Botanical Beer Series | Anvil & Forge Brewing Wolf’s Bane Grey Tart

May 14, 2021 | Mathew Powers

It’s natural to seek silver linings in bad situations, but when storm clouds hung above our collective heads during the COVID19, crisis, Anvil & Forge Brewing and Distilling provided Illinois beer drinkers with some helpful grey — Earl Grey Tea, to me more specific. Earlier this year, Illinois Beer drinkers partook in a March Madness bracket-style beer event — #BEERacket — that, yet again, served as a virtual replacement for the in-person festivals we once took for granted. But, amid that reminder of the trouble caused by the evil microbe came a host of good beers, including Springfield Illinois’ Anvil & Forge Wolf Bane Grey Tart, a sour ale with with lemon peel, dried wild bergamot flower and Earl Grey Tea. An exemplary botanical beer, Wolf’s Bane reminds beer drinkers that there are still brewers willing to producing flavorful beers outside the realm of “trendy styles.”

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Forbidden Root | Cherrytree Amaro Ale

August 9, 2016 | Mike Wronski

ABV: 9.0%

Botanicals are seemingly having their place in the sun right now. Plants are more popular than ever in America, with people ordering kale in unlikely places, foraging for wild plants to eat, lining up to witness Corpse Flowers blooming country-wide and enjoying some previously illegal ones recreationally in four states. It was only a matter of time before they started showing up in our beer. Read More