Our yeast is a beast

In between our (justified) excitement about hop varieties and malts when we discuss brewing materials and how they make world class beers, poor old yeast often goes overlooked. Which is a real tragedy, given that brewers only make wort – but yeast makes beer.

Here at Arran, we’ve been using a proprietary house yeast for over 20 years, which we harvest and re-pitch from one batch of beer to the next. It’s a ferocious little bugger that ferments out 3000 litres of Arran Blonde in less than 3 days (whereas I take over a week to reply to most Facebook messages). While most modern breweries have long since moved to commercial yeast cultures (either dried or liquid), and only get a few brews from one before they dump it and start afresh, we keep our yeast happy and active all year round. We supply it with fresh sugary wort (and plenty of oxygen!), and in return it gives us the gift of award winning beer – everything from our 3.8% Guid Ale right up to the mighty 8.3% Sleeping Warrior Barley Wine.

We also stand somewhat unique in that we still use traditional square open fermenters for our beers, whereas most breweries have long since fled to the allure of closed cylindroconical fermenters – cowardice! Barbarism! Subjecting their poor yeast to pressures and strains in pitch darkness! It’s just plain savage. We take pride in our yeast – it’s an essential part of the team. Indispensable, in fact.

So the next time you see a brewery wax lyrical about the purity of their water, the freshness of their hops, or the stylishness of their beanie hats, spare a thought for the most underappreciated ingredient of them all.