I had the very last of my nettle beers from last year with ice and it was bloody lovely. Non malted version, you know, basically a leaf flavoured sugar water - and I really like it.
I picked 8kg of nettles in under 3 hours the other day and am doing a 50l pub keg of the stuff. I threw in some Admiral to see if it would change things and am using the Gervin GV13 cider yeast to see if it makes a difference from the S-33. The great thing about picking nettles is having the old fellas asking you what you're doing and then lighting up like they'd stepped on the third rail in delight because they can't believe people still make it. And then you get anything from 3 to 30 minutes of stories about how their dad used to make it or tales of how they got trollied on their uncle's parsnip wine and how he had a shed full of allsorts brewing - things I've never heard of : ramsons, damsons, plumsons, plugholes, ars.... It made the day longer but in a really nice way. The actual time picking was under 2 hours as it's easy when they're fresh.
And I came up with a spectacularly girly cocktail of 50% red wine (Winebuddy that I don't bottle, just scooop out with a pint glass) about 20% elderflower cordial/presse and the rest lemonade and it's absolutely fekkin lovely. You'd get £9.60 a long glass for it in Dulwich if yout put a sprig in the top. Seriously, try it.
But don't try: Dandelion and Burdock mixed with skeeter pee (lemon wine). The citrus kills the round flavour dead and you don't get the best of either.
