Digging, digging, digging

I wouldn’t normally devote a post to reviewing a single beer – particularly not a one-off – but in this case I’ll make an exception.

RedWillow Faithless is the generic name for the brewery’s short-run specials; most are variations on a theme of pale’n’oppy, but some are considerably further out there. Faithless 75 is described as a “Kviek[sic] Farmhouse IPA”; according to the brewery it’s made with “Sigmund Voss Kveik yeast”, which is a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated from a sample of kveik – kveik being the generic name for the yeast strains used in Norwegian farmhouse brewing, as documented on Lars Marius Garshøl’s blog (e.g. here). (Lars is also responsible for the wider availability of Sigmund Gjernes’s kveik yeast. Incidentally, “Sigmund Voss kveik yeast” should read “Sigmund‘s Voss kveik yeast”; Voss is the district where Gjernes lives and brews.)

Anyway, here’s the keg taps at the Hillary Step, and here’s RedWillow brewing a “farmhouse IPA” with certified kveik yeast. Farmhouse shmarmhouse – labels like ‘farmhouse’ and ‘saison’ cover a multitude of sins, as perhaps they always did – and IPA shmIPA, but kveik? That, I thought, was something new and different, and I had to give it a try – even if it was keg filth. (But… is it key keg? If so, is it unfiltered? If so, might there be real-ale levels of yeast knocking around inside that refrigerated bag? I wonder.)

On ordering it, I had no idea what to expect – and that’s a very rare experience these days. The thought crossed my mind that I might be about to taste my new favourite beer – like meeting Ticketybrew Pale for the first time all over again. Perhaps I primed my own perceptions, but I was initially reminded of that very beer – despite the inevitable cold prickly qualities of keg beer, it gave me a similar sense of the depth of flavour of a malty best bitter, combined with the resonant depths of an abbey beer. (Oh, I’m just getting started here. If you’re not into purple prose and general Adrianism, you may want to give the rest of this post a miss.) I was impressed. I drank some more… and found the ‘best bitter’ fading out and a more assertive ‘rye bread’ character coming in. Toasted rye bread. Toasted rye bread, with… what was that… cocoa? (And it’s a pale beer.) Actually, not just rye bread, it’s pumpernickel. Pumpernickel and chocolate spread.

As an IPA it wasn’t exactly true to style, clearly, but as a beer it was really interesting. So I tried it again – but I tend to fit in pubgoing around the rest of my life rather than vice versa, so it was a full five days before I made it back to the Step. Not so much best bitter this time, more cream soda. Cream soda with sourdough bread. Cream soda with sourdough and an odd little funky yeast note, savoury, almost meaty. Marmite on sourdough… with cream soda. Alcoholic cream soda (you can probably get that these days). And over the cream soda, what was that? Not pear drops – not acetone – but pears; a definite overtone of pears. Pears, and then there was dark chocolate coming through; pears wrapped around dark chocolate; basically it’s pears Belle Hélène, to follow up your marmite on sourdough. The whole thing was only let down, as the other flavours faded, by a tongue-coating aftertaste of sour milk or yogurt; it reminded me (on top of everything else) of the Mad Hatter tzatziki beer I wrote about here.

What’s going on, then, when – in the course of a week – best bitter turns to cream soda and pears, when rye bread turns to sourdough, and when yogurt starts elbowing its way to the front? The obvious explanation is that the yeast – or something that’s come along with the yeast for the ride – is getting a bit lairy. This is why I wonder if CAMRA would say this is real ale, if anyone asked them. Either way – and even with the sour-milk overtone – it’s a fascinating beer, not quite like anything else I’ve ever tasted – and how often can you say that?

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