Joalda, an artist in yeast

<< 2013-08-30 15:44 >>

Brewery, with dog

I've already told the story of how the "tasting" at Joalda went somewhat off the rails, but there's so much left to say I need another blog post. From the outside the brewery looks like a private dwelling, with a normal house, a little garden pavilion, and something like a combined barn and garage. That, of course, is the brewery. (This is part 5 of the Lithuanian brewery tour.)

We were greeted by an old, black dog, limping towards us, barking and growling, then retreating with a disgusted harrumph, before coming at us again. The others were sweet-talking her when the owner, Algimantas, showed up. He said she would never let anyone into the house before they had had a beer.

So of course he went and got a mug and glasses right away, pouring us a pale beer, which my notes say was called Joniškelio Respublika. It's named after a region of Lithuania that was liberated from both Germans and Russians by a local militia, called Joniškelio Mirties Bataljonas (Death Battalions of Joniškelis), during the confusion after the Russian Revolution. The t-shirt Algimantas is wearing in the picture below is emblazoned with their flag.

In the circumstances I couldn't do any proper notes on the beer, which I really regret now. There are hardly any ratings of their beers on Ratebeer, but the ones that are there are very good. That fits my memory, but I would have loved to have something more to back it up with.

In the brewery

I still remember the mouthfeel of it, though. It started with a little splash of sweetness, fading into a silky smooth dusty straw and grain flavour. My notes mostly cover what Algimantas was saying, but occassionally there are comments like "Fantastically drinkable." or, a bit later, "Beer is crazily drinkable. Smoothness is unreal." It really was an amazing beer. And well in line with Algimantas's philosophy of beer, which he told us was that "a beer should be gentle, like a man with a woman, or a woman with a man."

Afterwards they served us an amber-coloured beer, which I think was the Karpiu Dvaro. Again, the whole event was such a crazy riot it was impossible to keep proper notes, and my memory is not totally reliable, either. The flavour escapes me, but the mouthfeel was the same. Interestingly, I had the same beer two days before, in Vilnius. It was really good there, but it was much better here. Clearly, this is not a beer that travels well.

Algimantas next to kettle

Algimantas told us they started brewing illegally under the Soviets in 1980, at a time when private enterprise was frowned upon. They got their license in 1994, just after independence. The name actually stands for Joniškelios Alaus Darykla, that is, Joniškelios Brewery. He says he started out with wooden equipment, then gradually modernized into the all-steel setup they have now. Indeed, it looks pretty modern, with a bottling machine and everything.

He says they use Lithuanian malts and French yeast. I should have asked about the hops, but the tour was so lively it was hard to get a word in, and anyway I was taking pictures, making notes, and carrying my beer at the same time.

He top-ferments the beer, using very fresh, vigorous yeast. He shows us how the lid of the fermenter lifts, to blow off excess pressure. Then, after three days, he says, the beer is pumped into tanks in another room, where it cold-ferments. So, in fact, he actually both top- and bottom-ferments the beer. These truly are hybrid beers. Maybe that's how he achieves that amazing mouthfeel.

Apparently, it doesn't stop here, because he says he sometimes uses cold water to further adjust the temperature as the beer cold-ferments. If I understand this correctly, he's playing with the fermentation process, by tweaking the temperature to get the yeast to behave as he wants.

In the tasting pavillion

Having completed the tour we were lead back to the tasting room to go into glug-glug-glug-mode. That's where things started to really liven up, but that's all described in the first blog post.

So, how to classify Joalda? They're small, but modern, use mostly standard ingredients, and a fermentation method that's unlike any other I've ever heard of. How much of this derives from tradition is not clear. They're not part of the modern craft tradition, but they do produce world-class beer, unlike any other I've ever had. I guess until I learn more about Lithuanian brewers they will remain the odd man out.

I have a lot more to learn about these brewers, but some of the pieces have started falling into place, so the next couple of posts will present some analysis of what I've learned so far.

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