The project began with a deceptively simple question: What is the oldest brewable yeast available to us today? That question set me on an 18-month journey that would combine history, archaeology, and brewing science in a way few projects ever have.

After researching multiple strains of yeast, I came across a German company called Primer’s Yeast (which, unfortunately, is no longer in business). The company had collaborated with researchers at Tel es-Safi, an ancient brewery site, where yeast cells dating to around the 9th century BCE were recovered from the interior surfaces of ceramic vessels once used for fermentation. Yeast can survive in a dormant state for astonishing lengths of time, especially when trapped in porous materials like clay. 

At Tel es-Safi, researchers carefully extracted microscopic samples from the inner walls of ancient brewing vessels. These samples were cultured under sterile conditions, and genetic sequencing confirmed that the organisms were indeed brewing yeasts rather than environmental contaminants. The site itself, identified as the Philistine city of Gath, has long been associated with large-scale beer production, and excavations indicate industrial-scale activity during the Iron Age. Household-level brewing is also attested in the region. For me, the idea that living cells could persist for nearly three millennia and then be coaxed back into activity was as compelling as the beer they would eventually produce.

I have both a B.A. and an M.A. in Middle East Studies and have spent years studying the culture and history of the Levant, a historical region in the Eastern Mediterranean, making the discovery irresistible. After many back-and-forth discussions with Primer’s Yeast, I was able to secure a sample of this ancient yeast — and an opportunity to brew a beer that someone living nearly 3,000 years ago might have recognized.

The idea of reviving ancient yeast was not entirely new. In 2019, Seamus Blackley, best known as the creator of the Xbox, made headlines when he worked with an Egyptologist and a microbiologist to extract dormant yeast from Old Kingdom Egyptian vessels. He used it to bake bread with ancient grains like emmer and barley. The bread, he said, was sweeter and richer than modern sourdough. His Twitter (now X) thread documenting the process went viral, sparking global fascination with the idea of tasting history. If bread could be reborn from antiquity, why not beer? That question lingered in the cultural imagination, and my project picked up the thread, shifting the focus from the oven to the fermenter. 

Of course, saying you are going to brew a 3,000-year-old beer is much like saying you are going to make ancient ice cream. There is no way to absolutely recreate the conditions, flavors, and ingredients of antiquity. The water, the mineral content, the starches, and the fermentables all differ from what they were millennia ago. Yet there are general attributes that remain recognizable across time. For beer, “recognizable” rests on three pillars: The grains and adjuncts available in the region, the equipment and heating methods that shaped flavor, and the fermentation practices that determined acidity and carbonation. 

In the Eastern Mediterranean of the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, open-vessel fermentations at ambient temperatures probably produced beers with low natural carbonation and a gentle acidity. The result was likely a beverage that, while not identical to modern beer, would still have been recognizable to ancient drinkers — lightly smoked, gently sour, floral, and only faintly carbonated.

The first step in recreating such a beer was to identify the correct ingredients. I began by combing through academic articles and primary sources, searching for evidence of what ancient brewers used. What I found was a great deal of conjecture. The base ingredients were clear enough — barley and, to a lesser extent, emmer wheat — but the adjuncts were far more uncertain. Many articles mentioned dates, figs, grapes, and other fruits, but the amounts varied wildly, and the resulting flavors could swing dramatically depending on the proportions. Fruit adjuncts were certainly common as foods and sweeteners in the period, but precise brewing ratios were rarely preserved. This made primary sources all the more valuable.

Eventually, I turned to the Ebers Papyrus, one of the longest surviving Egyptian medical texts. Written around 1550 BCE during Egypt’s New Kingdom, the papyrus was purchased in Luxor in the 19th century but likely originated in Thebes — the city we now call Luxor — at a time when the Temple of Karnak was rising as one of the largest sacred complexes in the world. This was the era of Amenhotep I, when Egypt was reemerging as a powerful, unified state after the expulsion of the Hyksos.

The papyrus contains hundreds of prescriptions, many of which mention beer both as nourishment and as a vehicle for plant preparations. Crucially, it offered not only lists of ingredients but also amounts. This allowed me to analyze and organize the data, identifying the most common adjuncts and their typical proportions.

After reviewing the recipes, removing ingredients that appeared rarely, and comparing the amounts of more common ingredients across different entries, I settled on eight adjuncts. These would function much like an ancient form of gruit, the herbal mixture once used to flavor beer before hops became dominant. The papyrus helped ground the project in a text that has survived more than three millennia and offered a rare glimpse into the culinary and medicinal practices of the time.

Still, there was another challenge. The names of ingredients listed in ancient texts do not always correspond neatly to the plants we know today. To ensure accuracy, I cross-referenced the papyrus with Dr. Howard Carter’s notes on the botanical specimens found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, who died in 1323 BCE. By comparing the recipe with the archaeological record, I was able to confirm the identity of the ingredients and then purchase them from sources as close to the Levant as possible. With the recipe finalized, I prepared to brew a 10-gallon (38-L) batch. This step was crucial because without careful cross-referencing, the project could have easily slipped into guesswork rather than scholarship.

The backbone of the beer was purple Egyptian barley, 10 lbs. (4.5 kg) in total. Barley has always been the primary fermentable in beer, and archaeological surveys in the Nile Valley routinely recover barley from New Kingdom layers. Experimental malting of ancient landraces has shown high variability in enzyme activity, so using a heritage-type barley was a reasonable way to approximate the past. Scholars have estimated ancient beer to range from very low to relatively high alcohol content, so I chose a middle ground of about 5% ABV. This strength seemed plausible for both everyday consumption and special occasions. Fortunately, a local source was able to provide heirloom purple Egyptian barley, making the choice both historically grounded and practically feasible. Choosing this heritage barley was a way to echo the flavors of the past, since the character of the grain itself would have shaped the beer as much as the brewing process did.

To complement the barley, I added 5 lbs. (2.3 kg) of emmer wheat. Emmer was another grain commonly identified in ancient brewing, and malting it seemed appropriate. I also chose to acidulate and smoke the emmer, reasoning that the fires used to heat the wort in antiquity would have imparted a smoky flavor while also offering some antimicrobial protection. This aligned with targeting a sour profile consistent with warm, open fermentation. The smoking process was simply a reflection of necessity in the ancient world, but in this case gave the beer a rustic quality that modern drinkers often associate with artisanal craft brewing.

I considered brewing the mash in a clay vessel to mirror ancient practice, but ultimately used modern equipment for safety and temperature control. Archaeological evidence shows that Iron Age kilns were capable of firing pottery to high strengths — strong enough to withstand repeated heating — and even early glass production was underway in the Near East by the 9th century BCE. While glass was mostly used for ornaments and small vessels, its very existence demonstrates that artisans of the time had mastered high-temperature control. Some experimental archaeologists suggest that ancient brewers may have dropped heated stones into the mash to raise temperatures, a method that leaves telltale scorch marks on ceramics. Acknowledging these possibilities gave the project a deeper sense of plausibility, even if the recreation ultimately relied on stainless steel rather than clay.

The adjuncts added complexity and depth. Four cups of desert dates, also known as Egyptian balsam fruit, contributed sweetness and richness, much as they still do in porridge today. Four cups of golden raisins, purchased from Israel to remain geographically authentic, provided another layer of fruitiness. Four cups of sycamore figs, identified in Tutankhamun’s tomb, added their distinctive flavor; these were sourced from just outside the gates of Karnak Temple in Luxor, linking the figs directly to the city where the Ebers Papyrus was penned not two hundred years prior. Four cups of Yemeni Sidr honey, derived from the Christ’s Thorn tree also found in Tutankhamun’s burial goods, connected the recipe to the same New Kingdom world that produced both the papyrus and the Valley of the Kings. Two cups of prickly juniper berries lent a resinous note, while two cups of carob fruit added sweetness and body. Half a cup of black cumin introduced a subtle heat that highlighted the floral notes, and half a cup of Hojari frankincense contributed a powerful aroma that initially overwhelmed the beer but later mellowed into a beautifully integrated floral character. All of the adjuncts with the exception of the honey and frankincense were added to the boil (those two ingredients were added after cooling the wort below 95 °F (35 °C) to keep the properties present in the wort).

Once the ingredients were combined, the yeast pitched, and fermentation allowed to run its course, the beer was bottled without added carbonation. Some scholars argue that ancient beer was consumed quickly after brewing, but there is also evidence that it was stored for festivals, feasts, and future use. In such cases, preservation would have been necessary, and my decision to bottle and condition the beer for a week reflected this possibility. The week of conditioning also allowed the flavors to meld, softening the sharper edges of the frankincense and balancing the sweetness of the fruit with the acidity of the fermentation.

When the beer was finally ready, I held tastings in a variety of settings. The most common reaction was surprise at how refreshing it was. Again and again, tasters remarked that it was easy to imagine drinking such a beverage after a long day in the desert sun. It was floral, sour, lightly smoked, and gently carbonated — a flavor that lingered in memory. Tasters compared it to a German Gose — light, refreshing, slightly salty, and sour, with notable fruitiness. Some noted hints of apricot alongside the floral finish, flavors that lingered long after the glass was empty.

The beer eventually earned the name “Sinai Sour,” a nod to its Levantine focus and tart profile. It was unlike anything on tap at a modern brewery, yet it felt familiar, as if it belonged to the same long tradition of human fermentation. To drink it was to experience a continuity between ancient and modern practice, grounded in ingredients, method, and result. From the industrial brewers of Iron Age Gath to the household recipes preserved in the Ebers Papyrus, the Sinai Sour echoed a spectrum of ancient beer culture. It was not just a beverage, but a bridge across time. 

In the traditional Western brewing canon, the grains of choice have always been barley and wheat. Even in the earliest records of human civilization in ancient Sumer, fire-baked clay tablets record endless wedges of cuneiform detailing movement of so many silas (roughly a quart/liter) of different grades of barley and wheat (different grades yielding different quality levels of beer). While the exact varieties have changed over the millennia from Mesopotamia to modern times, barley and wheat have been a constant.

Over time, other standard adjuncts joined the brewer’s toolbox — like rice, maize, and oats — each bringing its own qualities to the pint glass. They provide easy-to-ferment sugars. Rice provides a crispness. Corn provides a candied note. Oats contribute a rich silkiness perfect to counterbalance intense hoppiness.

But, stepping outside into the wider world, anything that provides starch or sugar has inevitably found its way into the local alcoholic beverage. If it’s available, convenient, and cheap, then into the booze vat it went. Other crops provide a chance to use plants that grow with better ecological and economical footprints. Think beer with less water and pesticide usage and improved quality of life for farmers. Beyond the yeast fuel, each ingredient brought a local flair that made that drink, the local drink. 

As brewers strive to find “new” flavors, they’ve reached into other traditions and areas. With modern shipping they don’t even have to risk life and limb on death defying trips to far flung corners of the globe to try something new! You can just picture our ancestors shaking their heads at the almost absurd surfeit of modern life. 

One of the beauties of homebrewing is how easily we can tap into the world’s largess. We have a freedom at our ridiculously small scale. You don’t need a shipping container of grain, not even a full sila. Anywhere that provides grain — the homebrew supply shop, the grocery, the local “international” market, and the online mega-marts — can provide you unique brewing opportunities. With a few simple processes and some light Googling, you’ll be set!

There are a few considerations you need to take into account when looking at a grain you’ve never brewed with before to make sure you get the most out of your experiment.

Pre-Treatment

First things first, does your new ingredient require any pre-treatment before use? Quinoa, which is technically not a grain, but a seed from the Chenopodium quinoa plant, benefits from being washed to remove bitter flavors that would detract from your pint. Other grains like unprocessed fonio have a husk that must be removed and even good old-fashioned maize can have germs that should be removed due to oil content or harsh flavors. Often, by the time you purchase these ingredients, the pre-treatment has been done for you. The point is, know what or if something needs to be done before you toss it into your mash tun.  

Busting Out the Starch

If you’re using a grain that’s been par-cooked — like grain flakes that are steamed and smashed between rollers (think your classic oats) or torrified/puffed/popped (think puffed wheat, Rice Krispies) — you don’t have to worry about this next bit. But if your grain is just basic kernels or ground, you may need to do something to access the starch needed for brewing. 

If you’re using unprocessed grains, you’ll need to figure out its gelatinization temperature. Think of a grain kernel as a lockbox filled with starch. All that fodder is locked away safe from amylase enzymes that would dare to convert it to sugars usable by yeast. Each lock opens when you hit at or above the right temperature for long enough to bust the starch free of the caging. Once gelatinized, the starches move into solution and can be transformed by the enzymes in the mash. A simple search of the web will usually get you in the ballpark (quinoa, for instance, is in the 145–170 °F/63–77 °C range, according to a quick Google). If your grain is coming from a brewery supplier then they will have the information on hand.

For a handful of alternative grains that I’ve seen brewers use and their gelatinization temperature ranges, check out the list at the end of this section.

If you’re lucky and your grain is either par-cooked or the gelatinization range is at or below standard mash temperatures, you can proceed as normal (many wheat variants nestle perfectly in our mashing range, making them an easy fit). Chuck the grain in the mash and go. If it isn’t, then you’ll need to cook the grain first. 

There are a number of ways of doing this — decoction mashes are used in African brewing practices to deal with the higher temperatures required for millet and sorghum (two of the continent’s foundational beer ingredients). By pulling grain from the mash and bringing it to a boil, the locks will be busted, at least for most of the grain. You can do a decantation mash — instead of pulling grain like a decoction, you pull as much of the wort as you can from the mash and bring the whole mash body to a boil (found in African and gluten-free brewing practices). Or you can even do an American cereal mash, which cooks the pesky grain separately (think uncooked rice or corn) and then add the cereal to the main mash as a heating element.

And if all of that is too much for you, you can always go old-fashioned and make a loose porridge with the grain, cool it, and add it to the mash. You can even do that the night before! Remember, the purpose of this step isn’t to make subtle, al dente grain bites, it’s to smash open the granary stores of starchy goodness so we can give our yeast sweet, sweet sugar.

For the mad science brewer, there are blends of enzymes (like Ceremix Flex, a blend of maltogenic amylase, alpha amylase, and pullulanase) that will bust the starches out of their lockboxes and ready for conversion — no gelatinization required. By using these blends, you can avoid the need to separately cook your cereals and run a “normal” mash (following the recommended mash schedule). You can find the enzymes and specific instructions on using them largely through the gluten-free brewing community. They use them with gluten-free malts to produce wort that flows freely instead of being turned to porridge. Keeping extra enzymes (either a blend or just straight alpha amylase) on hand is a good brewing practice for days when you’re experimenting, or even as insurance for when things go wrong! 

A Brief Catalog of Alternative Grains

Here are a few examples of readily available grains from around the world that can take your beer in different directions. Some grains have long brewing histories (millet, sorghum, black rice), while others are relatively new. Again, keep in mind we live with an embarrassment of riches and just about anything starchy can prove to be interesting brew fodder.

Enzymes In General

When brewing, we rarely give enzymes a thought beyond “if I select this mash temperature, I favor the action of this enzyme,” but once you start reaching outside of trusty barley and wheat, you’ll need to pay attention. 

Fortunately, maltsters have made it easy for you and provide a diastatic power score for their malt. This is usually expressed in American and British brewing circles in degrees Lintner. (There are a few different systems, but I prefer Lintner, so there we are). If your target grain is coming from a malt supplier, they should be able to tell you at least if a grain can “self-convert.” If not, you’ll need to pack in enough enzymes to convert the starchy goodness to sugar. Remember that excess starch in the fermenter provides a wonderful food source for contaminants since brewer’s yeast can’t touch the stuff!

The general rule of thumb for making sure you have enough enzymes is to calculate your mash’s “average diastatic power” and if it’s 40+, you’re in the clear. To calculate this, take the diastatic power index for each of your grains and multiply it by the weight to determine a total value for each addition. Add those values together and divide by the total weight of the grain bill. 

Grains like low-color American 2-row or 6-row (Pilsner/pale) are insanely enzymatically hot with Lintner values like 120–160. They provide enough power to convert two pounds/kg of adjuncts for each pound/kg of base malt. German Pilsner malts (~80) are still capable of converting one pound/kg for one pound/kg. When you get to darker and toastier malts, like a British pale ale (~50), you see a quick drop-off. It’s generally safe to assume that paler malts and lager malts have higher enzyme levels. 

If you’re flying blind, it’s always safest to assume you won’t get any additional enzymes from the new grain. Extra enzymes never hurt to have when playing around! Now you can see why I say that American malts are enzymatically hot enough to convert starch three buildings away that looked at them funny. (It should come as no surprise that American growers have been influenced by the corn and rice-heavy American
industrial beers.)

Designing Your First Recipe

With the science out of the way, you’ll need a recipe to learn what your new grain can do. If it’s an ingredient with traditional brewing uses like sorghum and millet, you seriously should consider running with a recipe from the grain’s source. After all, they’ve had experience with what can and can’t be done with this grain that you’re looking at for the first time. Break out of your well-traveled lanes. Try these new-to-you processes and flavors. And thanks to the same global supply chain that brought something like teff to your hands, you can now easily get other traditional ingredients like the gesho leaves used to bitter Ethiopian beers and meads. If you don’t want to commit to a full-sized batch, then by all means make a smaller 2-gallon (8-L) batch. It’ll be a less intensive, less expensive, less wasteful brew day that gives you a chance to find different flavor patterns for your palate. 

Alternatively, if you just want to figure out how to use it in a new creation that’s fermenting in the back of your mind, take a cue from the world of SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beers. Instead of brewing a SMaSH, brew a SMAH (Single Malt, Adjunct, and Hop) beer. Keep it simple with a base malt that either gets out of the way or can complement the grain. There’s absolutely nothing boring about a Pilsner malt recipe; many styles, like Bavarian hefeweizen (Pilsner malt, wheat, bittering hops), are SMAH beers. Keep the hops unobtrusive like my favorite, neutral, and clean Magnum. Remember, there’s nothing stopping you from brewing a “simple” beer and then adding dry hops or other flavors once you’ve learned what you needed to.

For the adjunct, using 10% of the grain bill is the safe place to start, but many adjuncts really show off at 20%. Then some, like wheat, are pretty happy being nearly the whole beer, but keep those higher percentages to later experiments for now. Also, those higher percentage experiments will make you thankful you followed my earlier advice about keeping additional enzymes on hand! After making these first flavor-probing forays, you’re ready to play!

Check out my SMAH recipe below for a good starting point if you want to get a feel for a new grain and really taste the flavors it contributes to your brew.

An Express Taste Test Tip

To get a quick sense of what an ingredient will bring to the glass, take a taste! Pop a small amount of prepared grain into your mouth and give it a chew. Let the sample sit in your saliva for a minute or two. As the enzymes in your saliva attack the mass, you’ll perceive the newly available sugars. Take notes on the flavor. Breathe out through your nose and note the aroma. Now you have practical taste experience that, when combined with grain supplier data sheets and any test beers, can guide your further brewing.

Before you get too wobbly from the idea of using your saliva to free up sugars for a taste, remember that even today saliva is used as a kick starter to traditional forms of corn beers from around the Americas. 

Getting Playful

Despite my insistence that the simplest recipe is the best recipe, man does not live on simple beers alone. Particularly in this day and age of culinary-inspired beers and pastry stouts as attention getters, there’s a reinforced sense of playfulness in brewing. When you have additional ingredients beyond barley and wheat, you add new colors to your flavor palette.  

It’s easier to talk about the simple recipe concept — it’s focused, it’s driven to a singular point, and it leans on the well understood K.I.S.S. principle. Telling you how to play successfully is like describing the “one true way to paint,” but I’ll give you a couple of pointers.

Understand the flavor you’ll get from each of these ingredients. (For instance, Sorghum is renowned for a sharpness that you don’t find in other grains.) 

Use the SMAH beer to cement the actual impact.

Picture the experience you want — what role does your alternate grain play? Is it the star of the show? What other elements do you need to support it? (Remember, the point isn’t to say “I made a teff beer” as much as, “I made this great beer that uses teff to a purpose.” 

And because the K.I.S.S. principle is a universal law, don’t go overboard with your choices. Don’t sling seven different grains in the tun when three will do the trick!

The Practicum — A Study in Fonio in Two Parts

Here’s an example of grain testing from my own homebrewing. Recently, RahrBSG began importing an ancient West African grain called fonio. They sent me samples and turned me loose on it. It’s clear from looking at their specification sheets and reading the language that they picture the grain as providing a boost to the tropical fruit characters popular in modern American IPAs. Thanks to their guides, I knew I could use up to 20% of the stuff in my mash tun with no trouble. Several breweries have done 100% fonio beers, but that’s madness beyond my daring!

Before I brewed, I cooked up a portion using a simple recipe from Senegalese-born chef and fonio cheerleader, Pierre Thiam. It showed Fonio’s deep earthy and cinnamon spiced tones that I wanted to capture in my final beer.

I ended up creating two recipes. One was a tropical-oriented modern pale ale with a whirlpool charge of mango-heavy Styrian Wolf hops. Using the new Gambrinus IPA malt provided an unobtrusive base for a beer that ended up being surprisingly hop-forward with the spicy earthiness of the fonio providing an accent to the Thai-like hop aroma. This U.S. homebrew ended up being truly global with Canadian malt, West African grain, and German and Slovenian hops. Find this recipe, named Fonio Gold, below.

The “easy” beer out of the way, I tackled the sort of high-concept design process I’ve become known for. One of my brewing mentors, Bruce Brode, passed away, and given his musical and polymath ways, I wanted to honor him with a saison for the Southern California Homebrewers Festival and took inspiration from the Fibonacci sequence (recipe below). This recipe leaned on fonio to provide earthy and spicy notes that would enhance the rustic characters of the other grain choices. The end result was complex, strange,  and fun, while not being over the top “XXXXXTREEEEMEME.” (For a recipe like that, look back at the July-August 2025 “Techniques” column on brewing with fruit for my Dole Whip Tripel recipe.) The Fibonacci Saison was crisp, dry, earthy and rustic while being an overly complicated math joke that would make most people’s eyes glaze over. In other words, perfect.

Looking at the two recipes with fonio, you can see both the SMAH and playful recipe designs in action. You could reasonably substitute any number of other grains into the Fonio Gold and get a good result. But with the Fibonacci Saison, anything other than fonio would require other changes to deliver the desired flavor impact. 

Mash the World

With all the globe’s growth potentially at your fingertips, I hope these example techniques and philosophies encourage you to try things from beyond the classic European-inspired brewing traditions. There are multiple ancient varieties of wheat like emmer and einkorn that can bridge your brew back to those early moments of Sumerian record keeping. There are starchy crops used in other brewing practices like cassava and bananas to pull into your mash. Even old brewing favorites like maize are coming to life with heirloom varieties grown and malted. 

Let your mash paddle explore the world, but as you do so, keep an eye toward good global citizenship. Particularly when crops are coming from vulnerable communities, make sure to buy from ethical sources that support the farmers. We don’t want a repeat of the quinoa health craze causing shortages in the Andes.

Beer brings people together the world over and now you can also bring the world into your beer! 

I do not really know which idea we got first — doing the highest elevation brew or participating in the Mongol Rally. It was my idea, and my friend Kjell Einar Karlsen thought that this crazy idea was a good one. Who are we? Kjell (pictured on the right wearing the KegLand hat in the primary photo) is the CEO of KegLand Europe and also the Manager of Ølbrygging, Norway’s largest homebrew supply shop. I am Kjetil Jikiun (pictured on the left), homebrewer since 1996 and the founder of Norwegian craft brewery Nøgne Ø back in 2002.

The Mongol Rally is an annual event where people drive small and old cars from Europe to Central Asia. It used to conclude in Mongolia, but for political reasons it now ends in East Kazakhstan. The most common route is to drive south of the Black Sea through Turkey, and then from Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan. We concluded that this ferry ride was a bit unattractive and decided to drive through Iran and Afghanistan instead, but with Russian visas to be able to drive north of the Caspian Sea if the hostilities between Israel and Iran continued. For most participants, the highlight is the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where the highest point is at 15,272 feet (4,655 m) above sea level. This is the site we planned to hit pause on the race to break out our brewing gear and brew a batch of beer. Now, while I cannot say for sure nobody has ever brewed beer at a higher elevation than this, I can say I have been unable to find any mention of it through online searches or asking AI. 

One criteria for participating in the Mongol Rally is that the engine size of the vehicle must not exceed 1,000 cc. To be able to brew a batch of beer on the journey, we would need space to bring equipment. In the search for a small car with good space for cargo we ended up with a 1984 Daihatsu Hijet with a 540 cc two-cylinder engine with 28 horsepower. This is a category of cars in Japan, called Kei-car. It is a tax bracket, and the word kei, means light.

It is indeed a long way from Norway to the Ak Baital pass, where we intended to brew — about 8,300 miles (13,000 km). I started from Norway July 8 and drove through Denmark, Germany, and Poland before teaming up in Prague with Kjell for the official start of the Mongol Rally there on July 14. From the starting point in Prague the race is about 7,000 miles (11,000 km), of which I’d guess about a quarter of which is on gravel or off-road conditions. We quickly realized that the choice of car was not perfect, as the max speed of 47 mph (75 km/h) forced us to drive for as much as 14 hours per day. We continued through Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Our intention was to do some brewing in these countries as well, but those brew days were never able to happen as the car was so slow and we needed so many hours on the road every day. 

In Turkey our engine stopped and required a new cylinder head gasket, which was not obtainable and a new one was made by hand in Ankara. This delayed our travels by almost a week before we could continue. Turkey is not a small country and only on July 27 could we proceed into Iran. First priority was to go to Tehran to get visas for Afghanistan, which we were granted after an interview with the Taliban at the embassy. To make matters more difficult, the license plates of our car were stolen in Iran. We solved this by going to a nearby town to get new (and fake) Norwegian license plates produced locally. Strictly illegal, but we had no other choice. The guys at the print shop were amazing and refused payment. Overall, we were very impressed and enthusiastic about how friendly and hospitable people in Iran were. 

Exiting Iran was no easy feat, as we were interrogated by Iranian intelligence. Knowing that the penalty is death if suspected of being a spy, the episode was very stressful as they looked through  our phones and computers, checking photos, social media activities, and contacts. But they allowed us to leave, and then we were in Afghanistan. The road between Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif was more of a track in the sand than a road, and we had to drive for 32 hours non-stop in order to reach our destination. We found out the stress of the previous interrogation was just the beginning of our rising stress, as we were stopped at gunpoint repeatedly by Taliban. 

On August 4 we were quite relieved to enter Tajikistan. First of all, we felt safer there. But this was also the nation in which we would do the world record highest brew. After four weeks of driving, we were finally in the right country. First we drove to Dushanbe to get the car fixed. New shock absorbers, rear differential, and the air filter needed some TLC.

And then we could start on the Pamir Highway — a gravel path made by the Soviet Union about a hundred years ago. Day 1 to Kalaikhum at 2,600 feet (800 m) elevation. Day 2 to Khorog at 7,200 feet (2,200 m). The third day was going to take us to Murghab, but the road was too bad and we had to camp (with another Mongol Rally team) in the dessert at 14,100 feet (4,300 m). Subzero temperatures at night and severe altitude sickness the morning after made this very challenging.

The following day we made it to Murghab and at 12,500 feet (3,800 m) this was a good cure for the altitude sickness. Then it was D-day for our brew, and we got started at daybreak. We reached Ak Baital at 15,272 feet (4,655 m) at 10:30 a.m., and rigged up the brewing equipment — a modified KegLand BrewZilla 6.5-gallon (25-L), propane gas-fired system. 

We brewed a pale ale with 80% pale ale malt, 10% wheat malt, and 10% Carapils. We mashed at 149 °F (65 °C) and sparged with cold water. It is indeed strange to see boiling occur at 183 °F (84 °C) due to the lower pressure at such a high elevation. Our recipe used 3.5 oz. (100 g) Nectaron^® hops, with 0.4 oz. (10 g) added for bittering and the rest at late additions. 

The brewing attracted quite a number of spectators, who enthusiastically came over to have a chat. Not that this road is very busy, but during the four hours we were brewing, perhaps as many as 100 people passed us and stopped to chat. One guy from Vietnam was on a bicycle trip and told us that he was also a homebrewer and had KegLand equipment back home in Vietnam. At this elevation the sun is quite intense. We totally underestimated this, and by the time the brewing was done we both had very red faces and necks from sunburn. 

We had no way to cool the wort, and it was transferred into heat-proof plastic bags (the ones used for fresh wort kits at Ølbrygging). These were then kept in the car as we proceeded into Kyrgyzstan and found a hostel in Sary Tash, not far from the border. The morning after, the wort was at 88 °F (31 °C), and we transferred it into six KegLand 5-quart (5-L) fermenters (placed inside an insulated cooler) and pitched Kveik Yeastery Stalljen yeast. We fermented at 0.7 bars (10 PSI) of pressure. Even with brewing backgrounds, how this fermentation and pressure control worked as well as it did is a mystery to me as we passed up and down mountains in Kyrgyzstan from 3,300 to 10,000 feet (1,000 to 3,000 m) at least three times. Then it was time to pass customs into Kazakhstan. Upon entrance, authorities decided that our car needed to be X-rayed. I feared they would find the beer and confiscate it, but to our surprise, they did not. And we could proceed to Almaty on August 13. 

On August 19 we had a big party at the Ginger Bar in Almaty, where the “Pamir 4655 Ale” was served. The beer was hoppy and smooth. Quite clean, but with some light fruity estery notes.  I think the lower boiling temperature made the bitterness lower and made the hop aromas more intense.  An aromatic and balanced pale ale was the result.  The yeast did not have time to settle completely, so what we served was a bit hazy. We used a picnic faucet and gave small taster servings to all the guests at the bar. Perhaps 7 oz. (200 mL) per serving. We were surprised to see how many Mongol Rally participants showed up for the party, likely close to 100. The feedback on our beer was great, which of course made us very happy that the world’s highest brew was also well received. In fact, many of our guests at the celebration came back for a second and third glass.

The finishing party for the Mongol Rally took place in Oskemen in East Kazakhstan a couple of days later. From Almaty, it is about 600 miles (1,000 km), on a wide and straight freeway crossing flat agricultural lands. Kjell and I concluded that this drive, just for another party, would be pointless, and we decided that we had reached our goal for the trip. 

I guess it started with a strong focus on participating in the Mongol Rally, but took a shift to being intent on the brewing and the altitude record. So, we parked our car in Almaty and took a flight to Tbilisi, Georgia, to indulge in qvevri-fermented natural wines before we continued back to Norway. Georgia has the oldest winemaking traditions in the world, and their use of these large, egg-shaped terracotta clay pots to ferment in is very unique. We’d both recommend anyone interested in fermentation to pay it a visit.

And what happened to the little Daihatsu Kei-truck which held up with the relentless beating from thousands of off-road miles in torturous terrain? It was loaded into a container with other Mongol Rally cars to be picked up in the Black Sea port of Constanta in Romania two months later.

The brewing equipment did not share the same fate. It was donated to a clever local Kazakh homebrewer who was thrilled to get all this relatively expensive equipment for free. Hopefully he will put it to good use and make some great beers, which we hope will recruit new people in Kazakhstan to start homebrewing. 

Brew Your Own readers including Publisher Brad Ring explored South Africa’s vibrant craft beer scene before ending with a thrilling wildlife safari experience.

Over the course of five days this group of 18 North American homebrewers met with outgoing local pro brewers in the greater Cape Town and Winelands region happy to answer questions while we enjoyed sampling their beers and touring their breweries. And along the way we enjoyed South Africa’s delicious cuisine including an authentic braai (barbeque) at Woodstock Brewing in Cape Town with plates filled with local boerewors sausage, pork ribs, and steak.

One of the beer highlights of the trip was spending an afternoon with several dozen homebrewers from around Cape Town. After a warm welcome, we enjoyed drinking their homebrews made with South African hops especially for this meet-up. It was a wonderful chance to trade brewing tips and make new homebrew friends halfway around the world. In the end we chose a winner from among the South African hopped homebrews that will now be brewed locally on a commercial scale at Shackleton Brewing. We also had the chance to purchase some hard-to-get South African hops as special souvenirs to bring back home to North America for future brews.

We had other unique experiences with African brewing ingredients. Umqombothi is a traditional wild-fermented African beer made from sorghum and corn for special family celebrations. You drink it together as a group out of a clay pot only a few days after the wild yeasts on the grains start fermenting and as a result it tastes slightly sweet and a bit sour.

The group got to enjoy this indigenous cloudy brew — you could call it the original hazy beer — at an award-winning brewery in the Cape Winelands region called Soul Barrel that champions the use of traditional African ingredients. We also enjoyed a barrel sample of their Wild African Soul, an amazing blend of Umqombothi and Soul Barrel’s mixed culture farmhouse ale that won the 2025 Best Beer in Africa award at the Africa Beer Cup competition.

Every stop we made was filled with smiles, friendly brewers, and great craft beer. From drinking pints in a parking lot with the locals outside Charlie’s Garage Craft Brewery, to tank samples of fresh hefeweizen at Franschhoek Beer Company, to great beers and food looking over the ocean at Aegir Project, to a wonderful lineup of lagers at Cape Brewing, it was truly special. Plus, South Africa is probably the only place on Earth where you can visit a colony of playful wild penguins and tour two breweries in the same afternoon!

A huge thank you to our South African beer guide Lucy Corne for an amazing job. Lucy is a force in South Africa’s craft beer industry running the Africa Beer Cup competition, the BeerEx conference, and writing countless articles and books promoting craft beer across the African continent including writing for BYO. Our group had the special beer experiences and truly warm welcomes from local pro and homebrewers thanks to her.

After five full days packed with unique and special beer experiences, the group switched gears and headed over to other side of South Africa for a once-in-a-lifetime, four-day safari. Staying in a beautiful lodge, we climbed into specially outfitted Toyota Land Cruisers each day in the early morning and late afternoon for game drives that exceeded all expectations.

Each safari drive brought new up-close viewings of rhinos, lions, giraffes, hippos, leopards, and more. And every afternoon we stopped to have a “sundowner” beer during our drives to watch jaw-dropping African sunsets in one of the most scenic settings ever for happy hour. It was a thrilling way to wrap up our memorable BYO trip to South Africa.

Our next BYO trip with space available will be stateside in New England combining baseball and beer next August 2–7, 2026. Details on how you can visit nine local craft breweries including classics like Allagash and Treehouse, plus attend three minor league games in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts before the finale with a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park can be found at byo.com/trip. We hope you can join us on a future BYO trip. Cheers! 

Hops have been used as a preservative and bittering agent in beer for well over 600 years. While hops are most often used in the boil, the U.S. craft beer revolution and rise in popularity of India pale ale has seen broad use of hops in the whirlpool and for dry hopping. But what about adding hops to the mash? 

It is remarkably easy to add hops at the start of your mash. At mash temperatures, some bitterness will be extracted as they steep. Mash hopping at a typical mash temperature of 156 °F (69 °C) for 60 minutes will give you approximately the same utilization as a whirlpool addition at the same temperature and time. The utilization is quite low, however, typically around 10% of that achieved during an equivalent boil. So, a 60-minute mash won’t yield a lot of bitterness, but it may have other benefits. 

Mash Hopping History 

Mash hopping has a rich history, being widely used in lighter styles like lagers, pale ales, and Pilsners in the last 150 years to create a subtle bitterness without the harshness that might come from boiling hops. Going even further back, it was not uncommon to simply add grains and hops in the mash and skip the boil altogether when brewing.

Mash hops did show up occasionally in homebrew recipes from the 1970s and 1980s, as homebrewers tried to use historical techniques to create older beer styles. The practice fell out of favor by the early 1990s as Glenn Tinseth, Greg Noonan, Mark Garetz, and others developed equations for estimating the bitterness of hops used in the boil. Labs also made it easier to measure IBU levels. The net result was that brewers realized that utilization of hops in the mash was quite poor at the 10–20% level compared to a boil, and mash hopping seemed an expensive waste in comparison. 

Mash hopping faced another nail in the coffin in the early 2000s as the IPA revolution was taking off and brewers began to focus more on hop aromatics. Because all aromatic oils in a hop cone are volatile, meaning they boil off in a short period of time, brewers began focusing on early boil bitterness additions and then late hop additions for aromatics. Any aromatics from mash hops are effectively lost in a 60–90 minute boil once the mash is complete. The combination of poor utilization and no aromatics effectively killed mash hopping as a technique for many years.

However, that has changed in recent years as more advantages have been discovered. 

Mash Hopping for Beer Stability 

Having long been a skeptic of mash hopping, I was intrigued when Scott Janish, Co-Owner of Sapwood Cellars (Columbia, Maryland) joined me for a recent podcast episode (BeerSmith Podcast, Episode #305) to discuss mash hopping. Scott said he has recently been using a mash hop addition in many beers at Sapwood Cellars to improve the long-term stability of packaged beer and he covers this technique briefly in Chapter 14 of his book The New IPA. 

The basic concept is that the acids and polyphenols in the hops react with metals present in the mash. Malts all contain low levels of iron, copper, and manganese. While the metals alone are not necessarily a problem, these metals can combine with oxygen in a finished beer. The combination of metals and oxygen creates compounds that are highly reactive with other compounds in beer, leading to rapid staling as the beer ages. Reducing the metals, along with careful oxygen control throughout the brewing process, can significantly improve the shelf life and flavor stability in a finished beer. 

In The New IPA, Janish discussed studies that combined alpha and beta acids from hops with various metal ions and then measuring changes in concentration.¹ Hop acids were found to be most effective in reducing concentrations of iron and copper, but not terribly effective at reducing magnesium, manganese, calcium, or zinc levels. Alpha acids in the hops were found to be more effective than beta acids or isomerized alpha acids, suggesting that higher alpha hops used in the mash, before isomerization in the boil, were most effective in reducing iron and copper levels. 

A study by Zufall and Tyrell showed that manganese has the largest impact overall.² They did a series of experiments adding copper, iron, and manganese at various stages and found that manganese had a larger impact than copper or iron in oxidation of the finished beer. Since manganese, copper, and iron in the mash are primarily driven by the grains used, malt selection is also a consideration here. 

Janish recommends a hop rate of approximately 0.5 oz. (14 g) per gallon (3.8-L), or about 2 lbs./barrel for commercial sizes to reduce metals. 

While mash hopping has been shown to reduce iron and copper levels, and therefore improve long-term beer stability, it needs to be combined with an overall strategy for reducing oxygen levels at every phase in the brewing process. Mash hopping will only be effective if you have processes in place to reduce oxygen exposure, particularly post-fermentation, through steps like oxygen-free beer transfers, oxygen-free dry hopping, and carefully controlled packaging and bottling. 

Mash Hopping to Enhance Fruity Flavors (Thiols) 

Considerable research has been done to understand and enhance hop flavor and aroma. With the popularity of New England (hazy) IPAs, there has been a push to both select hops that feature tropical flavors and enhance the impact of those flavors in the finished beer. We’ve also seen a concerted effort to understand, categorize, and maximize the impact of all the hop aroma oils. 

Research into hop compounds has highlighted the importance of thiols in creating tropical flavors and aromas in beer. Thiols have been researched for some time in the context of wine, as they play a major role in the flavor profile of many popular styles such as Sauvignon Blanc. However, thiols are present in many hop varieties and malts, and play a significant role in beer aroma and flavor. To maximize the impact of thiols for styles like hazy IPA, there has been a resurgence of interest in mash hopping used in combination with specific, often genetically modified, yeast strains to free more thiols to create a big, fruity aromatic finish in the final beer. 

What Are Thiols? 

Chemically, a thiol is a sulfur version of alcohol. Where alcohols have an -OH group in their structure, thiols have a -SH group. Though thiols make up an incredibly small fraction of hop compounds, many of them are highly aromatic. They are so aromatic that most can be detected at levels measured in nanograms per liter. Aromas vary from tropical fruits to citrus and garlic. There are a variety of thiol compounds in hops, but researchers have focused on the “big four”: 3SH/3MH, 3S4MP/3M4MP, 4MSP/4MMP, and 3SHA/3MHA, each of which has its own aroma profile.  

Breaking down the individual thiol aromas, we have 3SH/3MH, which has grapefruit, citrus, white grape, and gooseberry aromas. Next, 3S4MP/3M4MP has passion fruit, grapefruit, and rhubarb aroma. 4MSP/4MMP has black currant, tomato plant, chive, and, in the extreme, a cat pee aroma. Finally, 3SHA/3MHA has passion fruit, citrus, guava, and body sweat aromas.³  

Free Versus Bound Thiols and Biotransformations 

Further complicating things, thiols in hops can be either free or bound. Free thiols are aromatic but bound thiols are an odorless precursor that are bound to amino acids. Some bound thiols can be freed during fermentation, but typically only in detectable quantities via specialized yeast engineered to free them. We have many hop varieties that have good concentrations of bound thiols, but these thiols remain bound unless the brewer takes steps to free them. Some pale and lager malts also have bound thiols, in particular 3SH/3MH, that can be freed using selected yeasts. 

Biotransformation is a term that describes a variety of chemical processes that take place during fermentation that change one compound to another compound. For many years, brewers have been selecting hops like Citra®, Columbus, and Cascade, which are high in specific compounds like geraniol, linalool, and citronellol that are easily transformed into an aromatic form during fermentation. These provide a great aroma impact on the finished beer and are a major factor in many modern hoppy beers. 

However, a second form of biotransformation can occur during fermentation that frees up bound precursor chemicals releasing them in their free aromatic form. This is the biotransformation we are targeting when using mash hops. We select hops high in bound thiols to use in the mash and combine that with specific yeast strains selected to release those thiols during fermentation. 

Hops To Use for Maximum Thiol Impact 

Lallemand produced a chart showing hop varieties high in various thiols here. I’ve included an extract below: 

Hops high in free thiols:

3SH/3MH (Grapefruit): Apollo^TM, Galaxy^®, Simcoe^®, Citra^®, Mosaic® 

3S4MP/3M4MP (Rhubarb): Nelson Sauvin^TM, Ekuanot^®, Hallertau Blanc, Mosaic^® 

4MSP/4MMP (Black Currant): Nelson Sauvin^TM, Apollo^TM, Citra^®, Galaxy^®, Mosaic^®, Simcoe^® 

3SHA/3MHA (Passion fruit): None 

Hops high in bound thiols: 

3SH/3MH (Grapefruit): Motue-
ka^TM, Saaz, Cascade, Citra^®, Hallertau Blanc 

3S4MP/3M4MP (Rhubarb): Hallertau Blanc 

4MSP/4MMP (Black Currant): Nelson Sauvin^TM, Aramis, Strisselspalt, Mandarina Bavaria, Simcoe^® 

3SHA/3MHA (Passion fruit): None 

Janish also published an excellent post highlighting the research of Aurealie Roland on bound concentrations of thiols found here. In it, Janish includes Roland’s chart of free versus bound thiols, highlighting the fact that 3SH/3MH is by far the largest concentration of bound thiols in many hop varieties. Many of these same hops also had 4MMP precursors. Here is a list of hops containing the highest 3MH precursors (grapefruit) in order of concentration: Calypso^TM, Saaz, Simcoe^®, Nugget, Cascade, Hallertau Perle, Hallertau Tradition, Citra^®, Apollo^TM, Hallertau Nugget, Eureka^TM, Bravo^TM, Hallertau Cascade. 

To this list we can add additional work done by Yakima Chief, which published their Survivable Compounds study based on the 2021 crop year and highlighted which compounds survived best in both whirlpool and dry hopping. Included in the list was 3MH/3SH. The hops that did the best include:  Cryopop^®, Chinook, Krush^®, Sabro^®, Idaho Gem^TM, and Comet.

For mash hopping we are primarily concerned with bound thiols, as most of the free thiols will be lost during the boil. We can see from the Lallemand lists that many hops like Hallertau Blanc, Nelson Sauvin^TM, and Simcoe^® have high levels of both free and bound thiols. While the Yakima Chief work was done only using hops in the whirlpool and dry hop phase, it does give us an indication of hops that may also contain bound thiols that can be transformed during biotransformation. However, your best bet might be to start with the Roland or Lallemand list of hops high in bound thiols when selecting hops for mash hopping. 

Selecting Yeast To Use With Mash Hopping 

Since the mash hopping technique relies on freeing bound thiols via the biotransformation process during fermentation, you need to select the right yeast for this technique to work. Aromatic thiols are bound with amino acid precursors and require specific  enzymes from yeast to free them. This depends on specific genes present in the yeast strain. 

Some yeasts do a reasonable job processing bound thiols. For example, the Lallemand hop chart mentioned earlier also contains a short list of their best strains for freeing bound thiols. These strains include LalBrew Diamond, Farmhouse, Nottingham, Voss, and Verdant. 

To specifically address the issue of bound thiols in hops, some yeast providers have experimented with genetically modified yeast to activate the IRC7 gene and effectively enable β-lyase production (this enzyme frees thiols bound to the amino acid cystein). Omega Yeast was one of the pioneers in this area, launching their Cosmic Punch OYL-402 yeast strain, which is a modified variant of their popular British Ale V OYL-011 strain. This strain that they call a “thiolized yeast” is designed to free bound thiols from their precursors during fermentation, creating a more aromatic fruity finish in the beer.

Omega later launched Star Party OYL-404, a variation of their West Coast Ale I OYL-004 as well as Lunar Crush OYL-403, their first thiolized lager yeast that is a variant of their Mexican Lager OYL-113. Most recently, they launched Helio Gazer OYL-405, which is an even more potent thiolized variant of ale yeast designed for hazy IPAs. 

Omega did some experiments with mash hopping as well, and found that using Cascade hops in the mash along with Cosmic Punch delivered a 3SH level almost 10 times the level found using their standard parent strain British V. When they ran the same experiment using both yeast strains and traditional whirlpool hopping, they found approximately a 3x difference in 3SH levels. So, in their experiments, mash hopping outperformed whirlpool hopping for delivering 3SH in the finished beer when using a thiolized yeast strain.⁴  

Other yeast labs have started introducing thiolized strains. Berkeley Yeast offers their “Tropics” line including London, Vermont, and Andechs (low diacetyl) strains designed to free tropical flavors. Escarpment Labs also has a strain called Thiol Libre designed to free thiols.  I’m certain other labs are working on additional modified strains to free thiols. 

For those who prefer non-genetically modified yeast, can’t get them in homebrew sizes, or because of local laws about GMO, White Labs has their Tropicale Yeast Blend WLP077, which is a non-GMO yeast blend selected to release bound thiols. It again relies on the IRC7 gene, and in side-by-side tests against their standard California Ale WLP001 yeast was shown to release very high levels of 3SHA thiol.⁵ 

Mash Hopping for Thiols in Practice 

Let’s say you want a fruity, hazy IPA, what would your mash hop schedule and quantities look like? Janish suggests 1–2 lbs. per barrel, which is about 2.5–5 oz. in a 5-gallon batch (or 70–140 g/19 L). For your first attempt, I would stick with a hop variety high in 3SH/3MH precursors like Calypso^TM, Simcoe^®, Saaz, or Cascade.  

Next, you need to select a thiolized yeast to use. If you are not opposed to genetically modified yeast, I would probably select one of the Omega thiolized strains like Helio Gazer or Cosmic Punch. The best non-GMO option I could find was White Labs Tropicale Blend. Since these yeasts also do a good job biotransforming whirlpool hop additions, I would select a whirlpool hop variety high in 3SH/3MH thiols, and for a hazy IPA it is always appropriate to add a healthy dose of aromatic dry hops. 

Is Mash Hopping Worth It? 

Given its long history and several modern breakthroughs, I would say that mash hopping has evolved significantly from its roots but is still applicable for modern brewing. Mash hopping as a method for adding just bitterness or to control pH is a poor use of hops, but mash hopping to enhance long-term shelf stability or free thiols can be effective.

If we look at mash hopping as a technique to reduce metals in the finished beer, which slows oxidation and staling, I think the technique is an important one, especially for commercial brewers. While mash hopping won’t fix problems with oxygen that occur later in the brewing process, it can be an important element in enhancing shelf stability in a brewery where you already have good oxygen control processes in place. For homebrewers, the technique is probably less important as many homebrewers’ beers face larger risks from oxygen post-fermentation when transferring and packaging their beer — and correcting these potential issues is a higher priority. 

When we explore mash hopping as a technique to enhance fruity flavors in styles like hazy IPA, it looks like a winner. If you select a hop variety high in bound thiols and then combine mash hops with an appropriate thiolized yeast you can get a measurable impact in free thiols and aroma in the finished beer. 

References: 

¹ Janish, S. (2019) The New IPA: Scientific guide to hop aroma and flavor. (pp 207-209). ScottJanish.com.  

² Zufall, C. and Tyrell, Th. (2008) “The Influence of Heavy Metal Ions on Beer Flavor Stability.” J. Inst Brew 114(2), 134-142: www.themodernbrewhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Metals-and-Beer-Stability.pdf 

³ “A Thiols Checklist” Hop Queries: www.hopqueries.com/archives/a-thiol-checklist-hop-names-included

⁴ “All About Thiolized Yeast” Omega Yeast: www.omegayeast.com/all-about-thiolized-yeast 

⁵ “WLP007 Tropicale Yeast Blend – New Thiol Releasing Non-GMO Yeast Blend” White Labs: www./blog.whitelabs.com/wlp077-tropicale-yeast-blend-new-thiol-releasing-non-gmo-yeast-blend 

Dear Replicator, I recently had and loved Evenin’ Sunset IPA from Bear Chase Brewing in Virginia. It had a great blend of everything I enjoy in an IPA: A clean malt profile with excellent hop character. I would love to hear some tips for a replication!
David Ackerman 
Richmond, Virginia 

Set against the rolling landscape of western Loudoun County, Virginia, Bear Chase Brewing Company occupies a piece of land with a story. The farm, first recorded in 1905 as “Bonnie Brae” (Gaelic for “Pleasant Hill”), earned its name in the 1980s when the owner’s dogs would frequently chase black bears across the property. When five friends partnered to purchase the farm in 2017, they kept the name and fulfilled a dream: To create a place to “hang out and drink with their friends.” 

Head Brewer Ken Wilson’s journey to the brewhouse first began in the kitchen. “For most of my life I have been a chef,” Wilson says. “I discovered homebrewing in 1996 when I attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.” In an era before the craft beer boom had fully reached the East Coast, he says, “If you wanted good beer, you needed to brew it.” 

After years of balancing a demanding career as a chef with a passion for homebrewing, he finally made the leap and turned a hobby into a new business venture.  

“By the time I turned 40, the stress and long hours from working in kitchens had caught up with me and I knew I needed a new career,” Wilson says. 

He started at Bear Chase as an assistant brewer, eventually taking the helm as Head Brewer. His background gave him a unique perspective on the transition. 

“Running a brewery is a job,” he admits, citing equipment maintenance, managing supplies, and planning as the bulk of his work. “Luckily, my experience as a chef and running large catering operations helped prepare me for the ‘job’ part of what I do.” 

While the hazy IPA Evenin’ Sunset is the recipe we’ll focus on, let me first share more about this brewery’s wide range of styles. Unlike some tasting rooms you may walk into and find an assortment of IPAs with a few hop substitutions to differentiate them, Bear Chase offers a wide array of styles to meet customer demand. “We attract a wide range of customers and for us it is important to have a broad variety of styles,” Wilson says. 

Their Kölsch has won back-to-back silver medals at the World Beer Cup and a gold at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Their Oktoberfest has also taken home gold twice at GABF. They’ve also got rotating beers throughout the year from easy-drinking American styles like their light “Beer Merica!” and a blonde ale, as well as a hefeweizen, amber lager, oatmeal stout, and a line of hard seltzers, with other styles rotating in the mix too.

That chef’s palate and pragmatic approach are evident in Bear Chase’s flagship juicy IPA, Evenin’ Sunset. It’s a beer that perfectly balances intense aromatics with a soft body, though in fact, it was at first a beer born from an accident. 

“The beer came about by mistake, actually,” Wilson recalls. “We used to have an IPA on the menu called Mornin’ Sunrise. One brew day five years ago, we were brewing it and came to realize we didn’t have the Mosaic® hops we needed for the recipe.” Facing a brewhouse dilemma, the team had to think fast. “So we pivoted and put together a different hop combo and got Evenin’ Sunset. The recipe has been tweaked a lot over the years, but it remains a favorite.” 

That new hop combination — Callista, Simcoe®, and Citra® — wasn’t just a random substitution, but rather an exercise in careful flavor structuring. Wilson chooses his hops as deliberately and precisely as a chef would choose spices. 

“I tend to classify hops into three categories: Soft, punchy, and supportive,” he says.  

According to Wilson, soft hops, like Callista, have a more balanced alpha-to-beta acid ratio and produce softer flavors. Punchy hops, such as Citra®, are the stars that drive the profile. Supportive hops, like Simcoe®, have flavors that add complexity and play a supporting role. 

“Callista is a soft hop with German parentage; green pineapple is the dominant flavor,” Wilson says. “This pairs great with Citra® and helps mellow it out a little. The Simcoe® is added for support to give more complexity to the hop profile.” 

Contrary to the strategy taken by many modern IPA brewers, however, Wilson suggests that more is not always better. “We actually removed 30 percent of the hops from the original recipe of Evenin’ Sunset and our customers liked it better. Try to find balance.” 

 Wilson draws inspiration from the fact that the beer industry, much like the recipes of an adventurous brewer, is always in flux. 

“One of the things I love about this industry is that it is always changing. I am constantly learning how to make new products or improve my methods.” 

With that, know that this recipe from the brewer is their current iteration. What you see next year may not be the same, but, like Bear Chase, feel free to adapt it to your preferences as they evolve!

Two pro brewers share their approach to brewing with non-traditional grains including sorghum, amaranth, and black rice.

Leo Sawadogo: Montclair Brewery

Leo Sawadogo was a homebrewer for over a decade before he and his wife, Denise, opened Montclair Brewery in New Jersey in 2018

Brewing with unique grains is all about expanding your mind and then trying to explore a different horizon in brewing. It’s about not being afraid to try different things and get out of your comfort zone, and then making something unique. When I travel to another country the first thing to do is go to the local market and look to see what ingredients are available and then try all these ingredients in foods while thinking about how they would work in my beer. And growing up in Africa, I remember certain tastes that I want to recreate here. Grains like fonio are a food staple in Africa, but nobody uses it for beer there. A lot of people come to our brewery to try those kinds of beers with these unique flavors.

Sorghum is the most widely available grain in Africa and is commonly used for brewing (done by the women in each household). I remember my mother would soak the sorghum for at least two days to malt it and then spread it out and dry it before using it to brew the beer. Growing up watching her always made me want to do that. Now we make a sorghum beer, but I get malted red sorghum imported from Africa. Sorghum provides a very unique flavor that is difficult to describe as it doesn’t taste quite like anything else. It’s gluten-free, so we brew it in a different area and use 100% sorghum for customers looking for gluten-free options. Sorghum requires a few unique steps. First, you have to mill it very fine into a powder. It also requires enzymes to get to the sugars and help avoid a stuck mash, such as Ultra-Ferm®, a liquid amyloglucosidase enzyme that hydrolyzes dextrins into fermentable glucose. It also requires a healthy dose of rice hulls to avoid a stuck mash. We put these at the bottom of the mash and then the sorghum on top. I keep the hops low, allowing the sorghum flavor to shine. 

I’m inspired by traditional African beer, but as a pro I do things a bit differently. They actually boil the beer for up to three days, which is partly because that is the tradition and how they’ve been taught, but it may also be because they don’t use enzymes so it needs a longer boil. I do a traditional one-hour boil and then cool and pitch kveik yeast. I believe Norwegian kveik is actually similar to the yeast in Africa, where fermentations are finished in three days. 

A while back we brewed a beer in collaboration with Allagash Brewing that used amaranth because a farmer in Maine had some available. Jason Perkins at Allagash said we should get out of our routine with the usual stuff and make something different. And I’m like, yeah, why not? I myself had wanted to brew with amaranth for a long time. We had to mash the amaranth first. I don’t recall the exact temperature, but believe it was in the 140s °F (low-mid 60s °C). The grain worked well, and provided a distinct crispness to the beer. I don’t think it contributed much in the flavor of the overall beer because amaranth is a pretty neutral grain, but it provided a clear color and a crispness. 

In the near future, I’m looking at brewing more with less-common brewing grains including fonio, couscous, and quinoa. 

As a homebrewer, if you come across a new grain, I’d recommend a simple recipe. The reason you’re using a unique grain is to try to discover its flavor in beer, so try not to overpower its contributions. Probably start with a small batch using 10–20% of the new grain and then try to see what flavor is going to come out of it. Don’t get stuck trying to brew a particular style. Just make beer.

Damien Martin: Dangerous Ales

Damien Martin is a trained chef who fell in love with fermentation, leading him to open Dangerous Ales in Milton, New South Wales, Australia in 2019. 

One of the more interesting grains we’ve used is black rice (also called forbidden rice) in a dark lager. While most rice used in lagers is fairly neutral in flavor and purely added for fermentables, black rice has a very unique flavor profile. It’s not just about the color; it brings complexity and subtle grain-driven character that you don’t typically get from standard rice varieties. I’d describe it as a soft, grainy nuttiness and with a slight earthy undertone, which adds layers rather than just boosting alcohol or lightening body. 

Black rice gelatinizes at a higher temperature than barley malt, which requires a cereal mash to access the starches. I mashed in at 113 °F (45 °C) and held for 10 minutes, adding a small amount of barley to generate enzyme activity. I then boiled the black rice for 20 minutes before adding it into the main mash at a slightly cooler-than-usual strike temperature to account for the heat from the cereal mash. It is a similar method used for any rice — I’ve previously brewed a jasmine rice lager that included the same steps — the main difference is the color and flavor black rice contributes.

Anywhere between 10–20% of the grain bill works well, depending on style. Any higher and you may start impacting mouthfeel and head retention, or need to compensate with additional enzymes. 

For anyone who is interested in brewing with black rice for the first time, I’d recommend starting with lagers or porters, as the sugars are fully fermentable and suit styles that allow the rice character to subtly come through. 

To date, our Black Rice Lager is the only recipe we’ve brewed with it, but it’s a fun ingredient. Based on that experience, one recommendation for homebrewers experimenting with it would be running the rice through a mill to crack it open. It’s not essential, but it helps speed up the cereal mash process. 

Q. You mentioned that you use a GLP-1 drug. What has your experience been with beer consumption while taking it?
David Hernandez
Springfield, Missouri

A. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in the spring of 2023 during a routine check-up. For those of you not well-versed in this subject, here’s a brief overview. Type 2 — sometimes called adult-onset — diabetes is the form that emerges later in life. Unlike Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 treatment these days does not typically include insulin injections.

At first, I was a bit shocked because this wasn’t something I had spent much time thinking about. But soon enough, it was time to follow my doctor’s advice. I responded well to the two prescribed drugs, and my A1C level — a measure of hemoglobin-bound glucose and an indicator of average blood glucose concentration over the roughly three-month lifespan of a red blood cell — quickly fell into the normal range. I dodged a bullet and my eyes were opened to GLP-1 drugs, and soon I was able to get a prescription for Mounjaro.

Mounjaro, unlike other GLP-1 drugs on the market, is a combination of GLP-1 and GIP agonists. These compounds mimic hormones related to glucose metabolism, increasing insulin release after eating or drinking while often decreasing glucagon (which raises blood sugar), slowing digestion, and reducing cravings. One key to my journey through all of this has been my use of a continuous blood glucose monitor, or CGM. Although I could have stopped using one long ago because of my successful treatment, I continue to wear a CGM. They’re inexpensive when covered by insurance, and they provide incredible, continuous, real-time data.

I quickly discovered that I was my own walking test subject. Eat this, drink that, take a walk, sit on my tail — and check out the results! The first thing that became apparent was that consuming starchy foods like bread and rice caused a quick spike in blood glucose. Not a huge surprise, but it hits differently when you see the data streaming live on your phone. Interestingly, my spikes were reduced when I ate veggies and/or protein along with bread or rice. Another quick discovery: Walking after eating has a big effect on how long those spikes last. Even a relatively short walk is effective in reducing the intensity and duration of post-meal glucose spikes. Nothing too shocking so far — but what about beer and other alcoholic beverages?

Alcohol consumption was where things got surprising for this formerly ignorant guy with Type 2 diabetes. Alcohol often lowers blood glucose levels. Because I use a CGM, I quickly discovered that low-glucose alarms coincided with having a beer on an empty stomach. Interesting! I also found that certain types of beer were worse than eating a big chunk of bread or a small portion of rice. These included beers with high finishing gravities — often not obviously sweet — massive imperial stouts, and even some non-alcoholic (NA) beers. Seeing spikes after drinking NAs was a surprise and opened my eyes to different types of NAs in the market.

The last major realization was the powerful effect Mounjaro has on my appetite. At first, the effect wasn’t noticeable. The dosage of these drugs is slowly increased over several months because jumping straight to a high dose can cause nausea. Even low doses don’t sit well with some people, and not everyone can tolerate these drugs. Luckily for me, I’ve never had an issue. As my dosage was gradually increased, I discovered that overindulgence in almost anything resulted in an extreme sensation of fullness.

I know this is a major departure from my usual brewing discussions, but the sad truth is that my story is all too common these days. My experience may become yours one day. See that as a good thing, because my disease was spotted before it became a serious problem. You asked about my experience with beer consumption, and I’ve finally built up to the crux of your question.

Beer makes me feel full. In my world, that just sucks because beer is at the center of my profession. I still love it, but drinking something like a liter of festbier takes a bit of planning. And here we are — threading the needle of being on a wonder drug like Mounjaro, with all its benefits, while still wanting to drink beer like a rockstar.

Listen up, folks who are in the same boat: Start brewing beers with lower OGs, because those big, burly beasts we all know and love push all the wrong buttons in the “feeling way too full” department. Highly hopped beers — especially hazies — also fill me up. What doesn’t seem to make me feel full includes wine, dry beers (even those with big malty flavors), moderately hopped beers, and beers with balanced flavor profiles. That last one’s a bit of a shocker. In the past, I could muscle through unbalanced beers, but not these days. Lucky for me, most German-style, balanced IPAs, and nitro beers remain easy for me to enjoy without being bloated.

Q. I have read a few things about the use of chitosan in beer and would like to get your input on this topic.
Kevin Sullivan
Spokane, Washington

A. Until recently, I hadn’t paid much attention to chitosan because it was one of those finings that seemed more popular among winemakers than brewers. And the few chitosan products I knew about that were available commercially were made from shellfish, posing an allergen risk for consumers with shellfish allergies. That’s not to say other chitosan products haven’t been around for a long time — I was simply unaware of them.

Two things have recently opened my eyes to chitosan products: The search for alternatives to pasteurization for use in non-alcoholic beer and the growing market visibility of fungal (vegan) chitosan for use as a beer clarifier. Before digging into these applications, I want to briefly introduce chitosan to those who may not be familiar with it.

Chitosan is a naturally derived fining agent used to clarify beer (and wine) by helping unwanted haze-forming particles drop out of suspension. Although chitosan isn’t a protein, it behaves similarly to isinglass. It’s produced by deacetylating chitin, a structural polysaccharide found primarily in the shells of crustaceans like shrimp and crabs — but it can also be sourced from fungi. In fact, fungal cell walls, especially those of Aspergillus and Mucor — a genus of filamentous fungi found in soil, decaying organic matter, and even some fermented foods — provide an increasingly popular and sustainable non-animal source. 

Chemically, chitosan is a positively charged polymer and ranks as the second most abundant natural polysaccharide on Earth, right after cellulose. That abundance makes it both renewable and relatively inexpensive. When added to beer, chitosan’s positive charge acts like a magnet for negatively charged particles — proteins, yeast cells, tannins, and other haze formers. These bind together into heavier clumps that sink out of suspension, leaving the beer clear and bright. Chitosan works gently, without stripping flavor or aroma, and is often paired with silica-based finings for even better clarity and stability.

Although chitosan can effectively clarify beer on its own, it’s often paired with kieselsol — a colloidal silica better known by the trade name Biofine Clear. The name kieselsol comes from the German word for flint or silica — “Kiesel” — combined with “sol,” which refers to a specific type of colloidal solution. The two work synergistically because they carry opposite electrical charges: Chitosan is positively charged, while kieselsol is negatively charged. When used together, they act like a two-step magnetic system. Kieselsol first binds to haze-forming proteins and other positively charged particles, creating small flocculates. Chitosan is then added, binding to the remaining negatively charged yeast cells, tannins, and colloids. The result is a faster, more efficient precipitation of haze components than either agent can achieve alone. This pairing produces bright, shelf-stable beer without filtration — ideal for brewers who want professional clarity while maintaining full flavor integrity.

That’s the fining story about chitosan. A more recent development involves specific chitosan fractions being used for their antimicrobial properties. Chiber — short for Chitin-Based Extract for Beverages — is a new product gaining attention in the beverage and food industries for its ability to inhibit and prevent the growth of certain microorganisms.

Unlike heat pasteurization, Chiber is active immediately upon addition and continues to work through packaging, offering an advantage over flash pasteurization, where contamination during filling can lead to in-package spoilage. While larger breweries often use tunnel pasteurization to treat beer in the package, flash pasteurization — a lower-cost, inline process — is more common among craft brewers. However, the risk of contamination during canning, bottling, or kegging has many brewers exploring alternative methods to meet the growing demand for safe, shelf-stable, non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers.

Chiber is already being tested by some brewers, but because it’s relatively new to the market, most are still trialing it and developing best practices. The feedback I’ve received from brewers who have used or are currently trialing Chiber is that more testing is needed. It may prove to be a great fit for simpler beverages like sodas but may or may not be the best option for beer.

And it’s not an off-the-shelf additive; testing is required to establish an appropriate process for each beverage type. A simple preliminary check involves confirming that Chiber does not cause sediment formation when added to the product. Because it’s a specific fraction of chitosan, Chiber can also act as a fining agent — so if the target beverage is unstable or prone to haze, the active antimicrobial ingredient may be reduced as it binds and settles out with other particles. Several brewers have told me that it simply doesn’t work with hazy beers because it causes clarification and is essentially neutralized in the process.

To our commercial readers who are interested in brewing non-alcoholics (NAs): Work with a process authority and conduct extensive third-party challenge testing to ensure your product is stable, regardless of the stabilization method used. And until we have more research data from multiple research groups, please don’t put NAs on draft.

Q. I am interested in experimenting with home pasteurization. Over the years, I’ve read that adding fruit to fermented beer, backsweetening cider, and now making no- and low-alcohol beer are all good candidates for pasteurization. Is there a way to pasteurize at home without embarking on some sort of crazy project?
Taylor Carter
Lille, France

A. Although Louis Pasteur is best remembered for milk pasteurization, his original method was developed for beer. And the cool thing about the process we now call pasteurization is that it’s pretty darn simple.

Until the advent of in-line heating and cooling, pasteurization was a batch process. In fact, batch pasteurization is still commonly used by small-scale producers to render products safe and shelf-stable. But the history of beer is more about how advancements in science and engineering allowed brewers to grow large. Pasteurization is at the heart of that history. Brewers were quick to take note of Pasteur’s Études sur la bière (Studies on Beer), and Carlsberg was the first brewery to pasteurize beer for commercial sale in the 1870s. 

As my mentor and professor to many Dr. Michael J. Lewis repeated in every lecture on packaging: Pasteurization allows a brewer to sleep at night. In practical terms, this is because worries about microbiological spoilage and unwanted secondary fermentation are simply erased. 

The good news is that you can easily pasteurize beer at home with just a few simple pieces of equipment. Depending on your setup, you may already have the basic tools. But before discussing how, let’s review the what. Pasteurization at home is performed using a batch method. In essence, this is just atmospheric canning: Prepare a hot water bath, load it with bottles of beer, and process at a set temperature for a set time. A typical pasteurization process used for the range you ask about is 50 Pasteurization Units (PU), where 1 PU = 1 minute at 60 °C (140 °F). The relationship between temperature and pasteurization rate is exponential, expressed as:

PU = t x 1.393^(T-60)

Where “T” is the product temperature in °C and “t” is time in minutes. Using this equation, it’s easy to see why just a few degrees make a big difference. For example, 1 minute at 65 °C (149 °F) equals about 5.2 PU, so 10 minutes at that temperature yields roughly 50 PU. The current recommendation for non-alcoholic beers is about 75 PU, or around 15 minutes at 65 °C (149 °F). The time and temperature together are known as the thermal process.

The main challenge with all types of pasteurization is starting the timer at the right moment. If your process is 15 minutes at 65 °C (149 °F), the timer doesn’t start until the coldest spot in the bottle reaches 65 °C (149 °F). Commercial producers use in-line probes and in-package sensors for this. Smaller producers often use a test bottle fitted with a thermometer to monitor the process. 

If you want to pasteurize at home, one key is to use far more water in your water bath than the mass of product added. This helps prevent a big temperature drop when you add your bottles or cans. A properly sized heater and water pump are also needed. In a nutshell, a large reservoir of water is heated to a temperature a couple of degrees higher than your target process temperature. Because bottled beer has a large thermal mass, you need a heater capable of making up the heat loss. That’s the engineering part of this answer that I’m choosing to skip — but for the curious, that means considering the heat transfer coefficient between glass and liquid, the specific heat of the product, and the total wattage required to maintain a uniform thermal field. Even a 1500-watt immersion heater, when coupled with a small circulation pump, can maintain a 20- to 25-liter bath with less than ±0.5 °C variation (5–7 gallon bath with less than 1 °F). Circulation eliminates stratification and ensures that every bottle follows a near-identical heating curve. For the more technically inclined, thermocouples or data loggers can be used to integrate the pasteurization curve and calculate total PU delivered. After the bottles are added, the process sensor is monitored, the timer started once the target temperature is reached, and the bottles removed after the timer has elapsed.

Over-pasteurization can result in cooked or oxidized beer. Cooking can be controlled by establishing the minimum process required to achieve your goals, and oxidation is minimized by reducing oxygen pickup during packaging. The key point is that the thermal process should be ended by cooling as soon as possible after pasteurization is complete. 

Porter is a British beer style that occupies an important place in the development of beer, as it was the first real industrial beer style that was widely exported and influential in its heyday in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It led to the development of regional variations in countries bordering the Baltic Sea, Czechia, Germany, America, and elsewhere, as well as the stout family of styles. It died out in England around World War II but was reintroduced in the modern craft beer era after first being resurrected in the United States.

Porter has always been a brown beer, having succeeded the brown beers of London in the early 1700s. It underwent several revisions over time as technology and ingredients changed, as well as consumer preference and legal and economic pressures that affected English beer in general. In the craft era, porter initially split into styles sometimes called brown porter and robust porter to differentiate ingredient usage and balance, but the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) began calling these two versions English Porter and American Porter in 2015. The naming was changed to differentiate between the products called “porter” for competition purposes, and was consistent with other porters being known as “Baltic” or “Czech.”

English Porter is style 13C in the BJCP Beer Style Guidelines, grouped together with Dark Mild and British Brown Ale in the Brown British Beer style category. These beers of varying strength are grouped together due to their similar flavor profiles and balance, not because they share a common ancestry or history. Remember, style categories are used for judging purposes, and do not necessarily imply any further or deeper relationship between styles.

History

I see porter as a family of beers starting in England in the early 1700s when it was a more heavily hopped and aged version of the brown beer popular at the time. By the start of the 1800s, it had become highly popular and was made and exported in large quantities in the first industrial-scale breweries of the day. Its formulation changed several times as developments in brewing knowledge, technology, and ingredients were applied. It finally fell out of favor in the first half of the 1900s as industry-wide pressures from two world wars lowered gravities and made the beer indistinguishable from other products. 

During the time when porter was popular, variations were made in several regions around the world, including the United States. George Washington is said to have been quite a fan of porter, and porter brewing was popular until the time of Prohibition, when only a few lager derivatives persisted as what I call the pre-Prohibition porter style. Other versions in Europe were lager variations in Germany and Czechia, as well as the Baltic porter style popular in several countries where it is made mostly as a lager (with a few notable exceptions). Of course, the larger version of porter, known as stout porter, led to the development of the stout family of styles.

At the start of the modern craft era, porter was rediscovered at Anchor Brewing Co., which first brewed a version in 1972. This version led to the modern American porter style. Rediscovery in the British Isles happened a little later in the late 1970s, and grew slowly. This rediscovery is what is known as English porter today.

The various types of porter are often sold as just “porter,” but the style guidelines that exist for competition judging purposes differentiate them due to their sensory profiles. Those enthusiasts exploring the style should be on the lookout for the nuanced differences in the types, such as ingredient flavors, intensities, and overall balance. Be aware of the different names and terminology used since this extra information helps when discussing these beers today.

Sensory Profile

Porter has always been a dark brown beer, not a black beer (like most stouts), which is one reason why I don’t like calling them “brown porters.” The color can vary in intensity, but English porters are generally not as dark as American porters or stouts. They can be opaque, but if not, should be clear. A low off-white or tan head is common, generally not as dark or persistent as in stouts.

As modern porters go, the English porter can be a little lighter in color (but still brown) and a little less roasty in flavor with more of a chocolate and caramel flavor, typically. The malt can have a toffee or nutty aspect, but is usually not burnt or strongly roasted. American porters can get roastier. The base is typically English malt, so think of bready, biscuity, and toasty flavors rather than neutral grain or dough. 

The bitterness level is medium to medium-low and can have a dry to lightly sweet finish. Bitterness, as well as flavor and aroma from hops are generally lower in English porter compared to the American version, and usually reflect English varieties with their earthy or floral notes. The intensity is usually low to moderate, but late hops are more of a background character in this style.

English porter can have more of a yeast character than the American, with light to moderate fruity esters and even a trace of diacetyl, as long as it complements and enhances the caramel flavors. Fruitiness does not have to solely be from fermentation esters; caramel malts or brewing sugars can supply some dark or dried fruit notes, as well as caramel complexity. 

The body of a porter should be lighter than in a stout, usually medium-low to medium in body. Carbonation can vary, with bottled products often having a higher carbonation than draft versions. There may be some creaminess, but not as much as in stout. Alcohol warmth shouldn’t be noted, as the beers are rarely much over 5% ABV today.

The style is somewhat broad, and allows for some interpretation by brewers. I usually think of how it evaluates compared to its closest neighbors, which is one reason why I keep comparing it to American porter and stout (typically Irish stout). English porter has some similarity in flavor with dark mild, but is stronger and usually more bitter. It has more richness and roast than British brown ale, but has similar strength. When I judged the medal round of this style recently at the Great American Beer Festival, the most common problem was with the examples having the balance and flavor profile of one of these related styles more so than that which I just described.

Brewing Ingredients and Methods

Porter is an English style, so it uses English methods and ingredients. As I mentioned, the choice of malt, hops, and yeast should be English or British, and the mashing technique will be a single infusion mash. Some British brewers might use parti-gyle techniques, but that is more of a variation of infusion mashing to produce multiple beers than anything. Conversion in the “normal” range of 151–153 °F (66–67 °C) is appropriate since we aren’t looking for extremes.

The base malt for a porter is English or British pale ale malt. Maris Otter is a common choice, but I don’t think it’s necessary to use something this distinctive when the dominant flavors will be coming from specialty grains. Less expensive pale ale malts are certainly acceptable, but I would use a maltster from the British Isles if possible. 

If I were to spend my money on ingredients that drive the flavor, I would look at the character malts. Here is where I like to use British chocolate malt, crystal malt, and brown malt. These products can have significant differences in flavor and color between maltsters and sources, so you may need to experiment to find ones that you like. 

Historically, porter was originally all brown malt, but that was in the day when brown malt had some diastatic power. Later, porter became a blend of pale, amber, and brown malts. After the invention of black malt in 1817, darker malts became a color source. After 1880, crystal malts and sugars became legally permissible to use. This context helps explain some historical recipes you may find where the malt choices reflected what was available and legal at the time. In the craft era, most commercial grists are at least 60% pale malt (often 80% or more), with the remainder being crystal and chocolate malt. Brown malt is rare, but a flavor driver in a few of the best-known examples (Fuller’s and Samuel Smith’s, for sure). Rarer adjuncts used include black malt, roasted barley, wheat, and possibly brewing sugars. 

Terry Foster, writing in the classic style series book Porter, said in 1992 that the American Homebrewers Association styles for competition differentiated between a robust porter that used black malt, a brown porter that used chocolate malt, and a dry stout that used roasted barley. While he said he preferred to think of the style as having a continuum of roasted flavors, he does pinpoint when the differentiation came into use. I think this is too much of an oversimplification, although it does help identify some of the major flavor components differentiating the styles.

Historical porters from the early 1800s are described as vinous and being aged, similar to how you might think of Flanders red ale being produced at Rodenbach. The character described can only be coming from Brettanomyces (which translates as “British yeast,” after all). However, this historical aspect is not present in modern versions. 

The bitterness level for this style can vary, but is generally no more than moderate. Late hops are restrained, and normally feature English varieties such as Fuggle, Goldings, Challenger, Northdown, and Target. Continental varieties would likely work as well, but I would avoid anything blatantly American or New World with citrusy, dank, or overly resiny character. You want to avoid clashes between the darker malts and the hops.

The yeast choice is typically a somewhat fruity or malty English strain. Prominent esters aren’t an objective, but having some in the mix is desirable. A barely perceptible amount of diacetyl is allowable, if it blends in with the caramel and esters to give a more rounded flavor. But the beer should not be overtly buttery, nor should it have a phenolic character that might clash with darker malts.

Homebrew Example

My example is in the style of Fuller’s London Porter, in that it uses brown malt as a flavor component, but I’m not making an outright clone. My recipe uses non-traditional Munich malt to boost malt flavor without increasing residual sweetness, and the balance and hopping are a bit different. Chocolate and crystal malts play an important role in the flavors that I always look for in these types of porters. 

I’m using a straightforward single infusion mash without looking for something particularly dextrinous as the result. As is my style, I add the crystal and chocolate malts at the end of the mash while starting my recirculation. The other grains must be converted in the mash. For proper extraction, be sure to recirculate at least 15 minutes and then slowly sparge to extract their color and flavor properly. If your system doesn’t allow for this method, you can add them to the mash but you may need to monitor your mash pH to keep it in a desirable range (5.1–5.3).

My hop choices are traditional, using Goldings and Fuggle. I’m looking for a balanced bitterness that still yields a malty finish, with the late hops being subtle. Choosing the Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) yeast is a nod to Fuller’s, as this is their strain. It gives a clean flavor while providing some tasty esters, and drops very bright allowing for a clear finished beer. 

I avoid sulfates and carbonates in my water profile, preferring the softer and rounder chloride as my calcium source. 

The objective for this beer is an honest, refreshing pint suitable for an after-work quench. I look for the malty and flavorful base without an overly bitter or sharp finish. Hops are in support of the malt, and the malt flavor is what carries the beer. This style is increasingly hard to find, which is another good reason to be a homebrewer.

We can all picture a day when we’ve experienced all of the highs. You’ve come up with the best idea for a beer — a clever showcase for a new flavor or ingredient, a new hop combination heretofore unknown to brewer kind. You’ve sweated with mash and boil-powered steam facials. The beer was cooled, the yeast was sent to its pool party, beers were cracked, and everything is going great. The party in the fermenter raged with all the fervor of the best EDM fueled raves – until it didn’t. 

Something happened — the quiet hi-hat “clink-clink-clink” of the airlock has unexpectedly stopped. Did the fermentation police bust up the festivities? Did everyone drop from exhaustion before the last bass drop? Did everyone scatter before the cleanup could finish? For whatever reason, the fermentation stopped dead in its tracks and you want to know what to do! We’ve all been there and like the best party planners, we have the tools to clear up the mess and close out your fermentation on a high note.

That’s the subject of today’s column —restarting a stuck fermentation. Though, before we go through the efforts of kicking fermentation back into gear, we must first determine if it truly stopped prematurely. 

Verify The Facts at Hand

Before allowing panic to set in, make sure of your supposition. Did the fermentation truly quit early? 

Start by asking yourself some basic questions. How many days have you been fermenting? With healthy yeast (remember our repeated mantra — healthy, vital yeast forgives many sins) a normal gravity beer (1.040-1.055) can be done with active fermentation in 2–3 days post pitch. A session beer even quicker, a large beer may take over a week to quit showing obvious signs of fermentation, and all bets are off if you throw a kveik strain at it. (We discount fermentations that are rumored to finish before they even begin as we respect the fundamental laws of physics in this brewhouse.)

The next question, is fermentation truly stalled? Most homebrewers will look to their airlock or blow-off tube and those reassuring tiny bubbles to tell them that things are progressing. The seemingly sudden cessation of emissions has sent many into a tizzy, but while gas evolution is an easy gauge of fermentation, it is not always accurate. 

So first, check your airlock. Is it seated firmly and correctly? Is the lid on correctly and closed tight? Given that gas can easily slip through the eye of a needle and will take the path of least resistance, even the most insignificant seeming gaps will still an airlock. Is anything blocking the potential outflow of gas? We’ve caught bucket lids bulging like the nascent Yellowstone Caldera because gunk sealed our airlocks inside the chamber. (Caution is highly recommended when removing that airlock. You might just paint your ceiling.)

Assuming the hatches are battened down and everything should be flowing, your next quick observation to make is whether there is a lovely foam cap of kräusen still swimming in the fermenter? This is where clear carboys are such a benefit as you can see exactly what’s going on inside your fermenter without disrupting anything. If you ferment in a bucket or shiny stainless steel fermenter, you’ll have to open it up to take a peek. Quick, close it! If there’s a cap, be patient and come back a few days later. If not . . . then we measure!

Take a gravity sample. Make sure to properly de-gas the sample lest any stray bubbles buoy your hydrometer and give you an artificially high reading. While some recommend giving it a spin in a blender, a few passes back and forth between glasses should suffice. Measure the gravity. Is it in a reasonable range of where you’d expect it to be? The usual rule of thumb for final gravity is to have it somewhere equal to or lower than a quarter of the original gravity. For our hypothetical “normal” beer of 1.050, we’d expect the gravity — for most yeast strains — to be around 1.012–1.013, or lower (50/4 = 12.5). If your gravity is a little higher, say 1.014–1.016, give the sample a taste. Odds are good that the beer will taste fine and is suitably done. Give it a few more days and then keg or bottle.

As an aside, it would take better beer judges than us to detect that difference from a beer we’re unfamiliar with. As an aside to the aside, one of the things that separates homebrew from commercial brews is where those final gravities land. It’s not uncommon to hear professionals mention that their beers finish a few points lower — 1.004 to 1.008, for instance. Something to think about and then forget as long as you enjoy your beer!

If the gravity isn’t in range, wait a few days more and measure again. Has the gravity moved? If so, great! You’re not dead yet, just moving like dancers towards the end of an old-fashioned dance marathon. 

Fixing a sluggish ferment starts with an environment check — is our fermenter too cold? Temperature ranges aren’t instant light switches (“Get this below 60 °F/16 °C and it’s night night!”). They’ll continue to work, just more slowly. Slowly raise the temperature and see if you get further fermentation. Don’t be fooled by a temporary bump in bubbling. As the beer warms, CO₂ will come out of solution due to the fact that less gas will dissolve in a warmer solution (Henry’s Law!).

Our anti-sluggard action continues with the brewing equivalent of a good brisk walk to wake back up. Give the fermenter a light bit of agitation — a swirl of the bucket, a bubble of CO₂ through the keg or conical — with the aim of putting yeast back into solution and thus back to work. Again, gas will bubble out of the airlock because you’ve knocked it out, so wait and see if fermentation resumes.

If neither of these actions work, or your test gravity samples didn’t move and are pretty far off (and agitating didn’t help there), then it’s time to call in the reinforcements to get the dance floor packed again. It’s time for the REPITCH REMIX.

All you need is a healthy dose of pretty much any neutral-adjacent ale yeast. We keep dried yeast on hand — a pack of a yeast like SafAle US-05, LalBrew BRY-97, LalBrew CBC-1, or a kveik strain will do the trick every day. No dried yeast? A small (1⁄2 cup) slug of yeast slurry from another batch of beer or even a freshly made starter at kräusen will suffice. We don’t recommend using a characterful yeast (say a Belgian strain) just to avoid the tiny contribution it will make to the final flavor. While you may see it recommended in online forums and other places, we also really, really don’t recommend wine or Champagne yeast. They have their own characters (and impacts on other yeast strains) and despite their high alcohol tolerances, they prefer to ferment simpler sugars than some of the more complex sugars found in beer.

With the extra yeast secured, add it to the beer, keep the fermenter at the upper end of your fermentation temperature, and wait a week. If all goes to plan, then this clean-up crew will bring your gravity down to your desired level. If not, try giving it another swirl and letting it go. Don’t add any oxygen when you do these late pitches to avoid damaging the beer!

The Party Is Still Dead

When not even a whole new dance crew can shake the fermentation back to life, and you’ve considered that the pros and cons of leaving the beer be and packaging as is leaves you with too many cons, then it’s time to consider the big guns. We cannot stress enough that these levels of interventions should be considered only when the beer would be a total loss otherwise. Taste and think, taste and think!

First, everyone recommends it, but we honestly don’t know that many people who’ve done it — brew another batch of beer! The theory goes that making a second, lower-gravity beer will allow you to blend and dilute the gravity. It’s a lot of work for an uncertain impact. 

Instead, we’d recommend diluting with water or even booze to drop the perceived final gravity. Mike “Tasty” McDole used to thin out a stronger beer with de-aerated carbonated water to make “golfing beer.” There’s no reason you can’t use the trick to make a lower final gravity. We have also used strategic additions of whiskey or schnapps to reach a lower apparent gravity (or in Drew’s case, to add a fruit flavor that is reinforced by the residual beer sweetness). If going this route, do some trials first before blindly pouring a bottle of booze into your fermenter. 

Thinking further outside the box, another option is to reach for a cold-acting amylase enzyme (ala Beano). Enzyme additions do not correct failed fermentation, but they change wort fermentability. A small dose of the enzyme will attack the long chain sugars that are probably preventing your beer’s final fermentation. Monitor your gravity and ensure your yeast is healthy and cleaning up after itself. A fair bit of warning though — once added, you cannot stop the process — the enzyme will continue to convert sugars. As people discovered in the brut IPA era, cold enzyme additions can lead to diacetyl butter bombs from yeasts that have not finished fermenting. If you anticipate a challenging beer fermentation from the start, you could always add an enzyme like White Lab’s Ultra-Ferm® to the mash and then denature it during the boil. 

A couple of other ideas include trying a diastatic yeast (STA-1 positive) or even relying on hop creep to further dry out a beer that won’t ferment as low as you want. Read more about these options in the “Related Links” at the end of this article.

If even these tricks won’t solve the issue, you may consider this brew a life lesson that teaches as it circles the drain. Learning from mistakes is a part of the hobby.

Party Postmortem

No matter the outcome, you should take a moment after the chaos fades to figure out why things went so squirrelly. There are various factors that can lead to a stalled fermentation, and getting to the bottom of the cause can help prevent it from happening again. Stop and ask yourself:

• Was your yeast truly healthy and raring to go? 

• Was the yeast strain used suitable for the alcohol level of your beer?

• Did your malt bill get stuffed with large doses of complex specialty malts? 

• Was your mash converting all of your starch into sugar? Did your temperatures favor more long chain sugar creation (high) or maybe the enzymes couldn’t reach starch trapped in mash pockets?

• Did your water have 25+ ppm of calcium? 

• Was your final boil pH too low or too high? 

• Were there sufficient nutrients to power yeast replication? (Unless you’re doing something spectacularly adjunct heavy, you had enough.) 

• At pitch time, what was the wort temperature?

• Were your fermentation temperatures out of whack (too high or too low)?

• If you track fermentation gravity, did something occur around the time of “the stall?” 

Look for the odd ducks, the differences, and maybe you can isolate the cause of your dilemma, because we all know that preventing a problem is better than fixing it!