as groots. Several
specific styles coalesced based on ingredients available by region. Ancient
Egyptians used things like meadow, sweet olive, oil, dates, and
wild herbs for example. Uh. These groot ales were most
(11:22):
likely sweeter than what we might think of today and
with a lower alcohol content UM, and people typically drank
them soon after brewing. Yeah. Yeah, these were fresh ale
type or beer type. However, there were likely in addition
to that sweetness um some soursh notes in there um.
Because until the eighteen hundreds, when Louis pasteur studied east
(11:46):
fermentation and developed pasteurization. UM beers were made with wild
yeasts and bacteria that could add any number of tart
or funky flavors, and see our sour beer episode for
more on that. And some of the archaeological evidence of
ingredients used in these beers came from possilized poop found
(12:07):
at the bottom of all the dream that's great, it
is so great, so great. Um. The first known mention
of grout in the written record occurred sometime during the
nine hundreds to one thousand CE, in the description of
a gift from Emperor Otto the third to the St.
(12:27):
Martinis Church. Um. Okay. And it's sort of confusing though,
because it seems that in this context they may have
been referring to a specific ingredient they called grout that
was key in making grout beers. Uh and Lauren and
I were discussing this before. There's an excellent paper that
(12:47):
really deep died into the history of grouts UH called
in fact, the Rise and Fall of Grout Yes um,
and it was so well done UH, and it particularly
examined a lot of this confusion. But there's so much
discussion about taxes that we're going to get into Oh yeah, yeah.
(13:08):
I my poor brain was like, wait a minute, I
thought we were talking about beer. So yes, the sale
and distribution of this ingredient was called grouts wrecked um
and it basically this gave those empower the right to
dictate who could sell grout and who could brew this beer.
With the growth of organized towns and cities, brewers became specialized. Yeah.
(13:34):
This all developed from how beer was being brewed. Originally
it was mostly made by women on their family property.
But yeah, eventually it became more common for brewers to
operate out of a common community bakery slash brewery, and
then brewers guilds began forming. And this was all happening
(13:54):
alongside monasteries more formalized brewing programs around the same time.
And it basically, from what I understand, the nobility saw
these like increasingly non domestic brewing efforts and we're like, all,
we could be taxing this um or possibly brewing became
(14:16):
increasingly non domestic because of the expense of paying for
group wrecked So so I so it's a chicken or egg?
Is it? Is it? The Yeah? Yeah, taxes or brewers guilds,
which came first. I don't know, because right like someone
(14:37):
or a group of someone's who had group wrecked for
a particular area basically had a monopoly on group sales
and grout beer making in that area. Yes, Um, it's complicated. Complicated.
Rural areas restricted by the group wrecked could get beer
shipped from the nearest town and what are is were
(15:00):
technically covered by any given decree. Uh. Was the source
of apparently a lot of controversy, like like, because some
rural areas would be like, no, we're closer to this town,
and some towns would be like, oh no, you're closer
to us, and so you don't get your own you
have to buy our beer. Um, like enough controversy that
(15:22):
it was sometimes called beer creek, like the beer wars. Wow.
Stuff about taxes, I write, yep, I didn't think this
is what we were going to be learning about, But
here we are. Hum And the original intent wasn't a
(15:43):
mess with beer trade, but when city government's got involved,
it turned into an excise tax, and one that went
on to bring a lot of revenue for cities and towns. Eventually,
members of royalty could in state group trecked in townships
that had never had one, making it a royal right
and yes, apparently an interesting piece of medieval tax all
(16:04):
but I really could not wrap my hair. I think
that's okay, I don't understand modern tax law. That's true.
That is true. Um. Groot reck could also be at
least are sold, and as time went on, groot wrecked
became an excise tax on wine and beer at large.
In the thirteenth century, specific buildings that could brew and
(16:25):
sell group were called groot poison um or haizen I'm
not sure. Um. This is also when groot cooked in
large copper kettles became fairly common. Apparently a tax came
out of that as well, Um, like kettle group tax
okay es um. Medieval medical records from this period indicate
(16:46):
that a woman fell into a pot of boiling group
and died soon after. Oh no, oh no uh and yes,
word confusion. Throughout history, the word groot has been used
both for a beer at an unspecified probably shifting ingredients
or ingredients, perhaps like a spice blend um, and the
(17:07):
ingredient or ingredients called groot. That was the impetus for
group wrecked is unclear, but they must have thought it
was necessary for beer brewing at the time, or one
theory is that it actually referred to duck weed, something
brewers had to have removed to brew, so it was
like a tax to get that removed. Huh um. In
(17:30):
the fourteenth century, the word groot often referred to concentrated malt. Yeah,
so lots of word confusion on this one. Um. Interesting tidbit.
Also in the fourteenth century, the Dutch briefly believed that
hopped beer made min set and that ales were unmanly
only for ladies. This belief didn't last long. Now, Oh goodness,
(17:52):
I would like I would like to argue with you slightly,
because this was and like low key is illah belief. Um.
There are all kinds of folk medicine bits of lore
about hops um, because hops were used in traditional medicines
as a sedative and apparently at one point thought to
(18:13):
be a rare anti eprodsac and specifically fat development and
men has been said to be in the chest called
brewers droop um. And modernly we do know that hops
contain phytoestrogens, which are these compounds that are similar to
the human hormone estrogen, but which we don't really have
(18:37):
like definitive research into the workings of in the human body,
other than to say that like, as long as you're
consuming a moderate amount, you're you're going to be fine.
Um cere our Tofu episode for more on that. Also,
I want to put in here that like, drinking enough
of any kind of beer could result in fat development,
(18:59):
and that the Human Show does one of the areas
where fat develops. So I feel like blaming it on
the hops specifically is rather missing the point of the
glass of carbs that you're consuming. It's bops. Uh. Maybe
maybe maybe the specifics that you were talking about was
(19:21):
restricted to this like relatively, but myths about it still
are still out there for sure. Um again, this was
you never know where the research will take you. This
was interspersed in the tax paper about grout beer. I'm like, wait,
what are we talking about now? Okay, okay, And now
(19:45):
you listeners get to go on the ride with us
as well. At one time, grout was the go to
ale in medieval Europe. Recipes were often held by church
or civil officials, and some places even had grout masters,
and in locales with specific group blends, the grout wrecked
restricted what ingredients could go into group beers sold there um,
(20:10):
which sometimes meant the specific exclusion of this up and
comer hops right. This changed in fifteen sixteen with a
German beer purity law called ryan heitz kabat uh and
that was enacted that year declaring the only ingredients allowed
and beer were barley, hops and water. Yeast had yet
(20:31):
to be fully understood when it came to brewing, so
it would get added into this definition a few centuries later,
and this prohibited many ingredients that were key in group
in most places. There is at least one case study
of of Cologne, where the existing group laws were so
strong that it delayed the introduction of hops into the
(20:53):
local beers for like a hundred years. Oh wow, that's amazing.
Taxes love it, uh and yesh saffarate episode. But briefly,
humanity's knowledge of hops when it comes to beer brewing
goes back about a thousand years, while beer brewing itself
yes much older, um. And yet these days, in more
(21:15):
places than Germany, a beer must contain hops to qualify
as a beer if there's like a definition as we
just discussed in place, um, Germany began exporting hops for
brewing int century. The fact that they elongated the shelf
life of beer is one of the reasons brewers were
eager to use hops. Group brewers and lovers lamented on
(21:37):
the damage that hops did to grout. Here's the quote
from the time, hopped beer, which one usually drinks in
our country, has diminished and damaged our group so much.
No one of the reasons behind this law Puritans's wait
what Some of the ingredients and group were believed to
(21:58):
be afrod eas x yep and also highly intoxicating. A
few of the herbs were that were used may have
been chosen specifically for that reason, which were big no
goes in the books of Puritans, and yes also texas um.
This pretty much killed the commercial grout industry. By the
(22:19):
eighteenth century, beer made with hops was the norm, and
pretty much everything else went by the wayside, more religious stuff.
The Catholic Church held a monopoly over the brewing of
grout in Europe until the sixteenth century. I mean along
with along with pockets of officials and things, but they're
pretty highly involved where hops. The Church widely regarded hops
(22:43):
as an invasive species. Not only that, uh. In the
words of Wall Street Journal beer critic and author of
a Brewer's Tale The History of the World according to
Beer William Bosswick quote. One reason was that the twelfth
century German mystic and abbess killed Guard had pronounced that
hops were not very good for you, because they make
(23:04):
the soul of a man sad and weigh down his
inner organs. So if you were so, if you were
a Protestant brewer and wanted to thumb your nose at Catholicism,
you use hops instead of herbs. Yeah, and Martin Luther
was a big part of this. He was a big
fan of beer and wine. He believed it helped with
his constipation and difficulty sleeping. Yes, In some cities, group
(23:29):
beer production was reinstated after being halted in the fifteen
and sixteen hundreds after pregnant women and monks protested, claiming
it was a medicinally useful product. In fact, one of
the first known printed recipes for group beer was printed
in a medical text in fifteen eleven. It was widely
believed that there were many health benefits associated with drinking
(23:51):
group huh, yeah, huh. Indeed, skipping way ahead in the
ease with craft beer revival in places like the US
and UK, micro Brewery started reviving groot ales from a
Guardian article written by Mark Dredge. Molecular archaeology has made
(24:13):
it possible to reconstruct ancient brews, and ingredients like yarrow
and bog burtle are making a comeback. Beer may never
be the same again, ellipses. Yeah, So, like I said,
I've I really want to get my hands on some.
I'm excited that people are experimenting with Yeah. Oh always, always,
(24:35):
I mean after after, I mean, I'm I'm a big
fan of sour beers and I am so pleased that
the explosion of those has occurred. Um, and so I
want this to explode as well, so that I can.
I just want to drink stuff that tastes weird and
challenges my palate and does not go with any of
the food I'm eating. That's all I want to do.
(24:56):
That's all she wants. World, Why can't happen? I think
I'm hoping we'll get there. If if we can get some,
we should definitely our next D and D session. That
feels like a good D and D drink. Oh yeah,
that seems very thematic right for our vaguely Star Wars
(25:18):
related D and D campaign. Very vague, not obvious at all, No,
certainly not. Y'all understand the subtlety with which Annie works,
then I'm sure you can imagine. Subtle is my middle name.
(25:38):
As I come in, I was a shirt, a Star
Wars shirt specific to the session that we're doing. Uhh.
She named a character shen Anakins, y'all, that's the thing
that happened, she Anakins uh, and also snowby one. So
(25:58):
how how could I forget? Could you forget snowby one
who lives in a snowy mountain? I can only hope
that is a happy face palm. It's it's for sure
a groner. However, I mean, I was the one who
went out of my way to make my character ask
(26:19):
the name of those characters so that I could hear
whatever puns did come up. You succeeded because Shenanikin was
not necessarily going to come up, but you did anyway. Anyway,
(26:41):
that is what we have to say about group. For now.
It is uh and we do have some listener mail
for you. We do, but first we have one more
break for word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank
(27:01):
you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with that.
When that one went quickly, I was like, how does
I am groude? Oh? Oh, well, I see you and
I was doing the Yeah that was. I don't know
(27:21):
how you couldn't pick up on what I was. Is
that subtlety? That's what it is, um Joe wrote, I'm
Filipino and I just had to share the adobo episode
with my family. Their version uses chicken drumsticks and thighs,
(27:43):
soy sauce, and vinegar and is usually on the stui side.
Sometimes we'll even put potatoes in it. But that isn't
the Adobo I wanted to tell you about. This version
is called Adobo Austin salted Adobo. Here's the Adobo Austin recipe.
Please note that my dad is very much part of
the I don't as your school of cooking. So much
of this is done to taste by a good fatty
(28:05):
hunk of pork butt and cut it into two inch chunks,
place them in a pot, and just barely cover the
pieces with water. Salt the water. Dad says it should
probably be as salty as the sea, and bring it
to you a boil. Once it's boiling, tastes the broth
to see if the salt level is to your liking.
The more salt, the better it will preserve. While the
(28:25):
pork is boiling, prepare your garlic, remove the skins from
however many garlic clothes you like. Dad usually goes with
a head of garlic at minimal check to see if
the pork is finished. He pinches it between his fingers
to see if it's soft but not falling apart. Once
it reaches that state, remove most of the remaining water
and let the fat render out, and began to fry
(28:46):
the pork, only adding more oil if necessary. Add the
garlic when the pork turns like gold, and continue stirring
and frying until the garlic clothes are crispy and the
pork is dark brown and crispy as well. Serve with
lots of rice and pickled vegetables on the side. My
dad claims adobo as in is most likely local to
my family's home province of be Cold, since he's never
(29:07):
seen it prepared by non Vicolano's. According to my great grandmother,
this method of cooking was critical during World War Two.
When a hog was butchered, they could cook the choice
fatty parts of the pig this way, and it would
preserve four months even at room temperature thanks to the
fat and the salt. If they had to move around,
it traveled well in the claypot it was cooked in. Again,
no refrigeration required, and all you'd have to do is
(29:30):
cook some rice and reheat. Only what was needed For
those screaming about the amounts of fat and salt in
this recipe. First of all, it's all in the name
of preservation. A second, it's offset by all the garlic.
Garlic is good for the heart, right right, both important things.
(29:51):
Yes uh again, and I've been loving all these recipes.
I've been trying them, so thank you. Thank you for
taking the time to send these two us. We really
appreciate getting them so much. Heck uh. A fellow, Lauren wrote,
I have been listening for quite a while now, but
this is my first time writing in. Recently, my mom
(30:11):
and I went to all the local Mexican supermarkets in
our town in Wisconsin. I had recently listened to the
Boba te episode, and while we were browsing the stores,
I saw these cans of bubble tea. I audibly gasped
and said, Mom, I need to send this to Annie
and Lauren were named twins, by the way. She then said, who,
I've told her countless amounts of very important facts that
(30:31):
I've learned from the show, and yet she never can
remember the name of the show or the hosts alas
the Trials of Motherhood. Anyway, I don't have much experience
with bobote as I have an odd fear of choking
on the boba balls. However, the concept of boboite in
a can seemed like something you guys would be interested
or horrified to see. Something about it seems wrong, but
(30:54):
maybe it's just me interesting. Uh, I will say. When
I was in China, Uh, there there's a lot of
canned tease. Um. Yeah, yeah, and there was one I
loved and I've been trying to find it here. I
know it must exist, it must be available for me
to get, but I don't know the name of it.
I just know it was in this like red ridged
(31:16):
can with yellow writing, and I think I've seen it around.
Um now, bubble t yes is slightly different, right, yeah,
because I feel like the tapioca would just like kind
of like continue sing in size until it's just a
can of tapioca and it makes in a chart terrifying,
(31:41):
but no, that is fascinating. That's right. I'd be willing
to try it. I'd be willing to try it. I
have some concerns, but open open to it. M hm
yes um. Thanks to both of those listeners so much
for writing in. If you would like to try to us,
you can. Our email is hello at savorpod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
(32:01):
and Instagram at saver pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Saver is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, you can visit
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listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about grout. Grew it? Uh, yes, yes,
because peek behind the curtains, listeners, this is a re record. Yeah,
just the intro. Because Okay, the word is spelled g
(00:32):
r u I T so it looks like it should
rhyme with fruit. And I have heard humans call it grout,
and a lot of the time the articles written about
it in these are modern times reference like I am grout,
but I think that the more technical, scholarly pronunciation for
(00:56):
it is grew it. Yes, and you discovered this after
the recording was done, wrapped up you know, a nice
little bowl, wipe your hands of it, and here we are. Um,
I blame Marvel. Actually, I want to say, uh, that's
(01:18):
I squarely pin the blame for this on Marvel, because
how are we supposed to resist all the grout jokes.
I think that's ridiculous to ask of us. I agree,
and I love grout. I love that we live in
a timeline where James Gunn made a movie about rocket
(01:40):
and groot and it's very popular like that is wild
to me. I'm like looking at like Tromeo and Juliet
and going like that guy you hired that guy? I
love him? But what Marvel? And then Rocket Raccoon and okay,
but anyway, UM, yeah, so so I agree it's Marvel's fault.
(02:01):
Totally willing to place the blame on them. Excellent. I'm
glad we're on the same page here. So uh just
know that uh we did. This is one of those
episodes where the pronunciation is going to shift UM based
on who and when the episode. Who's talking when in
the episode you're listening. But at least we're aware and
(02:25):
now you are aware learning process and speaking of UM
when you suggested this, So, so when are your listeners
right in? UM? I and Lauren we have this like
big suggestion, very messy suggestions box. It's a single it's
two boxes in an Excel sheet that's just gotten out
(02:47):
of hand. UM. So somebody suggested this a while back
and I had put it in to the spreadsheet and
I was like, Lauren, what what topics are we gonna do?
And she responded groot And I was like, immediately, what
is groot? You you said you're the one that put
it on the sheet. Oh, come to find out it's
(03:14):
a beer. It's a type of ale or or a
type of herbal blend that can be used to make
beers and ales. But so I guess drink responsibly. Yes.
As always with these episodes, um and uh. I do
want to put in here that because you're you're missing
(03:35):
the existential crisis. I had um in our previous introduction
to this because when I asked the question what is groot?
It feels deep, It feels like an existential question, and
it reminded me of a time a couple of years
back that I couldn't prove my existence to a bank.
(03:57):
She looked at me and she was laughing, and she
was like, are you sure you exist? Uh? And I
went like completely still and kind of looked in the distance,
like do I exist? She's just trying to make small talk. Yeah,
you're not expecting a banking operator to uh, to like
put you into this kind of personal crisis. Yes, but
(04:22):
I still think about it every now and then the
back of my brain at niggles WHI like, am I
grout are all group? Oh? Marvel damn it marvel uh
(04:43):
International grou It day is February one, So we missed
that one solidly, solidly missed it. I don't think we
could have missed it. We're like right at the point
of not having been able to miss it. More. That's
almost impressive. I think we should, you know, to give
a bat on the back. We might have messed out
(05:05):
the pronunciation, but we really really messed up getting their
national grew it day. Um. And you can see our
past viewer episodes we've done sour beers. We did one
specifically on an ashell brewing that whole scene. UM. I
p a s stout supporters Guinness specifically Martinson or Meritson,
(05:26):
which also has a fun pronunciation that we've never really
knelt down. I think that's it, but it's possible there more. Yeah, yeah,
we've we've talked about alcohol a number of times. Yes,
this is true and related things, related topics about But
I suppose this brings us to our question grew it
(05:46):
or group? What is it? Well? Uh? Group spelled most
often g r u I t um is a blend
of herbs or other plants used in beer brewing for
flavor and microbe control instead of hops, and the word
(06:07):
can also refer to the beers created with these herb blends,
or some people would call those a groot beer or
groot ale or or what have you. Um. These blends
used have historically and modern ly varied. Um. They're often
bitter or bitter ish. But a grout will lend more
(06:28):
herbal or vegetal or earthy or medicinal flavors to the
resulting beers than hops will. Um hops being flowers that
tend more towards the floral and citrus flavors on top
of bitterness, less of the herbal digital stuff in there.
Three ingredients I've seen talked about most often historically in
grout or yarrow, sweet gale or bog myrtle, um and
(06:52):
wild or marsh rosemary. Uh. Yurtal flowers apparently taste sort
of like camemel, The leaves are sort of like lemon
balmb bog myrtle is apparently kind of resinuouce and sweet
and wild rosemary is apparently like bay leaf, kind of
kind of heavy and herbal, but oh gosh um. In
doing this reading, I saw any number of plants, just
(07:17):
plants that can be put in here herb spices whatever
you want. Uh cinnamon nutmeg, caraway seed, wormwood, lavender, nettle, lemon,
balmb sage, fennel seed, dandelion, carrot tops, clover, ginger, orange peels,
lemon peels, honey, hiss up, spruce twigs, elderberries, bay leaves, annis, basil, juniper,
(07:38):
rose hips. That's not a complete list. This feels like
you're making a potion and I love it. Brewing is
totally like making a potion. Yes, I mean, just some
of these ingredients sounds so mystical to me just because
I haven't encountered them, so yeah, I love this. Yeah, yeah,
(08:01):
I haven't encountered a lot of these outside of um,
outside of perfumes, so so the concept is really interesting
to me. Um. And I really I really want to
try like nineteen different kinds of group now. Um. And
because right, the resulting drinks can can vary widely in
terms of flavor and color and alcohol content. Uh, it
(08:23):
can be really really uh specifically developed by the brewer. Yes,
kind of a hard category to pin down. Yeah. Um.
And speaking of what about the nutrition, drink responsibly that's it,
that's all. Um. It's hard to find numbers on this one,
(08:46):
but I guess we got one. Yeah yeah, um uh. So,
although grout is an ancient style of beer, it is
making a modern comeback. Um. As brewers explores some beer's
roots uh pun pun intended in terms of putting roots
in beer. Yeah. Um. On beer advocate dot com there
(09:07):
are three hundred and twenty five examples of grout style
beers from various breweries. Listeners. If you know when we've
got to try, let us know, because I'm very very
keen on trying some. Yes, um. And we do have
(09:29):
some history for you, oh my gosh, we do. Um.
But but first we've got a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So beer is old at least thousands and
(09:54):
thousands of years old, like nine thousand years or more.
Like we invented alcoholic beverages before we invented the wheel.
So yes, I mean not us personally, but humans of
course absolutely mm hmmm um. And to make beer, people
(10:18):
generally used whatever they had on hand, um, the ingredients
available to them wherever they were. Early humans recognized that
in order to drink this alcoholic beverage they loved on
the regular, they couldn't do the sweet root like that
was too much um. They needed bitter flavors prior to
the discovery of hops um and particularly it's used in beer.
(10:39):
In this case, all kinds of ingredients were used, like yes,
pierro and bog myrtle, which were I had to look
up what all of these things were. But herbs and
shrubs um were popular. In the early days. People used
all kinds of things like dandelion's broom, which is an herb, rosemary, stage, wormwood, nettles,
laurel berries, laser work, poppy, ground diving, wild carrot seeds, heather,
(11:02):
and so much more. And essentially they were making group
beers what we would think of now as groots. Several
specific styles coalesced based on ingredients available by region. Ancient
Egyptians used things like meadow, sweet olive, oil, dates, and
wild herbs for example. Uh. These groot ales were most
(11:22):
likely sweeter than what we might think of today and
with a lower alcohol content UM, and people typically drank
them soon after brewing. Yeah. Yeah, these were fresh ale
type or beer type. However, there were likely in addition
to that sweetness um some soursh notes in there um.
Because until the eighteen hundreds, when Louis pasteur studied east
(11:46):
fermentation and developed pasteurization. UM beers were made with wild
yeasts and bacteria that could add any number of tart
or funky flavors, and see our sour beer episode for
more on that. And some of the archaeological evidence of
ingredients used in these beers came from possilized poop found
(12:07):
at the bottom of all the dream that's great, it
is so great, so great. Um. The first known mention
of grout in the written record occurred sometime during the
nine hundreds to one thousand CE, in the description of
a gift from Emperor Otto the third to the St.
(12:27):
Martinis Church. Um. Okay. And it's sort of confusing though,
because it seems that in this context they may have
been referring to a specific ingredient they called grout that
was key in making grout beers. Uh and Lauren and
I were discussing this before. There's an excellent paper that
(12:47):
really deep died into the history of grouts UH called
in fact, the Rise and Fall of Grout Yes um,
and it was so well done UH, and it particularly
examined a lot of this confusion. But there's so much
discussion about taxes that we're going to get into Oh yeah, yeah.
(13:08):
I my poor brain was like, wait a minute, I
thought we were talking about beer. So yes, the sale
and distribution of this ingredient was called grouts wrecked um
and it basically this gave those empower the right to
dictate who could sell grout and who could brew this beer.
With the growth of organized towns and cities, brewers became specialized. Yeah.
(13:34):
This all developed from how beer was being brewed. Originally
it was mostly made by women on their family property.
But yeah, eventually it became more common for brewers to
operate out of a common community bakery slash brewery, and
then brewers guilds began forming. And this was all happening
(13:54):
alongside monasteries more formalized brewing programs around the same time.
And it basically, from what I understand, the nobility saw
these like increasingly non domestic brewing efforts and we're like, all,
we could be taxing this um or possibly brewing became
(14:16):
increasingly non domestic because of the expense of paying for
group wrecked So so I so it's a chicken or egg?
Is it? Is it? The Yeah? Yeah, taxes or brewers guilds,
which came first. I don't know, because right like someone
(14:37):
or a group of someone's who had group wrecked for
a particular area basically had a monopoly on group sales
and grout beer making in that area. Yes, Um, it's complicated. Complicated.
Rural areas restricted by the group wrecked could get beer
shipped from the nearest town and what are is were
(15:00):
technically covered by any given decree. Uh. Was the source
of apparently a lot of controversy, like like, because some
rural areas would be like, no, we're closer to this town,
and some towns would be like, oh no, you're closer
to us, and so you don't get your own you
have to buy our beer. Um, like enough controversy that
(15:22):
it was sometimes called beer creek, like the beer wars. Wow.
Stuff about taxes, I write, yep, I didn't think this
is what we were going to be learning about, But
here we are. Hum And the original intent wasn't a
(15:43):
mess with beer trade, but when city government's got involved,
it turned into an excise tax, and one that went
on to bring a lot of revenue for cities and towns. Eventually,
members of royalty could in state group trecked in townships
that had never had one, making it a royal right
and yes, apparently an interesting piece of medieval tax all
(16:04):
but I really could not wrap my hair. I think
that's okay, I don't understand modern tax law. That's true.
That is true. Um. Groot reck could also be at
least are sold, and as time went on, groot wrecked
became an excise tax on wine and beer at large.
In the thirteenth century, specific buildings that could brew and
(16:25):
sell group were called groot poison um or haizen I'm
not sure. Um. This is also when groot cooked in
large copper kettles became fairly common. Apparently a tax came
out of that as well, Um, like kettle group tax
okay es um. Medieval medical records from this period indicate
(16:46):
that a woman fell into a pot of boiling group
and died soon after. Oh no, oh no uh and yes,
word confusion. Throughout history, the word groot has been used
both for a beer at an unspecified probably shifting ingredients
or ingredients, perhaps like a spice blend um, and the
(17:07):
ingredient or ingredients called groot. That was the impetus for
group wrecked is unclear, but they must have thought it
was necessary for beer brewing at the time, or one
theory is that it actually referred to duck weed, something
brewers had to have removed to brew, so it was
like a tax to get that removed. Huh um. In
(17:30):
the fourteenth century, the word groot often referred to concentrated malt. Yeah,
so lots of word confusion on this one. Um. Interesting tidbit.
Also in the fourteenth century, the Dutch briefly believed that
hopped beer made min set and that ales were unmanly
only for ladies. This belief didn't last long. Now, Oh goodness,
(17:52):
I would like I would like to argue with you slightly,
because this was and like low key is illah belief. Um.
There are all kinds of folk medicine bits of lore
about hops um, because hops were used in traditional medicines
as a sedative and apparently at one point thought to
(18:13):
be a rare anti eprodsac and specifically fat development and
men has been said to be in the chest called
brewers droop um. And modernly we do know that hops
contain phytoestrogens, which are these compounds that are similar to
the human hormone estrogen, but which we don't really have
(18:37):
like definitive research into the workings of in the human body,
other than to say that like, as long as you're
consuming a moderate amount, you're you're going to be fine.
Um cere our Tofu episode for more on that. Also,
I want to put in here that like, drinking enough
of any kind of beer could result in fat development,
(18:59):
and that the Human Show does one of the areas
where fat develops. So I feel like blaming it on
the hops specifically is rather missing the point of the
glass of carbs that you're consuming. It's bops. Uh. Maybe
maybe maybe the specifics that you were talking about was
(19:21):
restricted to this like relatively, but myths about it still
are still out there for sure. Um again, this was
you never know where the research will take you. This
was interspersed in the tax paper about grout beer. I'm like, wait,
what are we talking about now? Okay, okay, And now
(19:45):
you listeners get to go on the ride with us
as well. At one time, grout was the go to
ale in medieval Europe. Recipes were often held by church
or civil officials, and some places even had grout masters,
and in locales with specific group blends, the grout wrecked
restricted what ingredients could go into group beers sold there um,
(20:10):
which sometimes meant the specific exclusion of this up and
comer hops right. This changed in fifteen sixteen with a
German beer purity law called ryan heitz kabat uh and
that was enacted that year declaring the only ingredients allowed
and beer were barley, hops and water. Yeast had yet
(20:31):
to be fully understood when it came to brewing, so
it would get added into this definition a few centuries later,
and this prohibited many ingredients that were key in group
in most places. There is at least one case study
of of Cologne, where the existing group laws were so
strong that it delayed the introduction of hops into the
(20:53):
local beers for like a hundred years. Oh wow, that's amazing.
Taxes love it, uh and yesh saffarate episode. But briefly,
humanity's knowledge of hops when it comes to beer brewing
goes back about a thousand years, while beer brewing itself
yes much older, um. And yet these days, in more
(21:15):
places than Germany, a beer must contain hops to qualify
as a beer if there's like a definition as we
just discussed in place, um, Germany began exporting hops for
brewing int century. The fact that they elongated the shelf
life of beer is one of the reasons brewers were
eager to use hops. Group brewers and lovers lamented on
(21:37):
the damage that hops did to grout. Here's the quote
from the time, hopped beer, which one usually drinks in
our country, has diminished and damaged our group so much.
No one of the reasons behind this law Puritans's wait
what Some of the ingredients and group were believed to
(21:58):
be afrod eas x yep and also highly intoxicating. A
few of the herbs were that were used may have
been chosen specifically for that reason, which were big no
goes in the books of Puritans, and yes also texas um.
This pretty much killed the commercial grout industry. By the
(22:19):
eighteenth century, beer made with hops was the norm, and
pretty much everything else went by the wayside, more religious stuff.
The Catholic Church held a monopoly over the brewing of
grout in Europe until the sixteenth century. I mean along
with along with pockets of officials and things, but they're
pretty highly involved where hops. The Church widely regarded hops
(22:43):
as an invasive species. Not only that, uh. In the
words of Wall Street Journal beer critic and author of
a Brewer's Tale The History of the World according to
Beer William Bosswick quote. One reason was that the twelfth
century German mystic and abbess killed Guard had pronounced that
hops were not very good for you, because they make
(23:04):
the soul of a man sad and weigh down his
inner organs. So if you were so, if you were
a Protestant brewer and wanted to thumb your nose at Catholicism,
you use hops instead of herbs. Yeah, and Martin Luther
was a big part of this. He was a big
fan of beer and wine. He believed it helped with
his constipation and difficulty sleeping. Yes, In some cities, group
(23:29):
beer production was reinstated after being halted in the fifteen
and sixteen hundreds after pregnant women and monks protested, claiming
it was a medicinally useful product. In fact, one of
the first known printed recipes for group beer was printed
in a medical text in fifteen eleven. It was widely
believed that there were many health benefits associated with drinking
(23:51):
group huh, yeah, huh. Indeed, skipping way ahead in the
ease with craft beer revival in places like the US
and UK, micro Brewery started reviving groot ales from a
Guardian article written by Mark Dredge. Molecular archaeology has made
(24:13):
it possible to reconstruct ancient brews, and ingredients like yarrow
and bog burtle are making a comeback. Beer may never
be the same again, ellipses. Yeah, So, like I said,
I've I really want to get my hands on some.
I'm excited that people are experimenting with Yeah. Oh always, always,
(24:35):
I mean after after, I mean, I'm I'm a big
fan of sour beers and I am so pleased that
the explosion of those has occurred. Um, and so I
want this to explode as well, so that I can.
I just want to drink stuff that tastes weird and
challenges my palate and does not go with any of
the food I'm eating. That's all I want to do.
(24:56):
That's all she wants. World, Why can't happen? I think
I'm hoping we'll get there. If if we can get some,
we should definitely our next D and D session. That
feels like a good D and D drink. Oh yeah,
that seems very thematic right for our vaguely Star Wars
(25:18):
related D and D campaign. Very vague, not obvious at all, No,
certainly not. Y'all understand the subtlety with which Annie works,
then I'm sure you can imagine. Subtle is my middle name.
(25:38):
As I come in, I was a shirt, a Star
Wars shirt specific to the session that we're doing. Uhh.
She named a character shen Anakins, y'all, that's the thing
that happened, she Anakins uh, and also snowby one. So
(25:58):
how how could I forget? Could you forget snowby one
who lives in a snowy mountain? I can only hope
that is a happy face palm. It's it's for sure
a groner. However, I mean, I was the one who
went out of my way to make my character ask
(26:19):
the name of those characters so that I could hear
whatever puns did come up. You succeeded because Shenanikin was
not necessarily going to come up, but you did anyway. Anyway,
(26:41):
that is what we have to say about group. For now.
It is uh and we do have some listener mail
for you. We do, but first we have one more
break for word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank
(27:01):
you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with that.
When that one went quickly, I was like, how does
I am groude? Oh? Oh, well, I see you and
I was doing the Yeah that was. I don't know
(27:21):
how you couldn't pick up on what I was. Is
that subtlety? That's what it is, um Joe wrote, I'm
Filipino and I just had to share the adobo episode
with my family. Their version uses chicken drumsticks and thighs,
(27:43):
soy sauce, and vinegar and is usually on the stui side.
Sometimes we'll even put potatoes in it. But that isn't
the Adobo I wanted to tell you about. This version
is called Adobo Austin salted Adobo. Here's the Adobo Austin recipe.
Please note that my dad is very much part of
the I don't as your school of cooking. So much
of this is done to taste by a good fatty
(28:05):
hunk of pork butt and cut it into two inch chunks,
place them in a pot, and just barely cover the
pieces with water. Salt the water. Dad says it should
probably be as salty as the sea, and bring it
to you a boil. Once it's boiling, tastes the broth
to see if the salt level is to your liking.
The more salt, the better it will preserve. While the
(28:25):
pork is boiling, prepare your garlic, remove the skins from
however many garlic clothes you like. Dad usually goes with
a head of garlic at minimal check to see if
the pork is finished. He pinches it between his fingers
to see if it's soft but not falling apart. Once
it reaches that state, remove most of the remaining water
and let the fat render out, and began to fry
(28:46):
the pork, only adding more oil if necessary. Add the
garlic when the pork turns like gold, and continue stirring
and frying until the garlic clothes are crispy and the
pork is dark brown and crispy as well. Serve with
lots of rice and pickled vegetables on the side. My
dad claims adobo as in is most likely local to
my family's home province of be Cold, since he's never
(29:07):
seen it prepared by non Vicolano's. According to my great grandmother,
this method of cooking was critical during World War Two.
When a hog was butchered, they could cook the choice
fatty parts of the pig this way, and it would
preserve four months even at room temperature thanks to the
fat and the salt. If they had to move around,
it traveled well in the claypot it was cooked in. Again,
no refrigeration required, and all you'd have to do is
(29:30):
cook some rice and reheat. Only what was needed For
those screaming about the amounts of fat and salt in
this recipe. First of all, it's all in the name
of preservation. A second, it's offset by all the garlic.
Garlic is good for the heart, right right, both important things.
(29:51):
Yes uh again, and I've been loving all these recipes.
I've been trying them, so thank you. Thank you for
taking the time to send these two us. We really
appreciate getting them so much. Heck uh. A fellow, Lauren wrote,
I have been listening for quite a while now, but
this is my first time writing in. Recently, my mom
(30:11):
and I went to all the local Mexican supermarkets in
our town in Wisconsin. I had recently listened to the
Boba te episode, and while we were browsing the stores,
I saw these cans of bubble tea. I audibly gasped
and said, Mom, I need to send this to Annie
and Lauren were named twins, by the way. She then said, who,
I've told her countless amounts of very important facts that
(30:31):
I've learned from the show, and yet she never can
remember the name of the show or the hosts alas
the Trials of Motherhood. Anyway, I don't have much experience
with bobote as I have an odd fear of choking
on the boba balls. However, the concept of boboite in
a can seemed like something you guys would be interested
or horrified to see. Something about it seems wrong, but
(30:54):
maybe it's just me interesting. Uh, I will say. When
I was in China, Uh, there there's a lot of
canned tease. Um. Yeah, yeah, and there was one I
loved and I've been trying to find it here. I
know it must exist, it must be available for me
to get, but I don't know the name of it.
I just know it was in this like red ridged
(31:16):
can with yellow writing, and I think I've seen it around.
Um now, bubble t yes is slightly different, right, yeah,
because I feel like the tapioca would just like kind
of like continue sing in size until it's just a
can of tapioca and it makes in a chart terrifying,
(31:41):
but no, that is fascinating. That's right. I'd be willing
to try it. I'd be willing to try it. I
have some concerns, but open open to it. M hm
yes um. Thanks to both of those listeners so much
for writing in. If you would like to try to us,
you can. Our email is hello at savorpod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
(32:01):
and Instagram at saver pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Saver is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, you can visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way
Savor News
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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