A homemade beer recipe with Lion’s Mane delivers a new style of creativity in the home brewing world. Additionally, this basic beer recipe provides an increase in cognitive performance and uses only 6 ingredients.
You can drink this mushroom brew anytime of the day and expect an increase in your brain function. Lion’s Mane mixed with alcohol… Use these cognitive allies to create something unique in your work, relationships, etc.
As a naturalist and home brewer, mixing medicinal herbs and various nuanced ingredients into homebrewing allows for endless possibilities. For this recipe, Lion’s Mane has amazing benefits for cognition and the grapefruit adds a blast of Vitamin C!
You are going to learn about Lion’s Mane, the exact way I used it to make a beer with natural ingredients, you will learn about fermentations role in medicine, and you will see the benefits of fermented Lion’s Mane.
This post is all about a homemade beer recipe using Lion’s Mane.
Best Homemade Beer Recipe
What is Lion’s Mane?
Lion’s mane is strongly revered as a fungi that increases cognitive function and cognitive performance. You may know of a few “functional mushroom” companies that sell tinctures, sodas, or gummies containing these nootropics.
My favorite is BrainWave. It is a gummy version of various kinds of mushrooms meant for energy and increased brain function. You can check BrainWave out here!
I am not an expert on functional mushrooms, so do your own research. American Botanical Council is a great resource. Including, the famous mycologist Paul Stamets.
For brewing’s sake, Lion’s Mane seems to have a very subtle flavor. In the culinary world, they tend to pair it with fish. That is why I have added a few more ingredients to this brew to spice up the flavor in this homemade beer recipe!
Fermentation’s Role in Medicine
As of right now, the medical system we have in place does not honor the potential of fermentation-based medicine. However, it is starting to become more well-known.
Fermentation has long been used as a method to extract the medicinal properties of plants.
First, fermentation acts as a natural preservative. Think about a bottle of vodka, when does that “go bad”? Plain vodka can last up to 10-20 YEARS!
So, think about a plant, or an herb in your medicine cabinet, or the herbal section at your local market… What is another method of herbal medicine? Tinctures.
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Tinctures are herbal medicines that are alcohol-based. The alcohol in the tincture is not only a solvent for the medicinal properties of the plant but also acts as a preservative.
In the Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, she discusses the evolution of our pharmaceutical antibiotics.
“Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming was studying Staphylococci bacteria in 1928 when he observed that an accidental mold growth in a few petri dishes destroyed those cultures. He identified the mold as… Penicillium… ushering in a new era in medicine.” (page 409)
Another word for “mold” is… Fungi AKA mushrooms.
Therefore, utilizing mushrooms in your diet, tinctures, mushroom brews, etc, can help combat the growth of bacteria in your body.
Last thing I will note here. Say you are incorporating mushrooms in your diet and some tinctures here and there.
What about fresh, hard-to-find mushrooms? Or the pride in using fresh ingredients in your health routine at home?
My answer: ferment! Ferment the mushrooms into a delicious homemade beer recipe, try it once, tweak the recipe, and keep brewing until you have the best homemade beer recipe using medicinal mushrooms.
Once you ferment the mushrooms into your mushroom brew, you will have a medicinal beer ready whenever you want with a shelf life of 6 months to 2 years (depending on the alcohol content, the higher the ABV the longer the shelf life).
Honestly, what could be better than that? Share with your friends and family, and enjoy!
The Ultimate Lion’s Mane Mushroom Brew
What equipment you need:
- One-gallon fermenter and airlock
- Funnel
- Thermometer
- Pot/kettle and stove
- Long spoon for stirring
- Ice machine or ice that is available to purchase
- Star Sans for sanitizing (or hot soapy water can also work, but I recommend the sanitizer. A lot can grow with fermentation so you have to be careful!)
What ingredients you need for this homemade beer recipe:
- 7 oz of cut-up Lion’s Mane (you can usually find at a local natural food store)
- 1 large grapefruit
- 5g of dried yarrow
- 1 lb of dry malt extract
- 1 gallon of fresh, purified water (not tap water!)
- 2.3 g of Safale us-05 yeast
Medicinal Benefits of this Mushroom Brew
The medicinal benefits of this mushroom brew are extensive. The Lion’s Mane, as mentioned above, is primarily a cognitive booster, in addition to a fungi that helps fight bacterial infections.
Grapefruits hold high Vitamin C, among other vitamins and minerals. Lastly, yarrow has similar effects as Aspirin, so a mild pain reliever. It also increases stomach acid and saliva which help aid in upset stomach or IBS. And lastly, yarrow is a mild sedative that helps relieve anxiety and/or insomnia.
How I brewed this mushroom brew:
1. Gather all your ingredients and equipment.
2. Sanitize ALL equipment that will touch your beer with Star Sans (using the instructions on the bottle).
3. Put water in the pot and begin to heat up.
5. While that begins to heat up, cut your grapefruit into two pieces and juice the grapefruit into another bowl, set that bowl aside. Then, cut your grapefruit up into slices.
6. When the water starts to get warmer, before boiling, add in your dry malt extract and stir well. There might be some chunks still floating that is ok, they will dissolve.
7. After stirring, add in your Lion’s Mane, sliced grapefruit and dried yarrow.
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8. Stir it well and allow this mixture to boil. Once boiling, boil for 30 minutes.
9. Before the timer goes off, put your bags of ice (or contents of your ice maker) into your sink and start to fill with cold water. This will be your ice bath to drop the beer’s temperature as quickly as possible.
10. Once the timer goes off gently put your pot in the ice bath. Keep the lid off to allow heat to escape. Check the temperature every 10-20 minutes and give the mixture a good stir.
11. Once the temperature reaches 75 degrees F you can take it out of the ice bath and drain the sink.
12. Gently remove the mushrooms and grapefruit with your spoon gently funnel your beer into your sanitized fermenter, and add in about 4 tablespoons of grapefruit juice. You can always add more in later as the flavor develops!
13. Pitch the yeast and stir/shake vigorously to aerate and dissolve the yeast. Place the airlock on and put it in a cool dark place.
Optional: Add more Lion’s Mane mushrooms (4.5 ounces) and grapefruit slices into the brew 5-7 days into fermentation for added flavor and nutrients!
14. After about 10-14 days of fermenting, you can gently funnel your brew into your amber flip-top beer bottles.
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15. Allow to carbonate for 14 days before enjoying!
This post was all about the best homemade beer recipe with Lion’s Mane.
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