adventures in brewing with Yarrow

I've been intending to brew a beer using yarrow for years, but hadn't gotten around to it. Well this year has been a great year for brewing and I had some nice big yarrow blossoms in my yard, so I decided the time had come. If you don't know what yarrow is, it looks like the image on the left. It is a very hardy flowering herb that grows all over the world. It was once widely used as a bittering ingredient in beer before hops gained popularity and is sometimes called "field hops". Years back I tried a beer brewed with yarrow and it was interesting stuff. Not only does it taste good (although different then you are used to), but the buzz that the beer will give is very different than normal. It's almost like drinking a big cup of coffee while you are drinking a beer. The recipe I put together is as follows:

5 gallons water

3.3 lbs (1 can) Cooper Amber Malt Extract

4 lbs Mutons Dry Wheat Malt Extract

12 oz. 20 Lovibond Crystal Malt

2 oz. fresh picked Yarrow blossoms

1 oz. Cascade Hops (used for aroma only)

Wyeast British Ale Yeast

If you want to know the times for each of these ingredients in the brewing process, then ask, but I figured that would be a bit much for most people. I brewed on Sunday and the beer was off to a nice fermentation on Monday morning, so in 10 day or so I'll be able to pull a taster to see how my experiment turned out. For those of you that want to drink it, well it should be aged and carbonated in about three weeks.