Kveik Hazy Pastry Sour

Haze boyz, haze boyz, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do, when they come for you?

The pastry trend rolled out in the beer world and not even sour beer is safe from this. And if you can’t beat them, join them. It’s a strange day today since we have mixed feelings regarding this concept, but we kinda needed to do this, you know, to get it out of our system… That goes to say it’s not even clear how we decided to do this beer. Maybe it was the curiosity around the Helveticus Lactobacillus strain. Or the idea that has been floating around for some time, of doing a sour co-fermented with Kveik. Anyway, the chaotic creative process in this Hotel takes us to unknown roads. Roads that we decide to embrace and walk them to whatever end it will take us.

Moreover, if there is any doubt, one just has to see the impact of the sales they have, not only where they were born, but worldwide. It is easy to pinpoint a culprit, an initial culprit at least, who has sparked a whole new market: The Alchemist in Stowe, Vermont.

This moment was a turning point for the market, perhaps the most noticeable moment in the history of beer since the resurgence of the movement in the United States in the last two decades of the 20th century. No matter how much they are discussed, however technical deficiencies are masked with hops, fruits or adjuncts (natural or not), the truth is that they mark the current movement.

Hundreds of breweries thrive in this market, adopting cans as the main container, using expiration dates as short as possible, refrigerated transport. They have grown and have been able to constantly reinvent themselves, either by capacity or because of demand. Often hostages to their fan base, these breweries have to deal with levels of demand never before seen in the market. We are watching a piece of history to be written, like it or not.

All assumptions were challenged by bringing unique products, without any point of comparison. New developments, technological and scientific, which had not yet taken place were strengthened, influencing the industry. The movement can, and should, be questioned, but there is value. And due to this value, we are obliged to drop the historical brewing books, unusual ingredients and techniques, some of them outdated. Now we are also, haze boyz.

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts, stay with us for another chapter, this one, current and full of interesting p(o)ints.

The first thing about this beer is that it was gonna be a sour beer with Kveik. The happy coincidence (are there really coincidences?) that Kveik and this Lactobacillus both ferment around the same temperature, was just the first step of our journey. So instead of doing a kettle sour where our kettle would keep the temperature around 35º-38ºC for some 24 – 36 hours for the lacto to do his work, we decided to deliver that responsibility to our Kveik strain. Since it is a fast fermentation starter, we were counting on it to keep the temperature nice and cozy for the lacto to a least have a good start and do (most of) its job. The result of the exothermic reaction of the fermentation will help to maintain the ideal temperature for the lactobacillus to acidify the wort. This approach also has the advantage of letting the lactobacillus get out alive of this brew day and will live on the beer to keep doing its work.

With the wort acidification part decided, what are the other main pillars of this movement? Hops, fruit, sweetness. Everything in a beer? Challenge accepted: Hoppy Pastry Sour with passion fruit, raspberry, vanilla and tonka bean, dry-hopped with Galaxy and Citra. The challenge is launched, now we need to align the pieces and transform the Hotel into a pastry shop. We need to think about the best way to combine all these ingredients and make the beer hazy enough to play in the haze boys league.

To start, the obvious: lactose. But not that much, because one of us still can’t understand why someone would put lactose in an acidic beer. To compensate, some Vanilla and Tonka beans will also get into the fermenter.

These acidic beers that invaded the market, usually with fruit, are composed of simple cereal beds. But should we stop here? In the Hotel, this assumption needs to be challenged. A base divided between Barley and Wheat with Oats and Biscuit malt to give it some structure and contribute sweetness. That and a mixture of lactose and malt-dextrin give it a dense and creamy body, in contrast with the acidity of the wort and bitterness of the hops.

Mashing at 69ºC to guarantee a less fermentable wort, giving the final body of the beer, a density that seems high, but necessary for style. With so much complex sugar, there will be a lot left to eat. In the boil, lactose and malt-dextrin follow track, ingredients never used as often as these days, they guarantee unctuousness. In the whirlpool at 81ºC, a generous dose of Galaxy. Of course, trendy hops in a trendy beer. The eternal Citra remains on the bench and enters the second half to resolve.

In the secondary fermentation, generous doses of raspberry and passion fruit, keep the fermentation active, ensuring an additional perception of acidity.
Meanwhile, Vanilla and Tonka bean were added – macerated in tequila and later crushed with a little beer, to enhance the contact area. That’s what all the cool kids are doing.

In the end, the addition of cold hops, divided between Galaxy and Citra, could not miss this party. And this is it. We put on our flannel shirts, stylized mustaches and embrace a new beer world. Like it or not, we have to keep up to date and keep up with the new trends. Whether this worked out well or not we’ll see soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on this adventure, this time a more modern one, but equally unique. It may be a one-way trip or we may jump off the boat before reaching the destination. Watch out for the haze boyz, they are out there…


Kveik Hazy Pastry Sour


Batch: 20 L
Total Cereal: 5 Kg.
Original Gravity: 1.060
IBU: balanced 🙂
Boil time: 60 minutes

Cereal

59.7% – 4 kg. Pale Ale Malt
11.2% – 0.75 kg. Weyermann Wheat Pale Malt
7.5% – 0.5 kg. Maltodextrin
7.5% – 0.5 kg. Cara-pils Malt
3.7% – 0.25 kg. Flaked Oats
3.7% – 0.25 kg. Biscuit Malt
3.7% – 0.25 kg. Flaked Wheat
3% – 0.2 kg. Lactose

Hops

60 gr. Galaxy (pellet, 14% AA) @ whirlpool, 81ºC for 10 minutes
60 gr. Galaxy (pellet, 14% AA) @ dry-hop 4 days, ambient temperature
2 ml. essential Citra oil

Yeast

Lallemand Kveik Voss
Lallemand Wildbrew Helveticus Sour Pitch
(pitched simultaneously)

Water

Ca: 69
Mg: 13
Na: 28
Cl: 102
SO4: 60
Cl to SO4 Ratio: 1.69

Mash

Sacharification – 60 min @ 69ºC
Mash Out – 10 min @ 76ºC

pH@45 min 5.53@19.2ºC

Extras

1.2 Kg. Passion Fruit puree
3 Kg. Raspberry
2 Tonka Bean
1/2 Vanilla Bean
10 cl. Tequila

Observations

06/06/2020
Wort done. Inoculated. The party begins, Kveik and Lacto are all in.

14/06/2020
Passion fruit joins in, with sugar and acidity, pH 3.97 before the fruit

19/06/2020
Fermentation dressed in red with raspberries, pH measurements? no way!

26/06/2020
Vanilla, Tonka and a shot of Tequila. It’s taking shape.

27/06/2020
Dry-hop, now we have to wait for the cold maturation to settle all the crap.

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