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)

More homesteading inspiration!

  • Foraging with Kids
  • 14 Uses for Black Walnuts
  • Wild Ramp Pesto Recipe
  • Fermented Cranberry Salsa Recipe
  • How to Bottle Hard Apple Cider
How to Make Nettle Beer Recipe | Homestead Honey (2024)

FAQs

How to make a honey 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. Add this honey solution to the bottom of your bottling bucket, then rack your beer on top of it.

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.

Can you make beer out of honey? ›

A Honey beer can be sweet, but not always. Honey's carbohydrates are more than 95% fermentable and adding honey early in the brewing process will yield a product with no residual sweetness.

What is beer made from honey called? ›

Mead (/miːd/), also called hydromel (particularly when low in alcohol content), is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops.

Is nettle safe to drink? ›

Stinging nettle is generally considered safe when used as directed. Occasional side effects include mild stomach upset, fluid retention, sweating, diarrhea, and hives or rash (mainly from topical use). It is important to be careful when handling the nettle plant because touching it can cause an allergic rash.

What happens when you boil nettles? ›

At this point, it's best to think of stinging nettles in a similar fashion to spinach in terms of cooking the leaves. Quickly blanching them in a pot of boiling water will deaden the sting. But leave them for too long and - like spinach - the leaves will wilt too far, and start to lose flavour, texture and goodness.

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.

What's the difference between mead and honey beer? ›

By definition, beer is made by fermenting sugars taken from malted grains while wine is made by fermenting sugars taken from fruits. In contrast, mead is made by fermenting the sugars in honey. Since honey is neither a grain nor a fruit, mead does not fall into the categories of beer or wine.

How to make sweet beer at home? ›

Brew
  1. Pour 10 liters of fresh, cold water into the 10 gallon plastic pail (carboy). ...
  2. In your largest pot, bring seven liters of water to a boil.
  3. Add one can of malt extract. ...
  4. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
  5. As soon as the sugar is dissolved, pour contents into the carboy.

Is honey beer the same as mead? ›

Mead is not mead unless at least 50% of the fermentables come from honey. Beer sometimes incorporates honey, but usually just as an additional flavor (when beer is blended with honey, it's known as a braggot).

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

Use 1 cup of honey per 5 gallon batch to replace the priming sugar, follow the same procedure outlined in your beer recipe kit instructions to prime your beer and put it in beer bottles. Boil the honey in 8-16 oz. of water and pour it into the bottom of your bottling bucket and rack your beer into the honey solution.

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