Though today brewers consider hops a crucial ingredient in beer, it wasn't until medieval Europe that the bitter plant became a popular addition; until then, hops were just "one of the bazillion things you could put in a beer," brewer Butch Heilshorn told Gastropod. In 2013, Vinland 2, which Greenhagen made using yeast cultured from a Maine wild blueberry, became the first beer fermented solely with indigenous yeast to win a prestigious Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival. In this episode, we taste contemporary beers made with wild yeasts and herb blends—beers that, in many ways, more closely resemble those our ancestors drank for millennia, before purity laws and scientific advances.