"Today, of course, most beer is bittered with hops, and the plant is integral to beer’s identity in the United States and Europe, if not the world. Few know that beer used to be flavored and preserved with a variety of different herbs (bog myrtle and wild rosemary especially), resins, fruit, and animal products. The additives varied widely across northwestern Europe, but the mixture of ingredients, whatever it may have contained, was called gruit."