Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Soft drinks from Kurpie and the Bug valley

Piwo kozicowe (Kurpie juniper beer)piwo kozicowe

Piwo kozicowe is a Polish non-alcoholic or low-alcohol "beer" of juniper berries with no grain or malt. Dried juniper berries are pounded and soaked, then boiled; the cooled decoction is mixed with a hop infusion, sweetened, and fermented with yeast for up to two days before it is kept cool. It is on Poland's List of Traditional Products in two regional versions.

Fully documentedSoft drinks2 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe Sterdyń recipe on Poland's List of Traditional Products (entered 2015); the listing gives no amounts.
Dried ripe black juniper berriesPounded in a wooden mortar (stępa)[govpl-kozicowe]
HopsInfused with boiling water[govpl-kozicowe]
Sugar (honey in the Ciechanowiec version)[govpl-kozicowe][govpl-jalowcowe]
Yeast[govpl-kozicowe]
Water[govpl-kozicowe]
Starteradded yeast

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Close-up: water moving into a piece

What changes: Dried juniper berries are pounded in a wooden mortar and soaked

Step 1 of 4
Pound the dried juniper berries and soak them
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

Output: soaked crushed berries.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Piwo kozicowe is a Polish non-alcoholic or low-alcohol "beer" of juniper berries with no grain or malt. Dried juniper berries are pounded and soaked, then boiled; the cooled decoction is mixed with a hop infusion, sweetened, and fermented with yeast for up to two days before it is kept cool. It is on Poland's List of Traditional Products in two regional versions. Made in 4 steps over 2 days. The longest step, mix the cooled decoction with hops, sugar and yeast and ferment, takes up to 2 days (Ministerstwo Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Wsi 2015). Yeast does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepup to 2 daysReported[govpl-kozicowe]Mix the cooled decoction with hops, sugar and yeast and ferment

What makes this one different

Piwo kozicowe has no grain or malt. The Sterdyń listing names juniper berries, hops, sugar, yeast and water, and pl Wikipedia says honey, sugar and juniper berries are used in place of grain malt.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Piwo jałowcowe (Ciechanowiec, Podlasie)Berries soaked a day in warm water, then boiled and flavoured with hops, cooled and sweetened with honey; entered on the List of Traditional Products in 2023.
  • Lenkwar / piwo kadykowe (Warmia)Blessed on the third day of Christmas and used in the New Year cake nowolat (pl Wikipedia).

Safety

The Sterdyń listing has the drink ferment up to two days at room temperature and then be moved to a small cask and kept in a cool place. Juniper berries have a European Medicines Agency herbal monograph for medicinal use. It says safety in pregnancy and lactation is not established and advises against use then, and against use in severe renal disease. The monograph does not assess juniper beer.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Using juniper berries as the main ingredient of beer was once widespread in northern, central and north-eastern Poland, often with hops and honey or sugar, but survived mainly in Kurpie. The name comes from young juniper shoots, "kozice" (pl Wikipedia). It was served at weddings, christenings and funerals.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [govpl-kozicowe] Ministerstwo Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Wsi, Lista Produktów Tradycyjnych, Piwo kozicowe (entered 2015-07-03, napoje, woj. mazowieckie)gov
  2. [govpl-jalowcowe] Ministerstwo Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Wsi, Lista Produktów Tradycyjnych, Piwo jałowcowe (entered 2023-04-05)gov
  3. [luczaj2007] Łuczaj Ł., Szymański W.M. 2007, Wild vascular plants gathered for consumption in the Polish countryside, a review, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 3:17paper
  4. [ema-juniper] European Medicines Agency, HMPC 2023, European Union herbal monograph on Juniperus communis L., galbulus (pseudo-fructus), Final - Revision 1, EMA/HMPC/241320/2021gov
  5. [s1] Wikipedia (pl), Piwo kozicowe (fetched 2026-10-16)wiki