Lager

A great blend of high-quality malts and spicy hops. We fermented this one with the new NovaLager yeast which is far more lenient than your traditional lager yeast. It can ferment cleanly between 12-20°C, and does not require a diacetyl rest. Which means this beer can be fermented year-round. 

This is the sequel to our very popular Cheat Code Märzen from 2021. Like most sequels we tweaked a couple of things but tried to keep the essence of what made the original so good. Last year’s beer was very malty and leaned towards sweetness. This year we have dialed up the bittering hops to balance out the malty sweetness with a crisper bite. We found this brought a lot more balance to beer.

In 2017 we released the original Kamil’s Kölsch. It was a Kamil approved Kölsch that he enjoyed very very much, however we think he would like the sequel even more. It has his favourite Czech hop: Saaz, it also sports the premium German Bohemian Pilsner malt, and its fermented just a bit drier than the original to make it nice and crisp. We miss him like hell, and hope he’s enjoying one of these upstairs right now while dropping one of his classic jokes like “The Elephant”…

We’ve been working on this one for a while. The idea was to create an authentic Oktoberfest style Märzen, but in an accessible fashion. Traditional Märzen beers are fermented like a lager at a consistent 10°C, and then aged (lagered) at 0°C for months before being consumed. This process requires equipment, storage space, and patience (:p) that not all of our fellow homebrewers possess. The goal was to make an authentic tasting Märzen recipe that can be brewed at room temperature and be enjoyed in a shorter time. And, we ah, nailed it – this one is a winner.

The weather is about to warm up, and that means it is officially lager season! But alas, despite being the ideal time to drink lagers, spring and summer are never good times to make lagers. It is too damn hot! Lagers traditionally need to be fermented at 10-14°C for weeks at a time. Slight deviations from that can have profound consequences on the taste of the beer.

Well, here comes Escarpment Labs to the rescue! They have developed a special strain of yeast that is designed to make clean, lager like beers that are meant to be fermented in warmer temperature. The KRISPY strain should be fermented between 20-30°C – which is perfect for the spring and summer!

Knocking down walls, building desks, laying floor, and building new rooms is hot and sweaty work. For the last couple of months behind the scenes, we (Adrian) have been knee deep in renovations. One thing that quenches your thirst after some hard manual labour is a cold glass of beer. This month’s beer is the epitome of that philosophy.

Named after our brand-new mill room, which is made from beautiful re-claimed hemlock beams – Hemlock Mill Kölsch is an extremely easy drinking Kölsch. It is well balanced, with a light honey sweetness that makes it super crushable. It is hopped just enough for balance and a bit of fruit character.

Lagers get a bad rap from a lot of the craft brewing community. We get it, they taste thin and lack the complexity of craft beer. All that being said, they are really hard to make at home! Check out our easy to make, crisp recipe for the month of October!