The Juniper Mystery

When I started looking at farmhouse ale back in 2010, one of the first things that struck me was that nearly everyone seemed to be using juniper. That was unexpected, since the beer literature generally has very little to say about juniper. Now, six years later, I'm beginning to realize that the international beer community has somehow managed to miss a huge story here.

For example, the Oxford Companion to Beer says juniper is used in the Nordic countries, and particularly in sahti. And that it's used in gin. That's pretty much it. The most comprehensive overview of additives in traditional brewing, Karl-Ernst Behre's 1999 paper[15], mentions that juniper has been used in Estonia. Again, that's it. Nils von Hofsten's jaw-droppingly erudite book on herbs in beer from 1960 briefly mentions juniper use in Sweden, but that's it[18]. And so on.

Rest of the article: Here