As far as I know, ale is essentially any beer-like drink made without hops. (Nowadays ale just refers to anything that isn't a porter, stout, or lager, which makes me wonder where CAMRA would stand on something like gill-ale.) I'm not sure about the shelf-life, I think the boiling would make it fairly stable, but I don't know for certain. It's possible that hops act as a preservative.
From what I've read it merely seems to act as flavouring. There's something called 'gruit' which is a herb mixture used for flavouring ale that contains sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, and ground ivy, amongst others. According to the Brasenose College/Lincoln College ivy ale tradition, the ivy was added by Lincoln Collegians to stop the Brasenosians imbibing too much ale (according to legend the actions of Lincoln college caused the death of a Brasenose student and they've been apologising ever since.)
I assume the leaves? The trouble is the actual ivy variety used is called 'ground ivy' but I don't know enough about beer brewing to conclude how you'd go about flavouring it -- if it were me I'd grind it up and steep it like tea but I'm not sure.
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Date: 2019-09-24 08:59 pm (UTC)From what I've read it merely seems to act as flavouring. There's something called 'gruit' which is a herb mixture used for flavouring ale that contains sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, and ground ivy, amongst others. According to the Brasenose College/Lincoln College ivy ale tradition, the ivy was added by Lincoln Collegians to stop the Brasenosians imbibing too much ale (according to legend the actions of Lincoln college caused the death of a Brasenose student and they've been apologising ever since.)
I assume the leaves? The trouble is the actual ivy variety used is called 'ground ivy' but I don't know enough about beer brewing to conclude how you'd go about flavouring it -- if it were me I'd grind it up and steep it like tea but I'm not sure.