#brassneck

Yeast Craze

I’ve been fascinated with kveik for a few years now, but not as long as Lars Garshol. He's the expert on the farmhouse brewing traditions of Eastern Europe. When most of us hear the term farmhouse beer, we imagine a golden yellow beer featuring flavorful yeast from Belgium. But people have been brewing on farms all over the world for millennia. Kveik is a kind of farmhouse yeast used brew in Norway. It’s basically undomesticated yeast that has been handed down and for generations. The yeast was traditionally collected on wooden rings and dried to be used again.

It’s a very strange yeast. Kveik can go hot and fast, tolerating temperatures over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and finishing fermentation in a matter of days. Oh, and it can handle up to sixteen percent alcohol. Unlike Belgian yeast strains which are spicy and phenolic, Kveik is more fruity with big ester notes. White Labs recently launched a new Opshaug strain, isolated from a kveik sample provided by Garshol, and they aren’t alone. Interest is building in these idiosyncratic yeast, and I’ve finally got my hands on a commercial version.

Discombobulated was brewed in collaboration with Vancouver, BC’s Brassneck Brewing using kveik yeast with citrus and cocoa nibs added. I wish it was a straightforward beer, but beggars can’t be choosers. The nibs mask the yeast flavor at first, all bitter and chocolaty on my tongue. But the nose is something different. It’s kind of dusty and musty like brettanomyces, but with a bright citrus scent. That could be coming off what citrus was added to the beer, but I like to believe it’s the yeast. It’s surprising how well the cocoa nibs and citrus meld over time, but I’ve like to taste the kveik itself.