Historical Brewing Techniques

Lars Marius Garshol is a Norwegian software engineer that travels the world to learn more about beer. Garshol spent five years researching various aspects of brewing at remote farmhouses throughout Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. He is the author of LarsBlog, a blog devoted to sharing his discoveries and travels as he researches the lost art of brewing in northern Europe, Historical Brewing Techniques: The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing, and a book on Lithuanian beer. He lives with his wife and children in Rælingen, Norway.

Table of Contents

1 Understanding farmhouse ale

1.1 The world of yesterday

1.2 Kaupanger: First meeting with the tradition

2 History 35

3 Malt 47

3.1 Stjørdal: malt-making hot spot

3.2 The types of grain

3.3 Barley varieties

3.4 Maskin, portrait of a barley variety

3.5 How the grain was grown

3.6 Steeping and sprouting

3.7 Drying methods

3.7.1 Very pale, unsmoked malts

3.7.2 Lightly smoked, hot-dried malts

3.7.3 Heavily smoked malts

3.7.4 Caramel malts

3.7.5 Strong, uneven heat

3.7.6 Undried malts

4 Yeast 95

4.1 Voss: Discovering kveik

4.2 First lab analysis

4.3 Yeast, wild and domesticated

4.4 The yeast revolution

4.5 Yeast on the farms

4.6 Origins of the yeast

4.7 Yeast species

4.8 The family tree of yeast

4.9 Kveik, what we know

4.10 The non-kveik farmhouse yeasts

4.11 Bread yeast

4.12 Dying out

4.13 Kveik renaissance

4.14 The word “kveik”

5 Brewing process 155

5.1 Hornindal, Norway

5.2 Stone beer

5.3 Raw ale

5.4 Boiled ale

5.5 The mash boiled

5.6 Complex mashes

5.7 Keptinis

5.8 The great stove

5.9 Vsekhsvyatskoye, Russia

5.10 Understanding oven-based beers

5.11 The mash fermented

5.12 The evolution of brewing processes

6 Beer in the life on the farm 217

6.1 Harvest ale

6.2 Ritual beer

6.3 Superstition

6.4 Brewers or brewsters?

6.5 Equipment

6.6 Preparations

6.7 Grinding

6.8 Water

6.9 Carbonation

6.10 Oppskåke

6.11 Cellaring

6.12 Drinking vessels

6.13 Serving beer

6.14 Beer flaws

7 Spices and adjuncts 277

7.1 Hops

7.2 Juniper

7.3 Sweet gale

7.4 Grand wormwood

7.5 Caraway

7.6 St John's Wort

7.7 Bitter orange peel

7.8 Yarrow

7.9 Tansy

7.10 Bay laurel

7.11 Wild rosemary

7.12 Heather

7.13 Others

7.14 Adjuncts

7.14.1 Potatoes

7.14.2 Bran

7.14.3 Carrots

7.14.4 Peas

7.14.5 Honey

7.14.6 Other adjuncts

7.15 Filter materials

7.15.1 Straw

7.15.2 Alder sticks

7.15.3 Other

8 The drink problem

8.1 Small beer

8.2 Rostdrikke

8.3 Kvass

8.4 Birch sap beer

8.5 Juniper berry beer

8.6 Mead

8.7 Sugar beer

9 Brewing like a farmer

9.1 Carbonation

9.2 Working with kveik

9.3 Working with farmhouse yeast

9.4 Brewing with juniper

9.5 Making your own malts

10 Styles and how to brew them

10.1 What is farmhouse ale?

10.2 Recipes

10.3 Raw ales

10.3.1 Brewing raw ales

10.3.2 Kornøl

10.3.3 Sahti

10.3.4 Island koduõlu

10.3.5 Kaimiškas

10.3.6 Danish landøl

10.4 Dark, smoky ales

10.4.1 Stjørdalsøl

10.4.2 Gotlandsdricke

10.4.3 Landøl from south Funen

10.5 Brown boiled beers

10.5.1 Heimabrygg

10.5.2 Telemark, Norway

10.5.3 Hallingdal

10.5.4 Swedish farmhouse ale: Öxabäck

10.6 Oven beers

10.6.1 Seto koduõlu

10.6.2 Oven-mashed Russian farmhouse ale

10.6.3 Chuvashian farmhouse ale

10.6.4 Sur

10.6.5 Keptinis

10.7 Fermented mash

10.7.1 Luumäki-style

10.7.2 Vanylven-style

10.8 Stone beer

10.9 Other regions

10.9.1 Corn ale

10.9.2 English farmhouse ale

10.9.3 Welsh farmhouse ale

10.9.4 Westphalian farmhouse ale

10.9.5 Aludi

10.9.6 Oat beer

11 Today and tomorrow

11.1 Baltic time capsule

11.2 The Baltics today

11.3 Status in the west

11.4 Farmhouse ale in the 21st century

11.5 Into the future

12 Acknowledgements

13 Bibliography

13.1 Archive sources

13.2 The database

13.3 Published sources

13.4 Unpublished sources

13.5 Interview sources