Viking Age Brew: The Craft of Brewing Sahti Farmhouse Ale

by Mika Laitinen, Randy Mosher (Foreword by)

Overview

Bringing beer history to life, Viking Age Brew takes readers on a lavishly illustrated tour of rustic brewhouses fueled by wood and passion. Sahti is a Nordic farmhouse ale that is still crafted in accordance with ancient traditions dating back to the Viking Age. It is often thought of as an oddity among beer styles, but this book demonstrates that a thousand years ago such ales were the norm in northern Europe, before the modern-style hopped beer we drink today reached the masses. Viking Age Brew is the first English-language book to describe the tradition, history, and hands-on brewing of this ale. Whether you are a brewing novice or an experienced brewer, this book will unlock the doors to brewing ancient ales from medieval times and the Viking Age.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641600477
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/04/2019
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mika Laitinen lives, writes, and brews in Finland, just a stone's throw from the traditional sahti heartland, where traditional farmhouse ale culture still thrives. His articles on sahti have appeared in several beer magazines, including Brew Your Own and Zymurgy, and he writes about local Nordic beer culture on his website Brewing Nordic (www.brewingnordic.com). Randy Mosher is the author of Tasting Beer, Radical Brewing, Mastering Homebrew, A Beer for All Seasons, and The Brewer's Companion. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword Randy Mosher v

Acknowledgments vii

Part I Tradition, Culture, and History 1

1 An Introduction to Farmhouse Ales

A Few Sips and the Bigger Picture 3

2 Brew Day with a Master

Learning the Craft the Traditional Way 15

3 The Landscape of European Farmhouse Ales

A Family Tree of Folk Beers 21

4 History of Farmhouse Ales

What Beer Was Like a Thousand Years Ago 35

5 Drinking Sahti

Is It a Beer Style? 59

6 Commercial Production

Like Homemade? 77

7 Low-Alcohol Farmhouse Ales

Nourishment for Work 95

Part II The Craft of a Farmhouse Brewer

8 Grain and Malt

Once Brewers Did It All Themselves 109

9 Yeast

That Mysterious Touch in Liquid Lore 121

10 Brewing Herbs

Preserving, Filtering, and Flavoring Too 133

11 The Brewing Process

How Sahti Is Born 141

Part III In your Kitchen or Brewery

12 Doing It Ourselves

Tips for Brewing 165

13 Re-creating Medieval and Viking Ales

Brew Like a Viking 183

14 Recipes

Examples and Starting Points 193

A Review of References and Bibliography 213

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

"An invaluable resource. . . . Mika Laitinen’s exhaustive research and experimentation has resulted in a fascinating, highly readable, and eminently
accessible guidebook for brewing like a Viking.” —Jereme Zimmerman, author of Make Mead Like a Viking and Brew Beer Like a Yeti


“Just when you think the canon of beer literature cannot grow any richer, a book like Mika Laitinen’s comes along. This is a fascinating and substantive account of a typically overlooked corner of the brewing universe, and is sure to stand as the definitive word on traditional farmhouse ales for quite some time.” —Tom Acitelli, author of The Audacity of Hops

From the Publisher