Back To Norway
This afternoon I’m off for a shortish one-week adventure in Western Norway to attend the farmhouse festival in Hornindal. I’ve been invited to speak there, which is an enormous honor. (B: it will be live-streamed on YouTube here on Saturday at 6:30 pm local time, which is 9:30a Pacific/12:30p Eastern.) From my perspective, the far more interesting experience will be watching a demonstration brew when we arrive.
Western Norway has two vibrant centers of farmhouse brewing, and they’re not identical. In Voss, which I visited in May, fire is a central motif, including a long boil in the eldhus (“firehouse”). The beer I helped brew had a short, four-hour boil, though others go for eight hours or more. In Hornindal, brewers are known for making unboiled or “raw” ale. This is probably far more common among farmhouse and domestic brewing if you go back far enough, because it was so much less resource-and labor-intensive. I’ve tasted raw ales before, but never seen one made. Of course, I’ll have lots of of photos and stories when I return, so look for that. I may post some photos here over the next week, but be sure to watch my Instagram and Twitter feeds for more.
Skål!