Because of the lockdown measures it’s nearly impossible to go out for any type of beer adventures or discoveries. As an alternative, I headed out twice to do some shopping at the local beer specialty shops. The past few weeks, the weather was lovely, so I had some beers in the sun on my balcony. In these times, that’s already quite the party.
The first beer is of a rather rare style. I bought it in the lovely little shop Rewia Piwa. I asked the owner if he had a sahti and he didn’t even blink when saying yes. Sahti is a traditional Finnish farmhouse ale that has been brewed at local farms for several hundreds of years. The beer was traditionally brewed with every malted or unmalted grain they could get their hands on, such as malted barley, wheat, rye or oats. But a typical sahti has two very specific ingredients. For fermentation, the Finnish farmers used bakers yeast, and since there are no hops in Finland, they have always used juniper berries to add bitterness to their beer.
Another difference is the filtering method, where the mash traditionally passes through a kuuna, a trough-shaped barrel filled with rocks and juniper branches. The beer is also ‘raw’, meaning that there is no boiling phase in the brewing process. This can add sour notes to the final beer, because of a slight lactic infection.
So the guy at Rewia Piwa gave me the blue-labelled bottle of Koniec świata (the end of the world) of the old-school craft beer revolutionaries of Browar Pinta. According to the label, these guys did the entire process according to tradition. Different kinds of barley and rye malt, no boil, filtering with juniper branches, fermentation at room temperature with bakers yeast, and juniper berries to make it a bit more bitter. But they made their version a little more Polish by adding some indigenous Lubelski hops. I have not much experience with sahtis, I vaguely remember having one a year or two ago, but that’s it. So I was rather curious when pouring my glass.
The beer had a deep golden colour, almost amber and a small snow-white head. The texture is a bit thicker than most beers and carbonation is low, but still present.The aroma is fruity and estery with clear hints of banana and cloves. When tasting, you immediately experience that the beer is a bit more viscous and syrupy than most beers. There is a lot of malty sweetness in the flavour, with fruity and slightly herbal notes. Rather smooth and sweet finish, no bitterness. There is no strong alcohol taste, but it kicks in quite soon. A beer for tasting and savouring, rather than for washing down a nice meal with. Very interesting.
So this was the first of my balcony beers. I have a few others lined up and have plenty of ideas for other beers, if this quarantine thingy decides to last! So, if you’re in for something different, I would give this one a go!
