Psychoactive Beers
Fred Buhl
Today's topic is psychoactive beers. (By this, I mean, more psychoactive than typical beer). It's a topic that meshes nicely with the discussion of historical beers, since many of these "alternative" beers were brewed more often "back in the day".
[*I've ripped off much of the info in this piece from the May 2000 issue of All About Beer magazine-an article called "Of Healing, the Sacred and Beer" by Stephen Harrod Buhner, who's also written a book called Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secret of Ancient Fermentations. The rest I yanked off various web pages, and my own meandering experience.]
The basic psychoactive nature of alcoholic beverages was figured out pretty early-10,000 to 30,000 years ago, and is fairly familiar to all of us. But the ancients were a bunch of experimenters, and they, well, experimented with things (youthful indiscretions they deeply regretted, of course). Where things got interesting was in the addition of herbs, some healing, and some, well, more recreational.
One of the earliest inebriating herbs was Heather (Calluna vulgaris), used in making mead (of course) and ale. It's a mild sedative, and good for your "rheumatis", too (Jethro, fetch some for Granny). Heather would be a lot easier to research if so many women hadn't been named after it, many of them married to guys named Herb, apparently.
According to a mead digest entry forwarded from the Primary Fermenter, the maker of Fraoch, the commercially-available heather ale, found that there was an ergot-like fungus under the leaves of nearly all heather plants. (Ergot is the LSD-like hallucinogen that can be found on moldy rye bread, and was the cause of outbreaks of St. Vitus's Dance in the Middle Ages.) The Picts were big fans of heather ale, and crazy mad stoopid warriors-this may be the cause.
A quite popular herbal beverage was called Gruit- it, like, ruled in Europe for over 1000 years, man. Gruit was primarily a combo of three herbs: sweet gale, (Myrica gale), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), and wild or marsh rosemary (Ledum palustre). These three herbs all had the rep of being "inebriating, sexually stimulating, and mildly psychotropic". Combined with alcohol provided via the fermenation of anything handy (sugar, barley, honey), and you had some pretty freaky stuff.
Sweet gale, also called Bog Myrtle, or the Badge of the Campbells, is in the same family as bayberry (Myrica cerifera), which is ofttimes used to make candles burned by Martha Stewart automatons. It has scores of medicinal uses (good for boils, pimples, ague, what have you). It supposedly "revives the spirit, quickens the mind, and strengthens the nerves", which sounds pleasant enough. It was also used as a diuretic in treatments for gonorrhea. (Ah, the useful information one finds on the Internet.) The leaves were used in France as an emmenagogue and an abortifacient, which makes it a pretty scary plant to me. (If I had two X chromosomes, I'd probably leave it the hell alone.) Odd Nordland, Norwegian brewing historian (his real name), considers that sweet gale may still be used in beer making in parts of western Norway.
Regarding Yarrow, this Odd Nordland guy said that "According to Linneaus, it was used by the people of Lima in Dalecarnia, instead of hops, when they brewed for weddings '...so that the guests become crazy'. Linneaus called the plant galentara 'causing madness'." Yarrow stalks are also the traditional method used to perform divination via the I Ching, or Chinese book of changes-I'm not sure whether there's a connection or not (no doubt an Illuminatic conspiracy). Yarrow contains over 100 active biological compounds--among them Thujone, which is the same "active chemical" as in wormwood; but more on that later. Groovy.
Wild Rosemary, also called Marsh Tea, is used by the homeopaths, but regarding that quackery I will stand mute. Wild Rosemary's leaves are supposed to be more powerful than its relative, Labrador Tea (Ledum latifolium). It's said to stimulate the nerves and stomach.
Looking at these three gruit-herbs from a psychoactive standpoint, it's all a bunch of stimulants mixed together, with a few who-knows-whatsis thrown in. No doubt it messed with your head more than our current Corporate Consumerist Culture, which holds this Nation in the vice-grip of a meaningless samsara of earn/borrow/buy, stupified by product, subdued for the greater good of Mammon...but I digress.
So why can't you buy Gruit at Dorn's? Hops, and the Reformation.
Hops are definitely psychoactive plants. They contain estrogenic and soporific compounds; (the former being great for women in menopause, but prone to cause a malady among male brewers and innkeepers called "brewer's droop", according to that there All About Beer article.). Not being stimulants, they're kind of the opposite of the herbs in gruit. Hops effects were well known before its introduction to beer.
The Church had a lock on the Gruit market in Germany, and the pure ale houses in England fought hops tooth and nail. (Picture an 12th-century CAMRA). After the Reformation, Protestants broke the Gruit monopoly, and switched to hops out of a combination of spite, and no doubt some well-intentioned Reformative ideas about people behaving themselves. Gruit disappeared from most of Europe by 1750, although it lasted in some Icelandic and Norweigian villages until WWII (the Big One), which some Protestant temperance movements wiped it out.
Other interesting "Happy Herbs":
Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), best known for its role in the production of Absinthe, was taken to get rid of internal parasites (hence the name). It's popular with the pagan crowds (burned during ceremonies; I won't comment on the internal parasite connection). The active ingredient, thujone, is related to THC, allegedly. One medical site I saw said that "long?term (over four weeks) intake of the thujone?containing oil or alcoholic beverages (absinthe) made with the oil is strictly contraindicated-it is addictive and may cause brain damage, seizures, and even death." Drinking Absinthe was said to produce absinthism in the user, causing which was characterized by addiction, hyperexcitability, and hallucinations. There's said to be little thujone in absinthe, though, and the stuff was 75% alcohol, anyway, so the ethanol alone could have produced those symptoms. You can still get Absinthe in Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and even Canada, I hear. You can get Pernod, which is Absinthe without the wormwood, anywhere. (It was named after Henri-Louis Pernod, a French Absinthe producer.) Parts of the wormwood plant are still used in the production of Vermouth (the name's a corruption of wormwood).
( Interestingly, the Speakeasy's going to be carrying Absente, which is an Absinthe-like drink containing Summerwood instead of wormwood-summerwood's supposed to have a little thujone in it, but not enough to tick off the Feds. And you can buy wormwood essential oils right here in the USA. They're used as a vodka flavoring in Sweden. Freaky.)
St. John's Wort, (Hypericum perforatum), antidepressant, unless has mad cow brains mixed in, or you're taking one of the 50 medications it interferes with, including many anti-AIDs drugs, which, if you're unlucky enough to have to take, you probably don't want anything interfering with. But I digress, yet again.
Tansy, (Tanacetum vulgare), sedative. Also contains some thujone.
Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) Contains myristicin, which does something. People short on dope smoked this in Junior High. It's supposed to be carminative--I'll let you look that one up. Causes euphoria and hallucinations in high doses. Also tachycardia, and, BTW, death. Yet you can buy it at the spice rack at Publix! Somebody write their congressman.
Calamus (Acorus calamus) According to one site, a piece of 5cm (thick as a pen) is stimulating and evokes cheerful mood. A 25cm piece may lead to altered perception and hallucinations. Calamus is also an aphrodisiac, especially when used as an additive in your bathing?water (though I imagine it depends who you're bathing with). They used to put this in absinthe, too.
Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). A powerful plant-in quantity, henbane can cause "delirium, 'demented' states, confusion, disturbances of memory, and mad behaviors having no apparent cause." Sounds like the Reform party. The original Pilsner beer was (supposedly) a henbane ale.
Mugwort (Atermisia vulgaris). Commonly used for brewing in the Middle Ages (the name means "beer plant"), it has stimulant and "tonic" properties.
Ah, but what about Marijuana (Cannabis sativa)? Well, there's been a lot of experimentation with that particular herb in beer (since the 70s, at least) but a pint of Indica Pale Ale (get it?) could get a little pricy. It's effects are well-known, so we don't need to cover them here. I don't recommend mixing THC and alcohol; it can cause you to become a public spectacle. And they won't lock you up for possession of nutmeg.
Doing a little web research, many of these herbs are becoming known to the brewing community; a number of homebrew supply shops have started carrying these things as adjuncts (the legal ones, anyway); and the dried herbs are available at "herbal remedy" shops, too. Heck, you can probably buy some of the plants at Lowe's for all I know.
Nota Bene: All of these things are potentially very bad for you, especially if you do a lot of them. Don't. I wouldn't even recommend trying them, unless one likes using one's body as a chemistry set. I've seen recipes, though.
It's late, so I'm done researching.
*f*