Edinburgh Brewing Cooperative

After reading Lars’ blog [http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/] and gaining an insight into Norweigan farmhouse brewing, we had a go at a dark mild with Sigmund’s Voss Kveik yeast from Yeast Bay. As we wrote on our recipe; “Fusing the norweigan kveik yeast (farmhouse), and 19th/early 20th century mild recipes to create a brew of bastardised brilliance”.

Having a great interest in traditional brew herbs, we were very pleased to finally get our hands on some bog myrtle, a traditional Scottish and northern european brew herb. Bog myrtle was originally used as a bittering agent and flavourant however is tough to get a hold of in dried form due its heavy regulation by the EU as a result of its mild medicinal properties; as such it must be harvested fresh and dried for use. For this beer we took 5l after the mash from the Voss Kveik Dark Mild and then performed a separate boil in parallel with the bog myrtle as we had only enough for this amount.

This brew is an experiment in creating a richer flavoured pale ale through the addition of different grain flavours. The wheat will also contribute to head retention and the oats to mouthfeel.

We do love a good brown ale and it being the winter season, we decided to brew one with nuts in as that seems like a winter thing to do. Not too many nuts mind. Subtle nuts.