Let’s try something new.

Because we seem to be pumping out new beers on a regular basis, it wouldn’t hurt to write a few more words about each one. Maybe some educational stuff, maybe some pointers, maybe stuff that we wanted to come out differently, or maybe just a few bad jokes to misdirect attention.

We’ve been talking with Radu from Wicked Barrel for quite some time, trying to cook up something interesting. Interesting, as in weird, totally alien to Romania, maybe not even that well known amongst other brewers in the world.

We couldn’t really say groundbreaking. It’s easy to learn in this craft beer business that you can’t really have an original idea. Whatever beer you might think of, it’s probably already been done. And that’s not a bad thing, but rather an amazing fact.

Enough mumbo jumbo!

We’ve been eyeing this Norwegian farmhouse ale bandwagon for quite some time, mostly thanks to this beautiful blog. Be sure to check it out. Thoroughly.

And then we thought we could tweak it to get a bit of a worldwide vibe to it. We added some spelt malt, for some rustic, hay-like notes. Just to set the mood.

We fermented hot, but not too extreme, because we were afraid of overly-crazy off notes. We did manage to get some nice funk and even a mellow tartness underneath, but i think we could give it even a bit more freedom the next time around.

We couldn't get our hands on a traditional kveik ring, so we went with a ready-to-pitch jug of yeast from Fermentum Mobile. Voss Kveik is still a pretty damn unique beast, with some really expressive fruity (even citrusy) esters.

Still, there's always next time!

And then we went nuts with New Zealand and Australian hops at dry hopping, for juicy tropical fruit and funky grassy notes. Some dankness, too.

We considered adding some African grains of paradise as some extra spice, but we preferred to let the kveik do the magic on its own.

You can try the beer fresh, on tap, Friday 23rd May, at Mikkeller Bucharest. Feel free to ask us more about it, if you spot us.

Next locations will show up next week on our and Wicked Barrel's Facebook pages.

Warm thanks for the advice to Grant and Pat from Matchless Brewing!