It’s 7 AM on a Tuesday; you’re a labourer for a construction outfit, and you’re about to start your work at the job site for the day. Perhaps you didn’t sleep so well, so you’re looking for something to perk yourself up for the morning. No doubt you’d have a coffee or tea in hand to accomplish this, yes? Well, if you were an English labourer in the early 19th century, you would have instead reached for a pint of Purl.
Purl, otherwise known as wormwood ale, is just that: a strong English pale ale brewed with the tops of the wormwood plant. For the uninitiated, wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a herbaceous perennial that grows in temperate regions in many places, mainly Eurasia and in Canada and the Northern US. The plant as a whole has been widely used for thousands of years as a bittering agent, dating back to Roman times, mostly in a wide range of alcoholic beverages. It is most widely known for its use in the spirit absinthe, with many anecdotal reports claiming the wormwood induces some degree of hallucinations, well beyond anything that alcohol could provide. Other uses in beverages includes mead, bitters, aperitifs, and vermouth (and in Morocco, brewed as a tea that I can only imagine is unpleasantly bitter).
There is a lot of conflicting anecdotal evidence on wormwood’s psychotropic effects, but the latest studies show that most if not all commercially available absinthe, both historically and presently, do not contain enough of the active ingredient to induct hallucinations. So, fortunately for their safety, and unfortunately for the comedic image it ruins in my mind, these English labourers weren’t drunk and hallucinating on the job. While I do harp on the labourers for drinking on the job, in all fairness they were choosing this beverage over gin. Better a buzz than being wasted on the job, right? Besides, it’s not like there was anything in the way of OSHA around at the time. No doubt you needed a buzz to climb to extreme heights without fall arrest equipment.
Historically speaking, Purl, especially that featuring wormwood, has been around for a long time itself; it is mentioned in Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” and is referenced in a Charles Dicken’s novel “The Old Curiosity Shop.” By the mid-19th century, most everyone seems to have forgotten about the use of wormwood (perhaps due to the uptick in gin consumption?) and moved on to other ingredients such as gin, sugars, and spices such as ginger or bitter orange peel. It would not last long, however, as Purl was replaced in the later 19th century by unadulterated beers containing hops instead of these bittering herbs. That beer, in most cases, was what we know now as the bitter.
As with any historical style, regional differences in recipes and ingredient availability make it difficult to nail down any one type of Purl. But given what (little) we (i.e. I) know, we can deduce what that might look like. Given the similarities to an English pale ale or Brown porter, I would expect there to be a lot of English pale malt, with much lower amounts of caramel malt and brown malt, giving lots of bready, toffee, and maybe a little bit of roasted bitterness. Colour would pour a light to dark copper with a tan head. Given the absence of hops, we are left with the other bittering ingredients: wormwood would add a significant earthy bitterness, with a woody bitter aroma with a touch of licorice; orange peel, a bitter orange flavor with some pithiness and mild orange aroma; and gin, notes of juniper and with some alcohol warmth. Like most beers that don’t use hops, I expect it would taste similar in style to that of the gruit, depending on the exact recipe: earthy bitterness, with little difference in the aroma from taste.
As far as where to taste this gruit-like concoction, I’m not familiar with anyone in Canada currently making this. I understand this has been made by some US breweries (Sonoma Springs Brewing Co. in particular), but it is also available in its country/city of origin: in England, from a bar by the name of Purl London. While currently unavailable locally, maybe we’ll see a brewery put something together for a cask festival. Until that time, I can share with you my “Purl” of wisdom (insert collective groan here); throw some drops of wormwood extract (or unflavoured aromatic bitters) into a bitter or English mild, and you can recreate the experience for yourself.
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