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. 

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! 

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!

Homebrewers are an inventive lot. Hours upon hours are spent maximizing space, re-brewing recipes, and investigating new ideas. We will spend copious amounts of time searching for items to repurpose instead of just buying the products already made for brewing. We’ve all seen it or done it. The entire community is full of “I use this instead of that,” “That is a lot cheaper than this,” “Don’t buy that, make this.” 

Like many, what attracted me to homebrewing was the DIY nature. We build our own brew kettles, we learn about circuits for the sole purpose of building our own control panel, we use oxygenated laundry additive instead of buying sanitizers made for brewing to save a few bucks. For me, what really got me hooked on homebrewing started with the realization that I could build everything I needed to make good beer right at home.

When I realized I could make my own weldless ball valves, brew pots, and three-tier all grain system, I was all in. My head was spinning with ideas and options. The idea of making my own mash tun made me ecstatic. After all, it was me. I could do it better than what was already available. For the most part, I did. 

Over the 20 years since I began homebrewing I have won contests, I won skeptical beer drinkers over with my homebrew, I helped countless homebrewers solve equipment problems and save tons of money in the process. At the request of others, I even wound up building kegerators on the side for extra money. I was brewing beers for neighborhood gatherings, first responder parties, weddings, and the local live music scene. My homemade brew system served me well. 

Fast forward two decades, I now own a brewpub and provide my community with their local watering hole. I’m not so inventive (or motivated) these days. My time is spent looking at the books and running my business. I do all the brewing, all the repairs, and all the necessary evils that come with owning a business that makes beer and serves liquor. It doesn’t leave much time for being an inventor. 

To be honest, I don’t really miss it. The inventing, that is. I do miss the creative aspect of homebrewing, but not the mental tug of war that comes with inventing, improving, and re-inventing. Nowadays, if I need a part or component, I just buy it. Yes, I’m getting older and I have a few more dollars, but that’s not the reason.

As a business, my brewing equipment can’t look like it was built in the garden shed next to a double wide. There are health codes, government departments with prying eyes, inspections, and public scrutiny. No one wants to pay for a beer made in a brewery that looks like a ten-year-old was learning how to weld and plumb. It has to look good. It has to be clean. It has to look . . . well, it has to look store-bought. 

No one cared how my homebrewing rig looked. In fact, the more janky it looked the more impressed my fellow homebrewers were. Odd-shaped pots hooked up to homemade containers all hooked together by hardware store plumbing. It got the job done, when the job was just the hobby of brewing beer.

So, homebrewers — revel in the creativeness and drive that makes you a good brewer. Enjoy the process of making instead of buying. Succumb to the desire to create, because if you make the leap to a business, you may not get another chance. 

For the past few years – both before the pandemic and after – the busiest brewery at the annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver hasn’t been one of the big hitters like Russian River, Dogfish Head, Fremont, or 3 Floyds. 

Instead, the brewery with the most check-ins on the Untappd app and the longest lines has been Colorado’s own WeldWerks Brewing, according to numbers provided by the Boulder, Colorado-based Brewers Association (BA).

The chaos started just a half hour into the first session of the festival in 2017 with a crush of demand for their hit hazy IPA Juicy Bits, its big brother Double Dry-Hopped Juicy Bits, and for Medianoche, a Bourbon barrel-aged stout that ended up winning a gold medal at the festival two days later. There were 100 people in line at any one time, and it never let up, Owner Neil Fisher said then.

In 2018, the BA moved WeldWerks to an endcap where there would be more room, and the brewery itself created a special line just for industry peers, like fellow brewers, vendors, and sponsors, so that they could have easier access to the tables. That line backed up into the crowd as well. People were undeterred and waited it out for their shot to try the beers with so much buzz.

The following year, WeldWerks poured an estimated 25,000 samples of Juicy Bits, Extra Extra Juicy Bits, Double Barrel Peanut Butter Cup Medianoche (a version of Medianoche that was aged for 21 months in Bourbon barrels with peanut butter cups and peanut flour) and seven other beers, maintaining the overall top rating on Untappd at the fest with three in the top 10. 

Extra Extra Juicy Bits ended up winning gold that year, while a session version of Juicy Bits, called Itsy Bits, took home a silver medal.

The COVID-19 pandemic put an end to the festival in 2020 and 2021, but when it returned, slightly smaller, in 2022, things picked up for WeldWerks where they had left off, and have remained at a frenzied pitch ever since. 

The attention and demand is a world away from how WeldWerks began in early 2015 in the agricultural town of Greeley, Colorado, about an hour northeast of Denver. That’s where Fisher had moved in 2009 from North Carolina, gotten married, and found a rhythm of life that included homebrewing sessions with friends in his garage.

Homebrewing was something that appealed to Fisher’s scientifically oriented mind — he’d been a physics major at the University of North Carolina — and he started to enter his beers into homebrewing competitions. And started to win.

But when he opened WeldWerks — the brewery takes its name from Weld County, where Greeley is located — with then-business partner Colin Jones, they weren’t serving hazy IPAs or barrel-aged stouts. The menu consisted instead of a red ale, an American IPA, and a German hefeweizen.

Ironically, it was that homebrewing background that a lot of people turned their noses up toward during the brewery’s first summer, Fisher said. “We’d say, ‘Come try our hefeweizen,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, where did you brew before?’” When he told them it was in his garage, they’d move on. But the hefeweizen ended up winning a silver medal in 2015 at GABF. 

“That really helped. At the time, we were mostly hobbyists, but people started to see us as something else,” he added.

While the brewery had started with traditional styles, it introduced what would become its flagship in early 2016 after Fisher heard about New England-style IPAs, which were murky in appearance but lacked the bitterness of California- and Colorado-style IPAs. As one of the very first New England-style hazy IPAs to be brewed commercially in Colorado, Juicy Bits set off a frenzy. 

Brewed with the then-novel hop varieties of Citra^®, El Dorado^®, and Mosaic^®, people couldn’t get enough of its tropical, almost sweet flavors and aromas, including orange juice, grapefruit, pineapple, and mango. The luscious, slightly naughty name helped bolster its image and consumer desire.

Aside from a few small, yet heavily attended tappings in metro Denver, the only way to try Juicy Bits in 2016 was to drive to Greeley, a blue collar city of 100,000, known more for its meat-packing plant than anything else. So that’s what people did, setting off a juicy gold rush up Interstate 25. 

Part of our DNA

Today, WeldWerks is all grown up and maintains its campus on a full square block in Greeley, operating two brewing systems — a 30-barrel, 4-vessel steam brewhouse and a 15-barrel, 3 vessel system — that together turned out 14,500 barrels of beer in 2024, an 8% increase over the previous year. WeldWerks expects to produce nearly 16,000 barrels by the end of 2025.

It also runs a restaurant out of the back of its beautiful taproom, serving burgers, sandwiches, wings, and tacos; has dabbled in canned ready-to-drink cocktails; and cans and bottles beers that are shipped not just to Colorado’s major metropolitan areas but to 30 states and Washington, D.C.

While the company grew by double digits in the years before the pandemic — something that resulted in many “culture pain points,” Fisher said — it has now settled into a “sustainable” growth trajectory, helped in part by the fact that it owns its own building, and that real estate prices are less expensive in Greeley than in the busy commercial neighborhoods of Boulder or Denver. 

The company also self-distributes in Colorado, maintaining a sales delivery person dedicated to each account, something that Fisher and his staff believe has helped them add shelf space while competitors fall off.

As of June 2025, when the most recent numbers were released by the BA, WeldWerks was the eighth largest independently owned brewery in Colorado. But with the current wave of brewery consolidations in the state — not to mention declining sales among the larger players, like Monster Brewing (the owner of Oskar Blues), Odell Brewing, Left Hand Brewing, and Upslope Brewing — WeldWerks could end up in the top five by the end of 2026.

It isn’t just the quality of beers that sets WeldWerks apart. The company’s brewing model and philosophy are unusual — in some ways unheard of — when compared to other craft brewers with a similar profile.

WeldWerks brews upward of 150 different beers per year, at least three dozen of which they’ve never made before. It started that lofty goal in 2018 by publicly announcing an ostentatious plan to make more than 100 — and then easily crushing that number. In 2021, WeldWerks brewed a high of 225 different beers, while in 2023, it made 180. In 2025, it’s on pace to brew 160, at least 40 of which will be variations the brewers have never done before.

“We are one of only a very few breweries at this size that is doing that,” Fisher said. “You would think we would be smarter. But we built a lot of our systems around that model, and I think that is what makes us continue to stand out. In a market that is slowing down, we are still growing. I don’t think that is independent of maintaining that creativity and innovation.”

Most are New England-style IPAs, but there are also West Coast IPAs, pastry stouts, lagers, and a wide variety of tart or sour ales.

Examples of the beers they have brewed so far this year:

Apricot White Peach Cobbler, a 4.3% sour with vanilla, graham cracker, milk sugar, apricots, and white peaches

Churro Laser Sword Fight, a smoothie-style sour with cinnamon, vanilla, and milk sugar

Mango en Palo, brewed with mango and finished with chili lime salt

Blueberry Strudel, a 4.8% sour with blueberry puree, vanilla, icing, puff pastry, and milk sugar

Blue Razz Cotton Candy, a 4% sour with blue raspberry slushy syrup and blue raspberry cotton candy floss

Summer S’mores Stout, at 6.4%, brewed with vanilla beans, milk chocolate chips, marshmallows, graham crackers, and milk sugar

Strawberry Guava Green Tea, infused with real green tea, strawberry, and guava extracts

Bamm Bamm Rubble Rubble, made with fruity rice cereal, strawberry, marshmallow, and vanilla

Root Beer Float Stout, at 6%, brewed with sarsaparilla, birch bark, vanilla, and milk sugar

Then there are the Bourbon barrel-aged Medianoche releases. These beers are as gaudy as they are mouthwatering. Releases like: 

Diez Años De Medianoche, a 36-month blend aged in 10 different Bourbon, whiskey, and rye barrels, including Pappy Van Winkle, W.L. Weller, Old Fitzgerald, and Eagle Rare

Macaroon Medianoch, which was made in collaboration with North Park Brewing in San Diego using a blend of Medianoche and North Park’s Macaroons Before Dying, aged for 34 months in Weller and Blanton’s Bourbon barrels before being infused with four types of coconut, vanilla beans, caramel, and espresso beans

Coconut Medianoche, aged 28 months in a blend of Dickel, Sazerac, Blanton’s, Buffalo Trace, Stagg Jr., Weller, and Old Fitzgerald barrels before being rested on 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of raw coconut

It’s a lot to keep track of, but the brewers don’t seem to mind.

“It’s part of our DNA, part of what consumers expect. People want something new from us and we want to experiment and play,” said Derek Gold, the Senior Director of Operations at WeldWerks. 

“We tried to do less, but it is part of what we have done for so long,” added Head Brewer Skip Schwartz. “I don’t feel exhausted every day, but that is partially because some [of the beers] are a play on other beers we have done in the past. The smoothie-style sours, for instance, all have a similar signature makeup: Vanilla, milk sugar, and some kind of fruit puree. 

Juicy Bits: One of the Most Influential Beers of the Decade

The tastemakers at the Brewers Association have seen a lot of beer styles come and go over the decades, building in popularity before fading into obscurity, or rising out of nowhere to become buzz words in the industry.

It’s why they take their time when it comes to designating new competition styles (there were 206 categories in 2025, along with dozens of sub-categories). For instance, they waited many years after the so-called New England-style IPAs became popular to create style guidelines, adding three categories in 2018 and a fourth shortly thereafter.

Neil Fisher, the Owner and Co-Founder at WeldWerks, was one of the people who pushed hard for its inclusion. After all, his flagship beer, Juicy Bits IPA, had become a viral sensation since he introduced it in 2016, not just in Colorado, but in other parts of the country as well.

He and many other brewery owners didn’t want to wait that long to get their beers out in front of the masses, though, so they poured their hazy IPAs at the Great American Beer Festival in 2016 and 2017, but didn’t enter them into competition since they didn’t fit any of the existing style categories. Fisher understood the caution: Not only was the style new — and very different from traditional IPAs — but there was a strong backlash among some old-guard brewers to the appearance of hazy IPAs, which many equated to what they considered to be the amateur brewing techniques of — gasp — homebrewers.

Like canned craft beers, however, which were mocked when breweries like Oskar Blues introduced them in the early 2000s, hazy IPAs eventually became not just the norm, but a dominant factor in small breweries coast-to-coast.

And Juicy Bits? It is now offered up as an example by the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) as a commercial example of what a hazy IPA should look, smell, feel, and taste like. It joins Belching Beaver Hazers Gonna Haze, Hill Farmstead Susan, Other Half Green Diamonds Double IPA, Pinthouse Electric Jellyfish, Tree House Julius, and Trillium Congress Street as paragons of the style – which is rarefied air when it comes to peers.

All seven embody the following general characteristics: “An American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze. Less perceived bitterness than traditional IPAs but always massively hop-forward,” according to the BJCP.

Fisher said that having guidelines, whether from the BA or the BJCP, are important when it comes to maintaining a quality product, especially one like hazy IPAs, which have so many variations (think milkshake IPAs that include the addition of lactose).

Creating the beer was one thing, but the brewers at WeldWerks never stop analyzing the beer, improving their own processes “across the board” and making changes if necessary. “Juicy Bits is better than it was when we launched it and definitely better than it was five years ago, and better than last year,” Fisher said.

That improvement through minor tweaks, as well as a consistency of quality, is important. “Building that trust with your customers is important,” Fisher said. “We would lose customers quickly if the quality is bad.”

Head Brewer Skip Schwartz said the changes are small and have included things like adjusting the amount of flaked oats or flaked wheat, calcium chloride, or acid. “We are always testing,” he said. 

And when the team goes to Yakima, Washington, in late summer for the hop harvest, they know exactly what they are looking for when it comes to aroma profiles from Citra®, El Dorado®, and Mosaic® hops. “Some years, El Dorado® has the orange. Other years it doesn’t, so we need to get it from the others. We want the exact right flavor combination from them.”

But he also acknowledged that the hopping technique for Juicy Bits has changed over the years as the brewers at WeldWerks learned more about the science behind what happens with hops and what works best in their brewhouse.

“When I started here (in 2019), we did add (hops) into the kettle,” Schwartz said, explaining that different amounts of each hop were added to the wort in stages during the boil and during whirlpool. Through the years, more were added as the temperature of the wort dropped and after it had cooled. These days, WeldWerks waits until the boil has finished and the wort has been transferred to the whirlpool and cooled to around 196 °F (91 °C) (the boil point for most Colorado cities ranges from 200–204 °F/93–96 °C due to their higher elevation). At that point, the brewers add about 1.1 to 1.5 pounds of hops (divided evenly between Citra®, Mosaic®, and El Dorado®) per barrel in a 30-barrel batch. That’s equivalent to about 0.6–0.8 oz./gallon or 4.6–6 g/L.

After that, they wait until fermentation is done (about 6–8 days) before dry hopping, at 2.5 pounds per barrel (1.3 oz./gallon or 10 g/L). The main goal of waiting is so WeldWerks can harvest the yeast (which helps keep costs in check) without stressing it or changing its flavor-imparting ability.

The beer is then put in a centrifuge — which keeps it from becoming sludgy, like some other hazy IPAs — and then kegged or canned. In fact, unlike the early days of hazy IPA brewing, WeldWerks doesn’t recommend rolling their cans to help distribute the particles inside.

For homebrewers, brewing a hazy IPA can be difficult, but one Schwartz’s top pieces of advice is cold crashing the fermenter prior to transferring. “(Three days) after dry hopping and usually two days before transferring to kegs or a bottling bucket, I recommend a cold crash.” This will help settle trub and make it easier to transfer beer with less hop material to packaging.

Some techniques vary from the commercial to homebrew scales, but the recipe for Juicy Bits doesn’t need to. WeldWerks has always been open to sharing their recipes (not just pieces of it, as many brewers do).

“Neil shared that recipe early on when everyone else was super secret about how they were making their hazy IPAs. So that was one of the only ones people had access to,” Schwartz said – something that also contributed to BJCP’s inclusion of Juicy Bits in its examples of commercial hazies.

“Now, there is so much more information out there, but I really think Neil releasing that recipe was kind of a difference-maker. We don’t want to be gatekeepers. We want to be very much open and helpful.”

While the recipe has been shared many times over the years, check out the clone on page 39, which came directly from Schwartz, for the most recent iteration.

Just About Any Ingredient

Fisher is quick to acknowledge that Juicy Bits remains the brewery’s workhorse, at 42% of its production, with variations on Juicy Bits, including Extra Extra Juicy Bits and Itsy Bits, bringing that up above 50%.

“We would love to grow beyond Juicy Bits, but some of our attempts to build core brands have not been as successful,” he explained.

Some of their other biggest sellers include Orange Creamsicle, and Bamm Bamm Rubble Rubble, as well as a Pilsner and the hefeweizen (clone recipes for these are below). 

At this point, they can confidently throw almost anything into a beer and have a good idea of what will come out. 

As a homebrewer, Schwartz said he had the freedom to brew whatever he wanted. At WeldWerks, he maintains that freedom, but now he has the high-tech equipment that helps him improve the quality every day.

Gold and Schwartz both joined WeldWerks, about a week apart, in 2019 and, like Fisher, both had backgrounds in homebrewing before becoming pro brewers. It’s why they always respond to homebrewers who send emails with questions about beer ingredients or processes.

“We want to be an open book, not gatekeepers,” Schwartz said, adding that he will send them full recipes, grist bills, advice on food additions, and opinions on how water chemistry is different from place to place.

Homebrewers are also some of the people who could make up the next generation of commercial brewers, although the pipeline for those jobs has emptied out somewhat, according to Gold. “People are leaving the industry, especially on the production side,” he said, pointing out the declining number of students in local brewing programs. “We need to ask what do we need to do to develop a pipeline for people who are interested in brewing.”

Taco Gose

Something else that keeps the brewery close to homebrewers — and their endless creativity — is an annual tradition in which it creates an outlandish beer for GABF in order to titillate — or infuriate — the masses. 

While some turn up their noses, others join those long lines to try concoctions like Soy Sauce Barrel Aged Sushi Gose; Spaghetti Gose (made with tomatoes, pasta, and “dry-hopped” with oregano and basil); or Hot Sauce Barrel Aged Taco Gose, a sour made with taco seasoning and aged in a Horsetooth Hot Sauce barrel (that beer was served with taquitos at GABF).

And while these beers are unlikely to win any medals — or even be entered into competition — the reality is that they often work on some level that makes you think, well, maybe spaghetti does belong in a beer?

Start Brewing

As noted, WeldWerks is very open when it comes to sharing their recipes. All five clone recipes that follow came directly from Head Brewer Schwartz. The only stipulation was that they preferred not to share their fruited sour recipes due to the potential risks related to refermentation that can occur with the huge fruit and sugar additions, which require pasteurization upon packaging. Still, we think you’ll be more than happy with the recipes they have supplied!

Clone Recipes

Creativity abounded in this year’s BYO Label Contest. With the popularity and ease that comes from using artificial intelligence, more labels than ever were submitted, and yet so many labels created the old-fashioned way still caught the judges’ eyes and took home many top honors.

From hop cops to finger-painted apes, to mosaic birds and surfer fanzine-inspired labels, we believe the judges nailed it this year. But there were so many other great labels to choose from so we then gave readers a chance to vote for their favorite on our social media pages after we awarded the top four. 

We just hope the homebrews inside the bottles taste as good as the labels that wrap around them look. Check out all of this year’s winning labels and honorable mentions on the following pages. 

As always, a huge thanks goes out to sponsors who generously donated prizes, as well as readers who make this contest so much fun each year!

Grand

Sheephound Brewing is a group of homebrewers in San Bernardino County, California, who are first responders, mainly in law enforcement. All of their labels are original artwork and follow a similar theme, but our favorite was their Top Hop entry. “In the label, our hop cop is sitting on his police car while blocking off the freeway. The bridge in the back is an homage to the San Bernardino bridge, which is almost identical to the one in our label. The California road signs are used for the beer information,” Jason says. 

Gold

Good things take time. It’s true when brewing beer, and when making labels. Inspiration for the Hail, Caesar! label struck as a rerun of Planet of the Apes came on TV. “I grabbed my iPad and finger painted the ape, already with a vision of how I would lay out the label along with the red strip accent. The artwork took me about three days to complete,” Allan says.

Silver

Gary is not new to bringing home the hardware in our label contest, as the reigning Grand Champion winner from 2024. And his submission this time around didn’t disappoint either! He describes the hoppy, crisp Chirpy Lager as “easy drinking on a summer’s day, as the birds are busy, I’m taking it easy.” The primary hop, Mosaic®, dictated the art style with a mosaic look that has us looking forward to spring.

Bronze

Inspired by surfing the beaches on the East Coast and indie music fanzines, Bill Gibbons combined these passions to create the label of “a blonde surfer riding killer waves to come up with the inspiration for the Suicide Blonde label,” Bill says. He says this refreshing New Zealand Pilsner bursts with tropical aroma and fruity flavors, making it a great post-surf beer to reach for.

Reader’s Choice

This label was just narrowly beat out for a spot in our top four, but when it came to a vote among Facebook followers it was the clear Reader’s Choice winner. Cosmin started homebrewing this year and says he enjoys the creativity not just in brewing the beer but also designing the labels. This particular label was created for the baptism party of his son, “which is the Romanian name of the bird Robin (his name).” 

Honorable Mention

When most people think of “experimental beer,” they picture the latest release from a craft brewery. But commercial brewing, even at its most creative, is limited by needs for profitable margins, consistency, and to appeal to a broad audience. In my opinion, the real work of experimenting with various batches is in homebrewing, where the only question I tend to ask is: What boundary do I want to push?

Sometimes the boundary is flavor. I once asked myself, “how smoky is too smoky?” (a question I suspect others have made and a flavor I wouldn’t recommend repeating). But failure is part of the process. While I might lose a batch, I don’t have to worry about investors, market share, or turning off a first-time customer who may never return after tasting a missed attempt. 

Other times, the challenge is technical. I brewed a 100% rye beer once, and it was stickier than I ever imagined. Lautering took forever, but eventually I managed 10 gallons (38 L) of rye wort, which I fermented and aged in a rye cask. The payoff was worth the effort: A beer that tasted like liquid bread, dense and spicy, unlike anything I’d ever had.

That kind of curiosity also took me back in time. Working with Primer’s Yeast, I set out to brew with the oldest yeast I could find. I pulled together ingredients from Yemen, Egypt, and Israel — stuff no commercial brewer would ever attempt to source at scale. The result was a beautifully floral, unhopped sour beer. Brewing it at home made the impossible possible.

Experimentation has also taught me more about yeast than I ever expected. At one point, I pushed a strain to its absolute limit with a 25% ABV beer that adhered to Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity regulations. What was initially to be a 10-gallon (38-L) batch of beer ended up being 15 gallons (57-L), after accounting for nearly 100 lbs. (45 kg) of liquid malt extract additions.

With the addition of nutrients to help the yeast reach its full potential, and after a few stalls, the beer reached 25% ABV and I tucked it into a Bourbon barrel for a year. Commercially, the logistics of a beer like that would be a nightmare, especially when needing to change course quickly and decisively. At home, it was just a test of patience and persistence.

Now I’m working on a beer made entirely from chestnuts. Chestnuts bring starch, not enzymes, so brewing with them requires a whole new approach. Also, due to the low proteins in chestnuts it has minimal amounts of free amino nitrogen (FAN), therefore Fermaid O and diammonium phosphate (DAP) are required. The final issue is that adding too much of an enzyme may result in an extremely dry beer and limit the head. 

What ties all of these beers together is simple: They only make sense in a homebrewing context. Commercial brewers, even when they chase innovation, have to stay within guardrails of efficiency and marketability; homebrewers don’t. That’s why the bleeding edge of beer belongs to the thousands of curious tinkerers experimenting in kitchens, garages, and basements. We’re the ones resurrecting lost traditions, testing unconventional ingredients, and seeing how far yeast and process can be pushed.

To me, homebrewing isn’t just a hobby; it’s the frontline in establishing new flavors and techniques while searching for that “lager in the rough” you’ll remember drinking years from now.  But it all starts with a question: What boundaries can I push?

Dear Replicator, I recently got to try The Brewing Lair’s BLT. It is a tripel that is surprisingly hoppy and quite delicious. Any chance you could find a recipe and share some tips to brew a beer like this? 
Leland Carey via email

Some breweries are born from meticulous business plans in sprawling industrial parks. Others, like The Brewing Lair in Blairsden, California, feel like they’ve sprouted organically from the forest floor. Tucked away on 30 acres in the Plumas National Forest, The Brewing Lair is as much a destination as it is a brewery, boasting an outdoor taproom, its own 9-hole disc golf course, a 100-acre bike park next door, a stage regularly filled with live music performances, and a vibe that’s pure mountain escapism.

The brewery is the dream of Rich DeLano and his wife, Susan. Their story is one many homebrewers can relate to. “When I met Susan in 2009 I was running out of work as a carpenter . . . and Susan was in need of a new project,” Rich recalls. Susan, who had previously worked for several San Diego-area breweries, quickly introduced him to the world of all-grain brewing. “The first couple of batches were on the kitchen stove, but after the first boil-over, we quickly upgraded to a better setup outdoors on our back porch.”

Before long, the hook was set deep. “I started reading all the books on brewing I could,” DeLano says. “Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers became a big part of honing our recipes. After over a hundred batches in our first year together, we decided we would start pursuing the dream of opening our own brewery.” 

That dream, which supplanted an early vision of a goat farm, became a reality in 2012, creating a unique forest haven for beer lovers.

While The Brewing Lair’s tap list often leans toward the hop-forward styles of the West Coast, one of their standout creations finds its roots thousands of miles away in Belgium. The Brewing Lair Tripel, or “BLT,” is a carefully-balanced marriage of Belgian tradition and American hop ingenuity. The inspiration, fittingly, came during Rich and Susan’s honeymoon.

“We loved drinking lambics and gueuzes, but every once in a while craved a hint of West Coast hoppiness,” DeLano explains. “We found Duvel Tripel Hop and Houblon Chouffe satisfied that itch.” The beer from Duvel, in particular, left a lasting impression. “During our honeymoon in Belgium, we found Duvel Tripel Hop in three different single-hop varieties: Citra®, Mosaic®, and Amarillo®. Duvel Tripel Hop featuring Mosaic® was our favorite of the three; it just seemed to play best with Belgian yeast character and our hoppy attitude.”

Upon returning home, the mission was clear. “As soon as we returned to the States we began formulating our own recipe for a hoppier Belgian tripel,” says DeLano. 

The goal wasn’t to create a Belgian IPA, but something more nuanced. “For us, a nice fruitiness from the hops helps to complement the expressive Belgian yeast character.”

Another key element was drinkability, a challenge for a beer style that can easily become sweet and heavy. “We also don’t like a cloying character to the beer,” DeLano notes, “so a free rise during fermentation and a dose of cane sugar help to achieve that goal.” The result is a tripel that is dangerously smooth, aromatic, and complex—a perfect representation of the brewery itself.

History of Czech Beer

When American craft brewers discuss influences from other countries’ historical brewing traditions, you can expect them to mention England, Germany, and Belgium. But how many would include the Czech Republic (Czechia)? I have a feeling that many Americans think of Czech beer as just German beer made with soft water and Saaz hops. While those are certainly part of the story, there is a lot more to Czech beer than that.

České pivo (Czech beer) is actually recognized as a protected geographical indication (PGI) within the European Union, which gives it the weight of law. Its definition lists quality parameters, production methods, and ingredient limitations, as well as sensory aspects that distinguish it from other European beers. Not all beer in Czechia meets these criteria, but those that use the protected name certainly do. It’s like a trademark or appellation; it protects the intellectual property of the product, and guarantees that it meets defined quality standards.

While this all sounds like legalese, it does actually provide concrete evidence for something that I have been claiming for a long time — that Czech brewers have a tradition of decoction mashing, and it is an important part of their national beer character. Decoction mashing refers to removing a portion of the mash, typically a third, bringing that portion to a boil for a set time, and remixing it with the main mash to achieve a higher rest temperature The definition of České pivo mandates that a decoction mash (single, double, or triple) MUST be used. We’ll get into the other aspects of the beer, but this is very important.

Classification of Czech Beer

Czechia uses a matrix of color and original gravity (measured in degrees Balling, which is equivalent to degrees Plato and Brix) to classify beers. The colors are světlé (pale), tmavé (dark), and polotmavé (amber, or literally, half-dark). A small number of beers may be described as černé (black), but this is basically a synonym for dark. The gravity classes are known as stolní (table beer, less than 6 °Plato/1.023 OG), výčepní (draft, 7–10 °Plato/1.027–1.040 OG), ležák (lager, 11–12 °Plato/1.044–1.048 OG), and speciální (special, 13 °Plato/1.053 OG and greater). Porter is a subset of special beers that is a dark beer greater than 18 °Plato/1.074+ OG, but there are many other types of strong lager.

The use of gravity bands to define beers is not uniquely Czech — Germany uses a similar system of schankbier, vollbier, and starkbier. But the Czechs display the gravity more prominently, and often use the number as the name or identifier for the beer. The výčepní and ležák class beers are more commonly found, as are the světlé and tmavé colors.

You’ll notice that “Pilsner” isn’t used as a name of any of these beers, as it is in other countries. In Czechia, Pilsner means Pilsner Urquell, the beer from Plzeň (Pilsen). Similar beers are called světlé ležák, or pale lagers. Judges and brewers outside Czechia commonly call them either Czech Pilsners or Bohemian Pilsners, particularly when trying to distinguish them from German Pils or American Pilsners. As a sidenote, Pilsner is sometimes spelled Pilsener; both are correct. 

The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) differentiates výčepní beers as Czech pale lagers (Style 3A) and ležák as Czech premium pale lagers (Style 3B), avoiding the use of Pilsner as the style name out of respect for the origin of the style. The other defined Czech styles are Czech amber lager (Style 3C) and Czech dark lager (Style 3D). These are a subset of beers made in Czechia, but have been enough to drive interest in commercial brewers making these styles elsewhere.

The Czech styles listed in the BJCP guidelines represent a necessary collapsing of multiple categories of Czech beer to facilitate judging. Just be aware that the defined styles represent ranges of beers, and that multiple types of beer can fit within each category. As with most styles, the range of commercial examples can vary quite a bit, so it’s easy to find examples with differing balances, amounts of bitterness, and varying levels of sweetness or dryness in the finish.

Characteristics of Czech Beer

I tend to talk about Czech beer characteristics in both absolute and relative terms. Absolute when they can be quantified, but relative to German because they are often better known and serve as a useful frame of reference. To me, the biggest sensory difference about Czech beer compared to German is the mouthfeel. Czech beers have a fuller body and finish with a higher unfermented residual extract, which can sometimes be perceived as sweetness. Czechs describe their beer as having a fullness on the palate. On an absolute basis, the body is medium-to-full for many beers.

Czech beers are generally well-hopped and have a medium to high bitterness (standard-strength lagers can range up to 45 IBUs). The bitterness is not harsh, however, and the impression of bitterness is somewhat tempered by the fuller finish. Czech beer tends to have a higher finishing pH and polyphenol (tannin) level, which can also give a fuller mouthfeel and a reduced crispness.

Paler Czech lagers tend to have a deeper color than similar German beers due to decoction mashing, which often pushes them more into gold and even bronze and away from the straw to yellow colors of German lagers. Dark Czech lagers are rarely black, with dark brownish colors being the norm. Good clarity is prized, particularly in pale lagers. 

Czech beers have a creamy head with a rich, natural foam, and are well carbonated. The foam is often accentuated by the characteristic Czech side pull taps (sometimes called LUKR taps, after the popular LUKR manufacturer that makes them). These taps have a ball valve that allows for a variable flow rate, as well as micro screens that normalize bubble size as the beer is dispensed. These features allow for pours with a varying amount of foam, which customers can request. Compare these to the standard North American beer tap faucet, often known as the Perlick style after the most common premium brand. Read more about the popular Czech pours in the sidebar below.

Check out our story on Czech beer pours for more on why the beer foam matters.

Producing Czech Beer

The ingredients in Czech beer produce much of the character and are specified within the PGI. The gold standard for hops is the Žatec (Saaz) variety and region, although hops from other Czech hop-growing areas are allowed. Whole hops are typically used. Dry hopping (or any cold-side hopping) is not used. First wort hopping — adding hops to the kettle before or during lautering, prior to the wort being brought to a boil — is a technique known to Czech brewers, and is often used to produce a smoother bitterness.

Pale malt of the Pilsner type from Czech regions is used. The English influence is present in the kilning methods, which aided in the development of the first pale lagers. As I previously mentioned, decoction mashing is required. Czechs believe that double decoction is preferable to single decoction, but some products (notably Pilsner Urquell) are still triple decocted. Czech malts tend to have lower levels of proteolytic modification, which favors a lower level of attenuation in the finished beer.

Compared to German beers, more caramel and dark malts are used in darker beers with less of a Munich/Vienna-type malt base. Pilsner-type malt (even if called “pale malt”) is the typical base. Richness is gained more through malting and decoction methods, which develop flavor as well as body and color. Roasted malts, when used, tend not to have burnt flavors. Czech beers are all malt; no sugars or adjuncts are used.

Water is described as soft-to-medium hard, with that from Pilsen being quite low in minerals. Bottom-fermenting lager yeast is used, with three common strains being available to Czech brewers. Their yeast strains tend to have lower attenuation than many German strains, and are often described as not being as “clean.” Czech beer can have a threshold buttery character from diacetyl that enhances caramel flavors and body when fresh, but should not have a strong or harsh quality. This profile tends to be desired by Czech consumers.

Czech beer undergoes a two-stage fermentation process, basically fermentation and lagering. The maximum fermentation temperature allowed is 57 °F (14 °C) but is traditionally cooler and slower, often below 50 °F (10 °C). Lagering is conducted at near-freezing temperatures and is often lengthy, until quality parameters are met. Open fermentation is still a technique practiced by many Czech brewers.

Historical Evolution

While there is evidence of brewing in Czechia for more than 1,000 years, modern Czech beer is inextricably linked to the Pilsner origin story. As we all know, Josef Groll first brewed Pilsner Urquell in 1842 in Plzeň, marking the start of popularizing pale lager. Using kilning techniques learned in England (then still the British Empire) and bottom-fermenting lager yeast obtained in Bavaria (then still a kingdom, as Germany didn’t become unified until 1871), local ingredients and Central European methods of the time were used to develop industrial brewing.

Czech beer continued to develop and expand in influence in Central Europe as lager brewing became more popular and consumer tastes for paler beer grew. However, modernization in brewing all but ceased in what was then-Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s as it first was occupied by Germany, and later came under communist control until the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989.

This unfortunate 40+ years of Czech history did have the effect of creating a kind of time capsule of brewing. Brewing in the Czech Republic of the 1990s resembled Bavarian brewing pre-WWII. This preservation of traditional beer production methods is one important aspect of modern Czech beer. While it is reasonable to see a common origin of German and Czech brewing traditions, the split almost a hundred years ago created differences that are still noticeable today. German brewing modernized and changed, while Czech brewing preserved many of the more historical and traditional ways that distinguish Czech beer today (learn more about Czech beer culture and the influence history has played in the sidebar below).

While there may not be explicit stylistic links between German and Czech beer, I often think about the parallel nature of many styles. Take a German/Austrian style of today and apply the Czech national character to get a modern Czech style: German Pils and Czech pale lager, German dunkel and Czech dark lager, Vienna lager and Czech amber lager, Baltic porter (or possibly doppelbock) and Czech porter. The cited styles, even more so when considering their strength variations, do reflect a national brewing character that is worth understanding and appreciating.

Read our article about industrial lagers in the Czech Republic for more on how the industry has evolved.

Final Comments

Prior to the 2015 BJCP Guidelines update that increased the awareness of traditional Czech styles beyond beers like Pilsner Urquell, it was often hard to find examples of Czech beers in the U.S. You could find some mentions in Michael Jackson’s books, but it was hard to find examples you could buy in stores or brewpubs. I’m happy to see so many U.S. (and elsewhere) craft breweries who are attempting Czech styles, especially those that are either specializing in them or in lager beer production in general.

I had wanted to introduce Czech styles (at least the dark lager) in the 2004 guidelines, but I was met with resistance because they either weren’t being entered in competitions or weren’t available as imports. I’m glad the BJCP has become more of an international organization since that has encouraged the exploration of more world beer styles and a better understanding of brewing traditions of important countries in the development of modern beer.

There is still more Czech beer to explore and understand, and the BJCP guidelines are just hitting some of the highlights at the moment. Don’t let the beer styles defined for homebrew competitions give you an incomplete understanding of the range of Czech beer. Those with a taste for travel can seek out local examples, of course. For those who wish to research further, the writings of Evan Rail, Ron Pattinson, and Jeff Alworth are always informative.