Elderflower is in season – test-brewing our LPA

The elder trees around Linlithgow are in full bloom at the moment, so I have been busy this week foraging and test-brewing. Over the past few days I’ve been collecting elderflowers from the farm and a couple of other places across town, to help add some local flavour to our test LPA (Linlithgow Pale Ale). Scottish barley and oats with ‘endeavour’ hops, alongside the addition of locally foraged elderflowers, should create a fruity, clean and crisp ale with a real taste of summer. I’ll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks…

If you fancy making an elderflower drink of your own, elderflower cordial is really easy to make (there is a good recipe here from the BBC https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/homemade-elderflower-cordial). Elderflower wine or champagne are also fairly simple to make if you fancy a go at home-brewing – these were the first things that I brewed many years ago! As always with foraging, make sure to only take a little bit from any one site – we need to leave plenty of flowers for the bees.

Gentle warning: Elderflower is easy to recognise with a little practice, but always be really careful and make sure you are 100% certain you have the right plant before making food or drink out of anything that you forage.

Cheers, Brett