Kveik Rye with Mugwort, Spruce, and Oak Apple Galls

As mentioned in my previous post two and a half years ago (!) I don’t drink much anymore. Consequently, I’m not brewing much. But this summer I did use up almost all of the malts I had lying around in a pair of 2.5-gallon brews (split from a single primary), and when I went to bottle them yesterday, I discovered a dozen unopened bottles from a beer I made two summers ago and forgot about. They’d not been stored in a cool place, unfortunately, but I stuck them in the fridge and am having one now… and it doesn’t seem to have aged much at all. Which is kind of surprising considering that I brewed them with a strain of yeast developed by Norwegian farmers for their annual holiday brewing, where speed of fermentation was selected for. (See Lars Marius Garshol’s groundbreaking book Historial Brewing Techniques for the full background on kveik.) This was Lutra Kveik from Omega Yeast, “perfect for brewing an even more neutral and refreshing pseudo-lager at its lower temperatures, without the lead time of other lager yeast.” Two years later, the mugwort is still a strong presence in a crisp, amber beer that no one is going to mistake for a lager, but doesn’t seem quite like an ale either.

Oh hey, look, the BeerXML Shortcode plugin for WordPress still works, despite not having been updated in seven years! I’m shocked.