Crooked Stave founder and brewmaster Chad Yakobson, one of the industry’s foremost experts on Brettanomyces, leads this in-depth course on brewing and fermenting funky, farmhouse-inspired beers.
Dry and spicy yet hop-forward, this lemongrass-laced saison from Oedipus in Amsterdam recently took home its third World Beer Cup medal.
Exotic but familiar, the tropical plant lemongrass is far from being one of the traditional beer ingredients … yet its flavor and aroma fit right in with the others.
No need for spices when hops and yeast can do the trick, and an attenuation-monster yeast strain helps to complete the profile for this big but dry saison.
Courtesy of Jeff Stuffings, founder of Austin’s Jester King Brewery, this homebrew-scale recipe for their highly regarded rustic table beer uses funky bottle dregs combined with a blend of saison yeasts to approximate their unique house culture.
“We had the idea that what’s lacking somehow today is this stubbornness, to stick to something—and to create something distinct in that way,” says Tom Jacobs. “For us, we want to do something that lasts.”
“I could buy conventional grain and save some thousands of bucks per year, but then I don’t have anything to tell,” Jan Kemker says. “I don’t know if we need to call it terroir. It’s liquid storytelling, I think.”
From Kros Strain Brewing in La Vista, Nebraska, here’s a recipe based on the mixed-culture saison that thrilled our blind review panel and went on to become on of our Best 20 Beers in 2021.
This wife-and-husband brewing team in Wallonia blend their Belgian and Brazilian roots with a deep love of tradition and a spark of contemporary creativity.
The labs have been busy developing new critters for us to corral. Here are few recent releases worth trying at home.