Valhalla on Arran
In one of the very first blogs I posted here this year, I mentioned the appreciation we have for our ferocious house yeast, and how we constantly harvest, pitch & repitch the same culture all through the year (rather than simply buy a dry culture, use it once and then discard it after each brew). While this is a tricky process that requires constantly checking the health and viability of each harvested crop of yeast, it in turn rewards us with a house strain that will ferment like a demon, and drop clear as crystal within a few days.
Tragically, we always dispose of our yeast at the end of every year as part of our scheduled winter closure of the brewery – because we're not producing any beer, there's nothing to feed our yeast. This means buying a fresh, lab produced culture in the start of January, for the cycle to begin anew.
This doesn't sit right with me.
It seems monumentally unfair – discourteous, even – to unceremoniously discard our battle hardened yeast after it's spent the whole year providing us with batch after batch of award winning beer. It didn't sign on for a 1 year contract (and even if it did, I'm not sure the courts would recognise the cognitive capabilities of a fungus to sign such an agreement; Scots lawyers in the comments, let me know!). It seems only fair that we should send the last crop of yeast out in a blaze of glory. A massive beer, so strong in alcohol that it would render the yeast completely spent and unusable, its final trial complete. A real Viking Funeral of a beer.
This is why we've decided to brew Arran Valhalla as the final beer of the year, as a swan song for the 2021 batch of our house yeast. A gigantic, mash tun cramping Imperial Stout that will push our kit to the limits – decadently rich in flavour, and infused with silky smooth coffee blended especially for us by the caffeine wizards (witches?) along the road at the Arran Coffee Shop. This is to be the beer to end our yeast this year, and the beginning of a new tradition here at the Brewery; every year, the final brew will be Valhalla, with each member of the brewing team suggesting a variation to the recipe to give that year's brew a special send-off in style.
It'll also give us all something special to look forward to in the dark days of early January, when the beer will be ready for seeing the light of day. Keep your eyes on our social media pages, and sign up for our monthly Milestone newsletter to get the first peeks at this mammoth beer.
Skol!