Mixed Fermentation Beer Homebrewing Workshops Amsterdam

Mixed fermentation beers include the traditional styles of Flemish Red, Lambic and Berliner Weisse. These are beers which emphasize complexity of flavours and aromas and use multiple genera of yeasts and lactic acid bacteria in carefully constituted microbial guilds and communities over 3-4 phases. I approach it more creatively and experimentally, like the founders of these styles did, rather than Romantically idealizing beer style traditions.

Some of my workshops focus on inventing new styles, such as hybrid lagers with non-Sacch or Kveik yeasts. I use more non-Sacch yeasts besides Brettanomyces, including Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, from tea bushes, and Metschinikowia, Torulaspora, and Pichia spp., which are ecologically associated with bees. The lower alcohol, higher microbial diversity and more plant polyphenols than most beers mean they're relatively healthier too.

The workshops I'm offering are small group experiences (up to 6 paying participants, one assistant) at home on a Saturday or Sunday brewing a batch of beer together and learning how to do it, with lunch, snacks and sampling my previous beers included.

You'll get one 4L* PET keg of the beer we make, delivered when it's ready (or when it's past the point of needing temperature and pressure controlled conditions), in ~2 months (how long partly depends on the recipe). Your share of the beer we make is included in the workshop price but there's a 25€ deposit for the 4L keg and tap set.

We'll gather at 11am and start the mashing about 12, because the whole process usually takes 4-6 hours to complete (or even longer if I'm also making starter cultures or agar plates to identify and isolate microbes sourced from dregs or wild caught from fruit, flowers or bees, but I'll try to prepare those before). I want you to end up feeling enabled to do it yourself, not just overwhelmed by details, so I'll start with a quick presentation to give you some structure to organize the information with. You can leave earlier if you want and I can complete the process on my own if necessary.

Primary fermentation usually takes 1-2 weeks, then I transfer to a clean vat under CO2 pressure leaving the yeast sediment behind, and secondary fermentation and cool conditioning to clarify in the temperature range 15-0°C takes another month or two.

Mixed fermentation brewing is always more complexly variable than the more standardized modern commercial type of beers (they standardized to minimize their costs of production and more random fermentation outcomes, and then market it as 'clean'/ neutral tasting) and I experiment with something new every time, so almost every time something goes not completely to plan and adapting around that is part of the scientific and creative skills we're going to learn. I'm new to running these workshops so the first few times (at least) won't be perfectly rehearsed or routinized yet - that's part of why the price is relatively low for now.

I studied biology, including part of a masters in evolutionary biology (mainly animal behaviour, host-parasite interactions and cognitive ecology). So I have a much more precisely detailed approach to this than most non-professional brewers do, and I tend to talk in biochemistry terminology not marketing hype or Romanticizing about 'Nature' or 'golden age' traditions. These workshops will suit you if you like a nerdy 10,000 details mode of scientific creativity.

In mixed fermentation brewing, the costs are mainly the control equipment and sourcing many unusual yeast varieties, so getting started is more expensive than for simpler fermentations. (If I'd known before how expensive this hobby would become I wouldn't have started yet for a few years!) So I'm doing this partly to recoup my initial costs and to offset buying more equipment and ingredients, and I enjoy sharing the scientific and creative aspects. I'm also open to considering collaborations sharing my equipment outside of workshops when you've done a workshop or two and learned how to use the equipment safely on your own.

Legal aspects: I'm not selling alcohol but a workshop tuition experience, with beers shared at (or below) the cost of materials. I'm intending to try doing it a few times before deciding if it's worth it to register a company and do the paperwork associated with that. Brewing involves handling boiling hot sugary liquids and strong cleaning chemicals (oxygen bleach, phosphoric acid, isopropanol), and I can show you how to do that carefully but I can't guarantee that you won't drop boiling hot wort on your foot. I recommend wearing closed toe shoes (commercial kitchen crocs are ideal) and you must accept liability for your own safety to participate. I don't have a commercial kitchen (nor the license), and I have two dogs at home (huskies) but they'll be on the other side of a baby gate. Microbiologically it's very safe because we naturally have very high sensory sensitivity to the mildly toxic biochemicals which can occur if a fermentation goes wrong (fusel alcohols, THPs) and the more risky possible microbes (Clostridium botulinum) are suppressed early on by boiling and rapid acidification.

The 'couple' reduced price means that you'll get one 4L keg of beer between you, and that's because my equipment so far limits us to 6 x 4L. It doesn't matter to me whether you're a couple, flatmates or just friends, it's just due to an equipment size limitation.

(*I've changed the amount of beer per participant from 8 to 4L because: a 4L keg fits in a normal fridge easier (35cm); it more probably doesn't require a CO2 mini regulator and cartridges to top up; and with 4L I can host up to 6 participants which more nearly covers my upfront equipment and materials costs sooner. FYI, comparable quality mixed fermentation beer at retail usually costs 6-16€ per 35cl bottle, ≈18-45€/L, e.g. look in the 'Wild ales' aisle in Sterk on De Clercqstraat. I'll order more kegging equipment after the workshop - so I can show you the options and you tell me what you want to borrow on deposit, and as the beer takes 1-2 months to be ready the keg sets will be here then.)