River Cottage blogger: Steven Lamb

Steven Lamb, River Cottage host and resident smallholder, gives us the low down on his leftovers carrot beer

There have been several occasions when John Wright our foraging expert and I have been set a challenge by Hugh to find ingredients for a meal, where we have to think about what is in season and then see if we can find them. This time, though, our challenge was to make something palatable without initially knowing what our ingredients were.

We were asked to go and collect our mystery ingredients from the Canteen kitchen in Axminster and when we got there were presented with a bucket of carrot peelings. I thought we had been given the wrong bucket, but John quickly got into gear with a couple of suggestions and, as ever, his thoughts moved swiftly to alcohol.

We were allowed to supplement our ‘leftover brew’ with a few foraged additions – plus anything that can be used in the normal brewing process. Hops weren’t in season but John had heard that spruce tips were often used in brewing beer, particularly in Canada. We managed to track down someone locally who farms spruce trees for the Christmas market and we set about adding to our haul of rather tired and still dirty carrot peelings. We chose to pick the young spruce tips from the bottom of the trees so as not to hinder any growth and eventually had enough to add a bit of freshness to ingredients thus far.

I think that, on reflection, John could make alcohol out of a pair of Hugh’s old slippers, so my initial concern was soon forgotten. When eventually it came to tasting the beer my heart sank a little because it looked like muddy water but it did have quite a nice ‘heady’ bouquet. The first sips brought a pleasant surprise and, although I wouldn’t drink pints of it in my local, it was certainly drinkable.

I wouldn’t say Hugh was a fan but both he and Tim (head chef at the Canteen) were interested in it enough to allow it to be served to our guests. However, you may notice that we chose to serve it in green recycled glasses which helped hide the rather dull colour of the beer.

The brew went down well on the night, but I don’t think the breweries will lose any sleep – although I would encourage anyone to have a go at home brewing and if that means using up ingredients that would normally be thrown away, then all the better.

Try the carrot beer recipe for yourself.

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