BRETT
BREWERS, BY NATURE, ARE
tinkerers. Whether it’s new hops, new malts, or a slight tweak of technique or timing, there’s almost nothing that brewers today won’t experiment with in the name of science, flavor, and the joy of exploration. Over the past decade, that sense of adventure has pushed American brewers in another new and interesting direction—exploring the effects of yeast on their beer, and in particular the “wild” strains of Brettanomyces found primarily in sour and funky beer.
Credit for the first comprehensive survey of Brett and its effects on wort must go to Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project’s Chad Yacobsen, whose master’s thesis was a touchstone for Brett-loving brewers and lives on at brettanomycesproject.com. Crooked Stave’s “Wild Wild Brett” series (with seven beers named for the colors of the spectrum—roygbiv—released from 2011 through 2013) took those various Brett strains that Yacobsen isolated and brewed different beers with them, exploring the flavor possibilities in 100 percent Brett fermentations.
Last year, Trinity Brewing in Colorado Springs released a series of its own named “The Magical Brettanomyces Tour,” which took a single base-beer recipe and fermented it in oak wine barrels with