Those who drink craft beer often define a beer without hops as Gruit. Is that right? The thousands of botanicals which can be used to be brewed are defined in one category? How can some style be so broad based and generalized when the botanical variety is so diverse. What do you call a beer that is not hopped? According to industry marketeers, it is narrowly defined as Gruit. I think the proper term ought to be "botanical ale" or "botanical lager" That way the invidual can decide what the beer is brewed with based on the actual plants used to flavor the beer.
I'm not super familiar with Gruits, so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but could a gruit be bittered with something that couldn't fall into the category of botanicals?
Gruit isn't the name of the beer. It is the name of the herb and spice mix that is used to flavor the beer.
And also the beer made with it. Kinda like calling modern beer "Hop", true, but it does have a dual meaning.
I'm pretty sure, by law, "beer" has to have hops in it, as well as a percentage of barley. So they likely have to add hops just to be able to sell it as beer. Might have to get a different alcohol license to serve something that isn't beer. I could be wrong.
Beer, as defined by you, uses hops. Gruit does not. Feel free to parse gruits into 100 sub-styles and create gruitadvocate.com.
The Feds are OK with brewers making "beers" without hops - but they have to be labeled according to FDA regulations, not the TTB's. Classification of Brewed Products as “Beer” Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and as “Malt Beverages” Under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act Rather than deal with a new set of regulations, domestic brewers of "gruits" apparently often do just add the relatively small amount of required hops - "7½ pounds of hops (or the equivalent thereof in hop extracts or hop oils) per 100 barrels". That'd be up to individual state law.
