- Parts used: The whole plant, fresh or dried.
- Aroma & taste: Beer made with sage is pleasant-tasting and mildly bitter.
Sage is known for its antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiseptic properties, hence
it greatly helps the beer's keep. - Brewing method: Sage ale was one of the primary ales brewed
throughout the Middle Ages and was considered highly medicinal and
wholesome. The volatile oils in sage are not very water soluble and need
alcohol to properly be extracted into the brew. In the same manner as "dry hopping",
sage ales benefit from adding some sage in the fermenting vessel as to allow the
alcohol produced by the yeasts to extract the more active constituents of the herb
into the ale.
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTIONCommon sage is a small evergreen subshrub, with woody stems, grayish leaves, and blue to purplish flowers native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region.
Sage generally grows about a foot or more high, with wiry stems. The leaves are set in pairs on the stem and are 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, stalked, oblong, rounded at the ends, finely wrinkled by a strongly-marked network of veins on both sides, greyish-green in colour, softly hairy and beneath glandular. The flowers are in whorls, purplish and the corollas lipped. They blossom in August. All parts of the plant have a strong, scented odour and a warm, bitter, somewhat astringent taste, due to the volatile oil contained in the tissues.
Among the Ancients and throughout the Middle Ages, there was an intersting saying about sage:
Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto?
'Why should a man die whilst sage grows in his garden?'
