Hi all,
I'm working on a paper about the "original" war on drugs and wondering if anyone has any resources or information to contribute. I had a solid start before I discovered Steven Harrod Buhners great synopsis in his incredible work Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, here's the gist of it:
Gruit ale(sometimes mead or wine as well) was the predominant alcoholic beverage in europe for at least 1000 years, much as hopped beer is the standard today. Gruit (GR-OOT) is a proprietary herbal mixture used to bitter and preserve ferments before the forced adoption of hops, and although recipes varied by region and produce, the traditional core triad consisted of:
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Sweet Gale (Myrica gale), also known as bog myrtle. Smooth, healing, delicious.
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Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). Rather mundane on its own or as a tea, when you ferment it, especially with other psychoactive herbs, it becomes a force to be reconned with.
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Wild Rosemary (Ledum palustre), also known as marsh rosemary or Labrador tea. Mildly psychoactive as tea, when you ferment it there is much more unleashed.
Brewers frequently supplemented these with other local botanicals such as wormwood, mandrake root, henbane, mugwort, sage, and many interesting others to create proprietary flavor profiles and inebriating, psychoactive, or sacred/spiritual effects. The transition from gruit to hops was not immediate but rather the result of a 400 year debate involving health, economics, and religion. This struggle coincided with major societal shifts, one of the most forceful being the Protestant Reformation.
Proponents of hops advanced three primary arguments to displace gruit:
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Preservation: Hops were a superior preservative, significantly extending the shelf life of beer compared to herbal mixtures.
-- This is utter bullshit, there are dozens of other plants that can extend the shelf life of beer just as long as hops can, and have many more virtuous properties. -
Health: Advocates claimed hops were beneficial for physical health.
-- Its health effects are actually to make you drowsy and kill your sex drive(great for dreams and sleep), which is ideal for a protestant trying to reign in the "excessive consumption" of the catholics or a noble trying to contend with uprisings from your serfs. -
Social Control: Hops were viewed as an "anti-drug" additive. Unlike some gruit herbs which could be psychoactive or stimulating, hops have a sedative effect, calming the drinker rather than inducing an erratic intoxication.
The adoption of hops faced fierce resistance from entrenched interests, in fact, it would take until the WWII to nearly erase gruit and other herbal concoctions from out-of-the-way corners of Europe. Because the catholic church had close relationships with the longstanding gruit houses, they would frequently decree edicts to protect them, like one in 1381, by Archbishop Frederick of Cologne, requiring EVERYONE who wanted to brew beer to purchase supplies through gruit houses. Similarly, in England, brewers and medical practitioners argued that hops were "unholesome" and deceitful, petitioning mayors to forbid their use in traditional ale. This conflict lasted in its most intense form for about 200 years, with hopped beer only gradually gaining ground through trade and legislative pressure.
The debate was effectively settled by the passage of the Bavarian Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) in 1516, enacted by Duke Wilhelm IV and his brother Ludwig X of the House of Wittelsbach-sons of a Habsburg mother who just happened to be the ones to invite Jesuits into Bavaria.
Anywhoo, work in progress, if anyone has any resources for me they would be much appreciated.
