BEER STYLES
BrewDog
Back in the world of funk and acid Beer styles Part 7: Foudres, coolships and some German survivors
harbour micro-organisms and allow a steady exchange of gases. Cultures of Lactobacillus and Pediococcus are held in a solera-type system where younger beers which have produced agreeable avours are blended back into the old thus spanning generations and passing on favourable characteristics. This inoculum is added to the secondary conditioning tanks using dedicated pumps and hoses to avoid ending up with the acid producers where you do not want them to be! Organisms can be obtained from yeast banks and the like, but much work has been done from local hedgerows and elds to see whether Aberdeenshire harbours yeast and bacteria able to impart their own degree of funk. Laboratory work is key to trying to understand how the souring organisms interact with each other so that their
ByRoger Putman
The BrewDog brewery in Scotland is one place where the workings of Brettanomyces with a light souring from Lactobacillus and Pediococcus is trying to be better understood. Brewmaster Richard Kilcullen was imported from Wicked Weed in the US with its famous Funkatorium. Richard has his own £4m OverWorks where wood, fruit and bugs work in harmony. It is on the edge of the main brewery site – with very strict microbiologi- cal control between the two.
R ichard explained “The story behind OverWorks is that conventional brewing tends to be a very linear pro- cess and by-and-large consistent. But with wild beers, there are no playbooks or shortcuts, the beer is coaxed and
shaped slowly using layers of elements, avours and process; it is worked until it is ready and not a moment before.” OverWorks does not seek woody and whiskey avours as in a barrel-aged beer but uses the properties of oak to
28 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I october 2019
i bd.org.uk
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