CONFERENCE REPORT l Arjan De Rooij fermentations some of the bacteria often associated with it also feature Carnivale species of Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and Acetobacter. The first producing lactic acid, as seen in yoghurt, the Brettanomyces second doing something similar but with a more tart result. The last is a key component in vinegar and can eas- A beer festival dedicated to ily ruin beer; however, it is a must in Flemish red ales. Brettanomyces and other wild things This year’s festival was held June 23 - 25 and combined tasting events, By Ed Wray, Campden BRI tap takeovers, and food pairing dinners with a technical programme of master Brettanomyces, or Dekkera as it is more correctly known#, classes on the brewing techniques, science and history of Brettanomcyes. is mostly considered by brewers to be an unwanted wild yeast. But when it was first described in 1904 in Carnivale Brettanomyces 2016 lectures the Journal of the Institute of Brewing it was in a paper There were three speakers at the outlining how best to use this organism responsible for the opening ceremony: Jean Van Roy talked of the remarkable turna- “remarkably fine flavour” of English stock ales. round that sour beer has had in the course of his brewing career. When n recent years interest has grown and diverse beer range. he started work at Cantillon Brewery Iin the flavours that can come from Earthy, floral, spicy are the most they were brewing less than 500hL brewing with this organism. In commonly used descriptions for the of lambic a year and he had to fight Amsterdam an annual festival called flavours and aromas that come from to sell any beer; now people are Carnivale Brettanomyces is held, Brettanomyces (Brett). It is able to fighting to buy it! Since taking over dedicated to Brettanomyces and other utilise a wider range of sugars and as head brewer he has changed the less commonly used yeasts and bac- dextrins than Saccharomyces, re- production process slightly, in that teria. The goal is to both educate the sulting over time in very dry beers. barrels are now topped up so less audience about the great spectrum of Depending on how it is used, ‘Brett beer is exposed to air and less acid is beers brewed with these outsiders, Beers’ can also be sour. produced. He also talked about how as well to simply celebrate this broad As Brett is often found in mixed they try to make the brewery as green www.ibd.org.uk Brewer and Distiller International October 2016 z 43 l CONFERENCE REPORT himself. He has now started to use Brettanomyces, but adding complexi- ty this way takes time. He mentioned that back in 1921 a Belgian brewing journal reported that cultured yeasts have simplified beer, and thinks that in the future people will look for local yeasts to add complexity. He’s isolated a local strain of Brett that he uses in a saison beer. All three of the speakers agreed that brew- ing combines science and art, each informing the other. Blending to gueuze I gave one of the first lectures the next day, entitled The Brew- ing Science of Brettanomyces. I Arjan De Rooij talked about the microbiology and biochemistry of Brettanomyces and Cantillon’s Jean van Roy at the opening ceremony personal experiences of brewing as possible. They can only brew when Watt. He’s built up the cultures he beers with it. I will expand on this in the weather is not too hot and global brews with commercially over time an upcoming edition of Brewer and warming has cut their brewing season and currently has two mixed cul- Distiller International. by nearly two months a year since he tures on the go. He also brews some The next speaker was Pierre started brewing. ‘clean’ beers with Saccharomyces. Tilquin, who founded his own Chad Yakobson brews a range of Yvan De Baets, brewer at De La gueuze blending company Gueu- beer using Brettanomyces, some sour Senne, previously brewed at Cantil- zerie Tilquin, with a start-up cost of and some not. The Brettanomyces lon but when he started his own €500,000 and production of current- Project came from work he did on the brewery only 5km away he didn’t ly just 800hL a year. He buys in wort masters degree course at Heriot- see the point of making sour beer from lambic brewers and makes his gueuze by blending 50% one # year old beer with 30% two year old Brettanomyces or Dekkera? and 20% three year old. He’s found that some lambics age better than Until recently, much confusion others; some will attenuate to 100% has existed over the taxonomy apparent attenuation, whereas oth- of Brettanomyces bruxellensis, ers stall at 75%. It was also interest- the major non-Saccharomyces ing to hear that some lambic worts yeast in the lambic fermentation. The generic nomen Brettanomyces origi- come in at pH5 whereas others are nated in the UK in 1904 and literally means ‘British brewer fungus’, due to at pH4, though Pierre was too diplo- the fact that it was first isolated from English stock ales. In such beers it was matic to speculate why. responsible for the secondary fermentation that gave these beers their unique Sander Kobes, brewer at Oersoep flavour. A similar yeast-like organism was later found in Belgian lambic beers talked about what Brettanomyces and the name B. bruxellensis was applied. Taxonomically, it was placed in the is and the difference between wild, Fungi Imperfecti because no sexual reproduction could be discerned (i.e. it is spontaneous and sour beers. Yvan anamorphic), and early taxonomy was based solely on a few asexual strains. de Baets , talked on the history of This situation pertained until 1960 when sexual spores (ascospores) were saison, one of the hardest beer styles observed in some strains and the genus Dekkera was introduced to describe to define. He wrote an all embrac- these sexual counterparts of Brettantomyces. I don’t believe that ascospores ing chapter about saisons in the (the teleomorphic state) have ever been reported again and the distinction book ‘Farmhouse Ales’. They were between Brettanomyces and Dekkera is now unclear, especially since DNA made using mixed fermentations of detection methods do not reveal systematic differences between anamorphic Saccharomyces and wild yeasts, or and teleomorphic states! sometimes even fermented spon- Some authorities have been using ‘Brettanomyces/Dekkera’ (‘B/D’) to taneously. Old and young beer was overcome any possible confusion but in 2011 the new International Code of often blended and local spices were Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (the ‘Melbourne Code’) deemed used for flavouring. that fungal species should be assigned only a single valid name. In future, it Sebastian Sauer from Freigeist is likely that Brettanomyces will be used in preference to Dekkera. Molecular Bierkultur spoke on ‘breaking the analysis now gives us five species of B/D: the anamorphs B. bruxellensis, B. Bayerische Law’. He strives to break anomalus. B. custersianus, B. naardenensis, and B. nanus, and teleomorphs the chains of the modern main- of the first two of these; D. bruxellensis and D. anomala. Please note that B. stream brewing industry by reviving lambicus = B. bruxellensis, and is not a species in its own right. Lecture over! and updating Germany’s unique, From Ian Hornsey’s feature on Elgoods Brewery in Brewer and Distiller historical beer styles, many of which International, September 2015, page 33. disappeared only a few decades ago. 44 z Brewer and Distiller International October 2016 www.ibd.org.uk CONFERENCE REPORT l The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, though upheld as defending traditional Ger- man brewing is in fact in conflict with many traditional German beers. The Brettanomyces Project Chad Yakobson gave a second talk, this time on The Brettanomyces Project, Brettanomyces in general and Crooked Stave Brewery. It was a comprehensive talk and included details of some of the more unusual aspects of this yeast. Brettanomyces produces an extra-cellular alpha- glucosidase, which explains the rise in glucose he found in some of his fermentations for the project. At the Crooked Stave Brewery he makes sour mixed culture, Brettanomy- Arjan De Rooij ces, and ‘clean’ beers and he has History of the Saison by Yvan de Baets of the Senne Brewery three separate, colour coded, sets of hoses, valves, pipes, packaging brown and yellow, and lambic beer hidden history of Berliner Weisse. equipment and fermenters for each. was defined as a yellow beer of certain It is not just a sour beer style, but a Scientist and brewer at Black- strength. It evolved from earlier beer funky one, as many were brewed with well Brewery in Switzerland Samuel styles, and has continued to evolve Brettanomyces. He is on a quest to Aeschlimann talked about yeast since then, so modern lambics are isolate rare strains of yeast from old identification, cultivation and a different again, for example containing Berliner Weisse bottles and spread scientific approach to brewing with much less wheat in the grist (from 63% them around, hoping brewers will pick unknown organisms. This lecture at the beginning of the 19th century to up on them. Stephen Andrew, barrel covered a variety of ways to isolate 30% nowadays). manager at Nøgne Ø talked on kettle and identify wild yeasts for brewing souring techniques and Ulrike Genz, purposes and also looked at possibil- Dutch lambics who brews authentic Berliner Weisses ities to put your local terroir into your Historian, beer blogger and beer at Schneeeule in Berlin gave a practi- beers. Dry malt extract starters as cartoonist Roel Mulder talked about cal guide using Brett in the brewery.