- Latin nomenclature:
Myrica gale L. - Common names:
Sweet gale, Candle berry, Bog myrtle
Gale odorant, Myrique baumier, Piment royal, Bois-sent-born
Pors 
Porse, Mose-pors 
Gagel, Sumpfmyrte, Gagelstrauch
Suomyrtti - Availability:
currently available at the Gruit House
- Parts used: Fresh or recently dried branches, leaves and nut cones.
- Aroma & taste: The leaves of Bog myrtle are astringent, balsamic, bitter, with a strong, not unpleasant, rather spicy aroma. Myrica gale is also known to give beer a strong thirst quenching mouth feel.
- Brewing method: The leaves of Bog myrtle are used for their bittering and aromatic actions and should be boiled as with hops. The nut cones contains delicate and volatile resins which have a strong vasodilating action, as well as narcotic and stupefying properties. Because the resins dissolve more readily in alcohol, some of the fresh herb should be added to the fermenter to work with the alcohol that the yeast produce during fermentation.
- Recipes: Bog Myrtle Ale, Fourteenth Century Gruit Ale, Modern Gruit Ale, Modern Gruit Ale Variations, Basic Gruit Ale, St. Emilian’s Day Gruit Ale
Myrica, also called sweet gale and bog myrtle, was commonly used in ale production throughout Europe through Wold War II. It reached its height in the Middle Ages but was still to be found from time to time in the rural areas of England, Europe, and the Scandinivian countries until 1950 or so.
Myrica has been used throughout Europe for millenia in the brewing of ale. It was one of the most common herbs, after juniper, in traditional brewing in Norway; the ale was called pors. The stories of its intoxicating properties are legendary. In Norway "It was said locally that when one drank much of it, it was strongly intoxicating, with unpleasant after effects". Many brewers both in Norway and throughout Europe commented that Myrica was used "to make the ale more intoxicating". And "The famous Swedish botanist Linnaeus as well as the learned Norwegian bishop and scientist Gunnerus both mention the especially intoxicatingeffects of ale brewed with bog myrtle. The former recommends rapid boiling, the latter skimming the foam from the boiled ale, as counter-measures against these effects."
In spite of this, Myrica was still in common use as late as 1892 in Sweden, when the medical herbalist Millspaugh noted that "The leaves of Myrica gale are said to be substituted for hops in Sweden, in the manufacture of beer". Maude Grieve comments that its use was still common at the time of the writting of her A Modern Herbal in 1931: "The branches have been used as a substitute for hops in Yorkshire and put into a beer called Gale beer. It is extremely good to allay thirst."
Myrica was so important an item of commerce because of its use in ale that not only in Europe, but in Norway it could be used to pay taxesé Myrica or bog myrtle is mentionned in the 1300s in Norwegian legal procalamtions stating that "rent for farms could be paid in bog myrtle, and that moors where bog myrtle could be gathered belonged to the farms in the same way as the right coast-lines and fishing waters."
Traditionally (or as Maude Grieve puts it so wonderfully, "in cottage practice"), sweet or Myrica gale has been used simirlarly to bayberry, through it is rarely used now in contemporary herbalism. Bayberry (Myrica cerifera) is one of the more important herbs in medical herbalism, and Myrica gale possesses many of its same properties, though in milder form. The leaves of Myrica gale are astringent, balsamic, bitter, with a strong, not unpleasant, rather spicy aroma. It possesses expectorant, sedative, fungistatic, and antiseptic properties, and relaxes bronchial tissue. It is also alterative and an effective stomachic. It can be used as a powder for skin sores and ulceration, its astringent and antiseptic actions effective in arresting those conditions. These actions also make it a primary remedy for inflammed and bleeding gums.
Myrica gale contains a stupefying essence, and taken in large doses produce a narcotic effect.
The resins of the plant have a strong vasodilating effect and are more pronounced in the fresh herb. The fresh leaves of Myrica gale containe “.50% of a stupefying essence,” and taken in large doses produce “a narcotic effect.” The bark of the root of the bayberry or wax myrtle is most often used in herbal practice, though, as mentioned, the fresh leaves of Myrica gale possess the same, though milder, properties. The berries of the bayberry plant (Myrica cerifera) are not really berries at all but are dense clusters of bony, globular nuts. These nuts appear more like berries in the wax myrtle because of their covering of wax, less so in sweet gale. In the bayberry or wax myrtle plant, the berries are covered with a white to grayish wax that can be used to make candles – the wax is obtained by boiling the berries in hot water, cooling, and skimming off the wax. The wax is also used in herbal medicine, having an astringent action useful in dysentery. Myrica gale possesses the same kind of nuts or tiny nut cones, though with a significantly smaller wax content. The wax and resins in these species are more easily soluble in an alcohol and water combination. The wax itself has also been found to possess narcotic properties.
A deciduous, bushy shrub, growing from 1 to 1.8m / 3 to 6ft high. The wood and leaves are quite fragrant when bruised. The leaves, not unlike a willow or myrtle, are oblanceolate, tapering entire at the base, toothed and broadest at the apex, the upper side dark glossy green, the underside paler and slightly downy, under which are a few shining glands.
The male plant produces flowers, anywhere between April and June with noticeable brown twigs branching in an alternating pattern. Sweetgale produces non-drooping catkins as a flowering structure. They are thick, closely-set, resinous nutlets. The sexes are on different plants. Male flowers are about 1-2 cm / ¾in long, yellow with reddish scales, crowded at the end of each twig. Female flowers are similar in appearance to male flowers, but are ruby red.
Myrica gale is a somewhat smaller species than bayberry. It is a shrub from one to six feet in height with long oval leaves lightly serrated at the ends. The nut cones are ovoid and resin coated. They form in the fall of the year on the tip of branches and look something like an abortive scale or gall-like growth. The leaves and nut cones contain at least 41 compounds, few of which have been identified. The branches containing the nut cones should be gathered in fall and used fresh or recently dried. The older they are, the less vosodilating effect they possess, the resins deteriorating with time. It is likely that part of the effects of ales fermented with Myrica gale come from the plant’s strong vasodilating action combination with the narcotic and stupefying properties noted above. Because the resins dissolve more readily in alcohol, some of the fresh herb should be hung in the fermenter to work with that alcohol that the yeast produce during fermentation.
This picture was taken early morning in Northern Quebec, the plants still moist with the morning dew, the Sweet gale leaves were reaching out for the day's first sun rays.
Sweet gale branch with male catkins.
Unripe gale fruits.
Harvested gale fruits.
This photo was taken on the shores of a lake in southern Quebec. Myrica gale often is found along the lake shores but the further north, the more abundant it is found.
At the water gardens at the Jardin botanique de Montréal.
