The Brett Collection: April - June 2009

These kits were designed to take advantage of the cool spring weather for primary fermentation and let the Brettanomyces run wild in the warm summer months! Try the monolithic St. James Gate Foreign Extra Stout, the hoppy Belgian-style specialty Notre Dame d'Golden Valley, or the straight-outta-Flanders sour session ale Oud Bruin de Table. The limited Brett blends might be gone from Wyeast's lineup, but they still have a good variety of straight Brett cultures. Pick a recipe, pick a base yeast, pick a Brett strain and experiment!

Oud Bruin de Table

O.G: 1.042 / Ready: 1-3 years (or less, depending on your patience...)

An idiosyncratic sour ale from the Belgian province of East Flanders, “old brown” walks a line between malty and tart, sweet and acidic, making it uniquely approachable and quenching. The name Oud Bruin can designate a high gravity provision beer for laying down or a low gravity biere de table for everyday consumption. Low-gravity versions of Oud Bruin seldom if ever travel beyond the towns where they are brewed, making them among the rarest and most exotic session beers in existence today ... but that's no obstacle to joy if you're a homebrewer!

Figs, chocolate, caramelized sugar, toffee, and dark fruit bounce around in the malt profile, balancing increasing sourness as the beer ages. While very young, it will drink like a fruity and funky English brown ale with hints of acid peeking through. With age it becomes lean-bodied and dry, with elevated earthy and stone fruit character, cream sherry notes, and more pronounced sourness from the continued fermentation of acid-producing bacteria.

Oud Bruin de Table can be bottled and consumed after just a month or two in secondary if you wish, but under most conditions it will need 12 to 18 months to develop authentic sourness – your mileage may vary, so sample periodically and package when you like the flavor. Or make an extra batch or two for extended aging and then use to blend with younger versions of the same beer ... or add fruit to the secondary after a year ... or bottle-condition and serve it straight and unblended, and savor the taste of idiosyncracy in this one-of-a-kind ale.
Extract Recipe
All-Grain Recipe

Notre Dame d'Golden Valley

O.G: 1.055 / Ready: 2 months - 1 year (or more)

According to Twin Cities lore, a beautiful Scandinavian-American princess once dropped a kringle into Wirth Lake; a walleye brought the soggy, circular pastry up from the depths and returned it to her. To commemoreate the miracle, the walleye was filleted and the abbey of Notre Dame d'Golden Valley was built in the suburb of the same name. The monastic beer brewed here is unlike any other in the world. Seriously, it's totally unique. Wink, wink.

A world-class artisanal ale that defies categorization. Refined complexity from a marriage of ingredients boldly used: high IBUs and dry hops (very unusual in a Belgian-style beer), and fermentation with a mixed culture including Brettanomyces. At bottling, NDdGV bursts with citrus fruit, herbs, and candylike malt layered under a pronounced hop character. The hops fade into the background and eventually disappear as the Brett starts to add complex, earthy aromas, elevated alcohol and acidity, and a leaner body through prolonged refermentation in the bottle. The ultimate expression of beer as a living, evolving, artisanal product: no two tastings will be exactly the same! Drinkable as soon as 2 months from brewing day, but save at least a couple six packs for sampling at 6 months and 1 year.
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All-Grain Recipe
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All-Grain Product Group

St. James' Gate Foreign Extra Stout

O.G: 1.071 / Ready: Varies

Our first kit to ever include TWO yeast packs – an ale yeast for alcoholic fermentation, and a culture of Brettanomyces claussenii, the bacteria responsible for the funky, fruity undertones in vatted old ale! Brewed strong and hoppy for export to the far corners of the empire, foreign extra stouts took on a “vatted” character from Brett fermentation during transport and storage. The modern paragon of this style blends a percentage of pasteurized, Brett-fermented wort with S. cerevisiae-fermented wort to add acidic sourness and estery high notes to a more stable product.

This beer is a mighty, midnight-black strong stout in the tradition of Dublin's export ales. Overtones of Turkish coffee and ultra-premium dark chocolate with a hefty charge of IBUs to cut through the big malt bill. You, the brewer, choose the ultimate character of this beer – modern or antique? Controlled sourness with mild- to moderate acid and esters; or the old-skool Victorian program with introduction of Brett to the entire batch during a lengthy secondary for a truly wild fermentation? The choice, dear homebrewer, is in your hands.
Extract Recipe
All-Grain Recipe