Brewing beer with herbs isn’t a new thing. Since the middle-ages, long before the effects of hop in brewing were known, bittering and flavouring beer was done with a select mixture of herbs and botanicals. This mixture (and the beer itself) is called Gruit. The mixture of herbs in Gruit traditionally included herbs like heather, ground-ivy, horehound, mugwort and yarrow. Gruit originated in Northern Europe and dates back at least to the 11th century. We know this because that was when the Roman Emperor Henry IV started taxing Gruit. Sahti, one of the world’s oldest continuously brewed beer styles, is another herbal beer that originated in Finland as far back as the 1300s.