Happy Urban Dirt

When we think of drinking a nice chilly beer, the taste of mushrooms doesn’t come to mind. For brave brewers—and drinkers—adding mushrooms to beer is a great way to combine the healing properties of mushrooms with one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages. And the best part? You can grow mushrooms and brew beer at home all year long.

The following excerpt is from Organic Mushroom Cultivation and Mycoremediation By Time-honored CotterIt has been adapted to the web.

(Photos courtesy of Tradd and Olga Cotter, unless otherwise noted.)

Choosing a Mushroom

There are several factors to consider before choosing a species—aroma, medicinal properties, nutritional properties, bitterness, and cost. Changing any one of these factors can affect the others, so experiment on a miniature scale before producing huge batches. Availability is an vital factor, and in the case of wild mushrooms, it will vary with the season. In fact, for some mushrooms that are occasional or endangered, such as agarikon (Laricifomes medical), cultivation may be the only option to obtain sufficient quantities.

Taste

Like hops, mushrooms can provide initial and long-lasting flavors once they hit your palate. Start by adding miniature amounts of mushrooms or extracts to miniature batches of beer, keeping in mind that some beers can take weeks to months to mature and fully develop. You can then decide how many mushrooms to utilize for a larger volume of beer. Experiment with the types of mushrooms you add, their form (fresh, dried or powdered), amounts and addition stage to determine the flavor you like based on the type of beer you are brewing.

Aroma

Pouring beer into a glass is the only way to truly appreciate the aroma, because your nose is, let’s say, strategically positioned, and when you drink, you’re tasting the beer and its aromas at the same time. This synchronicity heightens the experience.

Many mushrooms, such as the birch fungus, contain intensely aromatic necessary oils that mix and bind with other oily molecules found in hops. When considering which mushrooms to utilize for an infusion, think about how the aroma will affect the enjoyment of the drink. For ales and lagers, you can choose mushrooms with a piercing and sweet flavor, while for darker beers, such as stout, choose zingy and full-bodied varieties.

Medicinal properties

The reason I started brewing mushrooms and beer together was to infuse the healing properties of mushrooms like reishi and shiitake into a drink that tastes good, has a high market demand, and safely stores the healing compounds for years. I also discovered that beer is an effortless delivery system for extracts—and a bit more engaging than just taking the extracts themselves.

I do not approve of the mass consumption of beer with the addition of mushrooms in order to “get by with your life”. Exercise moderation, not only because you are drinking an alcoholic beverage, but also because continuous and long-term ingestion of any medicinal mushrooms, as with any food or medication, can have negative effects. While the effect will depend on how much mushroom powder or extract you add to the beer, I recommend drinking a bottle of Mycobrew weekly rather than daily, and also changing up the recipes to access the different properties of different mushrooms. If you’re looking for a specific therapeutic effect, such as anti-inflammatory effects to relieve arthritis pain, watch how your body reacts to different formulas, noting any positive or negative reactions. And try the mushrooms or extracts alone, without the beer, to see if they work better for you on their own.

Bitterness values

Fresh hop cones fruiting in our garden. I bought a few miniature rhizomes and now have a flourishing, organic hop garden for my own utilize.

As you probably know, hops are added to beer to give it a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt. Mushrooms also vary in their bitterness; some mushrooms, such as many bracket fungi, are very “hoppy” and are typically used not only for their medicinal compounds but also to impart a controlled bitterness to beer. Wild mushrooms, such as Tylopilus spp. are extremely bitter and should be used sparingly and experimented with.

The best way to test the bitterness of an edible mushroom is to chew a fresh one. Assuming you have correctly identified the mushroom as secure, bite or break off a miniature piece and begin chewing. Wait a good sixty seconds before assessing the bitterness. Continue chewing, occasionally swallowing the juices, but do not swallow or spit out the piece. Note the initial and lingering bitterness, or lack thereof, of each species you try.

There has been an augment in disease incidence in commercial hop crops, which is encouraging growers to spray pesticides and could ultimately impact the price of beer. Breeding up-to-date hop varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases, and using beneficial insects, is improving yields on organic farms, but exploding demand worldwide, driven by the proliferation of microbreweries and the popularity of home brewing, has hop growers struggling to keep up. With this in mind, we could potentially develop a strategy to replace some hops with specific fungi, either partially or completely.

Cost

The key to a good beer recipe is to make it not only plain, but also inexpensive. The added mushrooms are the key element here, so utilize them effectively and efficiently. Don’t just pour a slurry of freshly mixed shiitake mushrooms directly into your wort or finished beer and expect an award-winning beverage. To minimize costs, utilize powdered mushrooms or extract. You’ll utilize significantly less to get the same end product than you would with larger pieces in bulk.

Recipes for beer with mushrooms

TJ Daly, head brewer at Smuggler Joe’s in Telluride, Colorado, strains a batch of medicinal mushroom extracts into a sanitized bucket to remove solid grains before adding them to kegs. Festival director Scott Koch helped design the formula and assisted with the brewing.

Below you will find some basic beer recipes that include mushrooms. Each recipe is designed to make 5 gallons of beer. However, given the wide range of ingredients available to home brewers, you are not circumscribed to the ingredients you see here. You can modify any existing recipe. Just remember to formulate your beer to balance sweetness and bitterness. And consider making it a special regional brew that features local and organically grown ingredients. Have fun making your first mushroom beer and “hopefully” many more!

Turkey Beer

Golden, featherlight ale with turkey tail (Trametes (varicoloured)

• 6 pounds of very featherlight grain malt
• 4 ounces fresh or 2 ounces dried turkey tail mushrooms
• 1 ounce of hops
• Yeast but

Amber Iceman

Amber beer with birch fungus (Piptoporus betulinus) and amadou (Fomes) (commentary)

• 6 pounds of very featherlight grain malt
• 1 lb. amber malt
• 12 ounces carrot juice (preferably organic)
• 4 ounces fresh or 2 ounces dried mushrooms from the polypore family
• 4 ounces fresh or 2 ounces dried amadou mushrooms
• 1 ounce of hops
• Yeast but

TJ doses each barrel with a pre-calculated amount of extract to ensure that each pint contains a specific dose of targeted healing compounds. This blend came from reishi (Ganoderma spp.), birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus), and turkey tail (Trametes versicolor).

Reishi red

Natural red lager with reishi mushrooms (Ganoderma spp.).

• 6 pounds extra featherlight grain malt
• 1 pound amber malt
• 12 ounces beetroot juice (preferably organic)
• 4 ounces fresh or 2 ounces dried reishi mushrooms
• 1 ounce of hops
• Yeast but

Agarikon Stout

Dim, earthy drink with agaricon (Laricifomes) (Fomitopsis officinalis)

• 1 pound chocolate grain malt
• 1 pound of crystal malt
• 5 pounds of featherlight grain malt
• 2 ounces agarikon liquid extract (from colonized grain)
• 1 ounce of hops
• Trappist Yeast

Note: Agarikon is an endangered species and it shouldn’t be picked in the wild, but it’s a potent medicinal mushroom, worthy of a stout. Since this mushroom can’t be grown in huge quantities and the mycelium grows slowly, the best option for this recipe is to let the mycelium cakes supercolonize for a few months until they’re dense with biomass, and then make an extract from them.

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