So Pekka and Jukka had been drinking in the wilderness for two weeks...: Sahti by Giant Jones Brewing

...during a very cold winter.

Back in their home village, their friend Matti began to get worried about them not returning so he decided to send a trained dog to rescue them. He attached a barrel of vodka to the dog and asked it to find his friends.

Pekka and Jukka were sitting around a camp fire, drinking, when the dog found them. Pekka shouted: “Oh there is the rescue, our best friend coming towards us... But, hold on, what an earth is attached to it?”. “Can't you see?”, answered Jukka, “It is Matti's dog!”

Several years back when I first started to investigate Scandi-noir, I noticed that police stations in Finnish shows such as Bordertown - see above - were these late-20th century bunker-like affairs. Dark, shadowy places with not a window to be seen so there was no natural light, just the fluorescent stuff. A bit like the Humanities building here on the UW campus. This stood in stark contrast to a French cop show called Spiral that I watched around that time where the cop shop was in an old building with open windows everywhere letting in plenty of sunlight and venting all the cigarette smoke as a "Voltaire slept here" sign hung from a wall in the background. 

Finnish cops, when not sitting in a sauna, were always dressed for the cold and snow and seemed ready to defend themselves from murderous reindeer. French cops, on the other hand, were mostly a bunch of bon vivants who wore berets and dipped baguettes into their wine as they puzzled out the next steps of their investigations and quoted Sartre at one another. Finns were serious and taciturn, if not outright dour, while the French were convivial and determined not to let a little thing like murder get in the way of a good time. Plus the French weren't as pale.

But it is the Finns who give us the beer that is sahti. Filtered through spruce boughs and generally made with bread yeast, it smacks of the Finns' boreal homeland and its hardy, unpretentious inhabitants.

A few months back in December I reviewed Giant Jones' Norwegian farmhouse ale, Kornøl. I noted then that Giant Jones also had a sahti on offer and that I hoped to be able to sample it. Well, I finally managed to do so. The thing about Giant Jones' beers is that they're all rather potent so, if you buy some that was bottled in August but don't get around to drinking it until several months later in March, it'll still be good.

Sahti seems to come in the 8%-10% range in its homeland, though there are certainly less potent variations. Rye is common but not all sahti brewers use it. Hops, from what I can tell, are minimal to non-existent. Spruce branches are traditionally used when filtering out the grain but I have read that juniper branches are also used. Sometimes branches are left out completely and berries do all the work. And so Giant Jones had lot of leeway when brewing their Finnish-style ale.

When I think of farmhouse type ales, I think of something unfiltered because it's beer brewed in primitive conditions for immediate or near immediate consumption. This sahti had the right look, to my eyes, with a substantial haze taking the shine off of the yellow liquid. (It appeared gold in the thicker part of the glass.) A tiny white head didn't take long to disappear while I spied a modicum of bubbles through the haze.

The aroma was like a hefeweizen with a prominent banana scent joined by a bit of bubblegum. A hint of something piney hovered in the background.

Beers with a cloudy appearance and/or having a lot of alcohol tend to have heavier bodies but I found the sahti to have a nice medium-light one instead. Fizz was of a similar intensity so it was rather smooth. The aroma bits swapped places here with bubblegum becoming more prominent than banana. There was a bit of rye plus a peppery tasting hoppiness to offer spicy counterpoint to the fruity yeast flavors and the (tempered) grainy sweetness.

Upon swallowing, a pine flavor came through - the stuff was filtered through spruce branches, if memory serves. Not strong but instead deliciously subtle. The yeast and grain flavors departed quickly allowing those peppery hops to take over and make for a rather dry finish with a modicum of bitterness.

I found that, when drunk cold, Sahti has more of a hefeweizen character minus the wheat. Those yeasty banana/bubblegum flavors had center stage. However, as the brew warmed, it lost some of the lighter, fruitier flavors and took on mellow, earthy ones with the hops, rye, and spruce coming together for a taste that was heartier, more redolent of a farmhouse.

And it was this flavor triad that makes Sahti such a great beer. They all came in just the right amounts and melded together just perfectly.

Junk food pairing: Crank up the Sibelius, pour a glass of Sahti, and grab a bag of Gardetto's Roasted Garlic Rye Chips.

Helsinki Is In Your Mind: Finland Finnish Sahti by Karben4 Brewing

Back in January I read that Madison's Karben4 Brewing was reorganizing their line-up going into 2022 by doing its best Ronald Reagan imitation with many beers going the way of the dodo, er, air traffic controller. Our very own beer baron, Chris Drosner, wrote that Karben4 "began its 10th year by bidding adieu to most of its regular beers that don’t carry a gun-toting, unicorn-riding ninja cat on its label… And its seasonal lineup will mostly be replaced by two new rotating-monthly series of beers…" Brewmaster (and owner) Ryan Koga is quoted as saying, "The whole point is going to be turn and burn. We want to keep it exclusive and fresh."

Yikes!

This seems a shame to me. I was at Karben4's opening back in 2012 and have been enjoying their smoked porter, Night Call, since then. And now they've gone and tossed it to the wayside like a used rubber? Well, that's men for you. Always wanting something younger with whorish displays of tropical fruit flavor, no doubt.

I figured this Karben4 V2.0 would be like going to see Lynyrd Skynyrd. They start playing "Gimme Three Steps" and you realize that there's only 1 guy left who was actually in the band when they recorded that song. But when I go to the brewery's webpage, I find more that is familiar to me than some unicorn-riding ninja cat. Indeed, there are a lot of brews that I recognize at the site that aren't collected under the "Retired Beers" section, including my beloved Night Call. What gives?

Perhaps they've had a change of heart. Or maybe their webmaster hasn't updated the page to reflect the changes.

Sadly, I guess it's goodbye Night Call, hello rotating monthly beer series. One series sounds like it's going to be all fruity tasting IPAs and fruity sours so I am taking a hard pass. Instead, I will take the magical zymurgy tour which features beer styles from around the world – the aptly named World Beer Tour series. The initial stop in January was the home of the eminent poet Robert Burns as well as haggis – Scotland. Did Adam Smith drink wee heavies as he rhapsodized about the Invisible Hand? I don't know but Karben4's take on the style is soooo two months ago. Who cares? Turn and burn, baby!

February saw stop numero kaksi – Finland! – and a sahti. The first thing I noticed when I saw a 4-pack of it at the liquor store was that it didn't have a funkadelic name and instead had the unexciting, although apposite, "Finland" on emblazoned on the label. I mean, Karben4's flagship is named after a Traffic song so why can't this one also get the treatment? How about "Jani Barleycornonen Must Die"?

It's probably been 15 years since I've had a sahti from Finland. It was Kataja Out from a brewery called Lammin Sahti Oy. The short bottle with the red label. I don't know if you can find the stuff here in Madison anymore. But I have had a few American interpretations of the style over the years which were all ales made with rye and flavored with juniper berry. (In its homeland, sahti was traditionally filtered with juniper branches for that piney taste.)

My glass had a big, light tan head in it. And this was firm foam. It barely moved when the mug did. And the stuff had staying power. The beer itself was a lovely amber with just a touch of haziness to it that in no way obstructed my view of some bubbles scattered about inside. I could smell banana when the glass wasn't near my nose. Putting it a bit closer, I smelled some toasty grain and a whole lot of fresh juniper. Juniper is often thought of simply smelling like pine. It is, after all, the ingredient that gives gin its evergreen aroma. But there's more to the spice than the pine provided by the compound called – wait for it - pinene. To my nose, juniper also has fruity and floral elements to it and they are present here as well.

The first sip revealed a nice, firm fizz inside a medium bodied brew. There was a definite malty sweetness that was redolent of honey along with a light rye spice. And a big juniper flavor. Again, not just pine, although that's a major component here, but also a citrus-floral kind of taste that melded really well with the sweetness. On the finish, malt sweetness slowly faded allowing what tasted like a faint herbal hoppiness/piney juniper mix to come through but also really boost the dryness.

Exactly how "authentic" this stuff is is surely a matter of debate. If you have any interest at all in this beer style, I highly recommend reading "The great Finnish sahti expedition" by Norwegian beer historian Lars Marius Garshol. Lots of great information about this style and an account of this "farmhouse ale" actually being brewed in a barn using wood burning boiler.

Whether or not any of the homebrewers that Garshol meets would recognize Karben4's take as being representative of their country's best known beer style, this sahti is excellent. I loved every piney-floral-fruity sip. There's just something particularly wonderful about the malt-juniper pas de deux here. This is a fairly big beer at 7.2% and rather sweet too – both things typical of the style – but the sweetness is smooth and the juniper never lets it become cloying. Marvelous!

Junk food pairing: if you can get a hold of some Finnish snacks, get some Taffel Horseradish potato chips. If not, go with Jays Hot Stuff chips.

I Found That Essence Juniper: Sahti by Vintage Brewing Co.

For me, it all started with the shrimp.

The Frau and I started eating shrimp fairly regularly at some point during the pandemic. We soon fell into a routine of cooking them with a Mexican verde sauce – lime and something something. Then we added a scampi-like variation with lots of garlic. (She loves the garlic.) It eventually made its way into a stir fry. The best of these meals involved good shrimp purchased down the road at the Lake Edge Seafood Company but most of the time we were dealing with the skrimps you find at your supermarket.

Out of the blue one day I felt crustacean ennui. I was bored with all the well-worn shrimp recipes and desired something novel. I'd been listening to an album by a Noura Mint Seymali, a singer and musician from Mauritania which brought back memories of a former co-worker who hailed from nearby Morocco and I ended up cooking Moroccan-style shrimp. Well, sort of.

Firstly, I completely forgot to add the ginger. I still don't know how I managed that. Secondly, my coriander was positively antediluvian and it smelled and tasted like dust. This was not a good pairing for grocery store shrimp which often times tastes not totally unlike cardboard.

The next day was Bloody Wednesday because my spice shelf suffered a massacre. That ancient coriander? Gone. That $0.99 jar of turmeric that pre-dates meeting my Frau? Down the drain. Those cardamom pods from c. 2002? Meet the disposal. Juniper berries from the last millennium? 86'd.

All were replaced with fresh jars from Penzey's.

Perhaps because I was reading a book about the Russian invasion of Finland in November 1939, I started in on the juniper berries. First came a beef pot roast made with them. This was followed by chocolate hazelnut cookies seasoned with toasted juniper and then a pork tenderloin covered in mustard infused with crushed juniper berries. It only seemed natural, then, when my mind turned to sahti.

Sahti is a Finnish style of beer. I went back through my extensive (ahem) archives and found that I drank one actually brewed in Finland back in 2007. My suspicion – and I'd love to be proven wrong – is that you'd be hard-pressed to find a genuine Finnish sahti in Madison today. I base my hypothesis on my failed attempts to find English-brewed porters and milds and bitters here. There seems to be little enthusiasm for these beers because American brewers are brewing those styles and so why bother.

A craft brewed sahti seems to be an ale brewed with barley and rye, a dose of juniper spicing, and a yeast like that for hefeweizen that will produce those banana and clove flavors. And I don't doubt for a second that there are Finnish breweries brewing it exactly this way. However, now that I've read more about the style from genuine Finns, it's clear that there's more to the sahti than meets the craft brewer eye.

The style seems to go back to the 16^th century and traditional sahti today hews to those brewing methods, more or less. The highlights of traditional sahti brewing are, as near as I can tell, foregoing a period of boiling the wort that other beers undergo, the use of baking yeast, and time the beer spends in a vat with juniper branches lining the bottom. I certainly don’t expect any Americans beyond the most adventurous homebrewers to adhere strictly to the sahti brewing from the days of yore. Still, Scott Manning of Vintage Brewing here in Madison brews a contemporary take on the beer and I was happy to see that he still had some on tap when I was in the grip of my juniper mania.

At first, I thought it was from last summer because I was used to seeing "Summer Sahti" on their beer menu. But I was corrected. There was no Summer Sahti anymore because their winter sahti, Joulupukki, was also no more. So it was just "Sahti". And it was brewed back in the fall. No matter. It did not stop me from pursuit of juniper beer and supporting a local brewery.

So, keep in mind this was finely aged sahti.

It poured amber in color – maybe a bit on the light side. I got a creamy, white head and it was rather hazy. Not NEIPA turbidity, but definitely unclear.

My nose caught some caramel sweetness first which was followed by that familiar banana scent from esters. A little resiny pine lingered in the background.

The first thing I noted about the taste was that it had creaminess to it and I suspect that's because of proteins that make up the haze. This used to be the summer brew so it's not big and full tasting like the winter version was but retains a bit of that taste. That delicious rye spiciness was joined by sweetness that reminded me of apricots and a smidgeon of banana. Rather prominent was a whiskey-like taste. Unexpected but not bad and something I'd guess to be the result of age. Fizz was medium and there was a mild juniper taste as well.

The finish (ha!) had a nice spiciness that tasted like hops as well as a little more of that juniper resin.

While this beer tasted its age, I think the core sahti essence remained intact. It had a bit of that rustic rye flavor along with the fruity esters from the yeast. I think that some of the juniper had worn off but it wasn't totally absent. Rye and juniper are two flavors I really enjoy and so I do adore this beer. I gather that sahti is normally 8-10% A.B.V. while this comes in at 5.4%. So, if you want a traditional Finnish boozy blue gleam on your face, you'll need to drink a few extra.

I was happy to further indulge my taste for juniper.

Junk food pairing: Grab a large bag of rye chips such as Gordetto's for your snacking needs while enjoying Sahti.

Fizzier Than the Average Beer: Bare Bear Sahti by Off Color Brewing

A recent trek to Chicagoland meant a visit to a local bottle shop. Off Color is a Chicago brewery that intrigues me because, until quite recently, they had managed to avoid brewing a hoppy pale ale. Co-founder and brewer John Laffler once quipped, “Everybody else makes IPA, so why would we?” Instead they populated their line-up with the likes of a Kotbusser, a Gose, a Berliner Weisse, amongst other styles. And they don't necessarily brew their beers strictly according to style. For instance, their gose is actually a blend of two beers, one sour and one not. Generally speaking, Off Color, in the words of Neil Peart, deviates from the norm.

And so I was happy to have finally found a four-pack of their Bare Bear, a "Finnish style sahti", after my last few visits yielded none. The sahti has a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons. First is that it is brewed with rye and I love rye – in beer, bread, breakfast cereal – wherever I can find it. Second is the tasty juniper with its piney aroma and flavor. Yeah, it is best-known as a flavoring in gin, but it also is used in pickling spice, hassenpfeffer, and many more culinary recipes. I simply enjoy its sharp, earthy taste and think it complements rye very well.

I've read the sahti referred to as being part of a "folk tradition" of brewing and a "farmhouse beer" and such descriptions conjure images of drunken Finns emerging from saunas with blue alcoholic gleams. And so the style grew out of the practice of Finns in various parts of their homeland brewing beer with what they had at hand. Today it tends to refer to, at least here in the United States, an ale brewed with rye in addition to barley and seasoned with juniper berries. Plus the modern sahti has a banana flavor from esters produced by the yeast. It may or may not contain any hops. Presumably the grain bill has varied over the centuries and I've read that the branches of the juniper bush were involved instead of simply the berries. Also other herbs and spices have apparently been used at different times and places.

As far as I can recall, I have only had three sahtis: Joulupukki by Vintage Brewing here in Madison, Sam Adams' Norse Legend, and Lammin Kataja Olut from Finland. Finding one is a rare treat.

Bare Bear has a lovely amber hue and very cloudy. After reviewing four pilsners in a row it was really nice to have a beer before me which was not yellow and clear. When I tried Off Color's Scurry last year I found that my bottle was over carbonated. Well, memories of that brew came flooding back as I poured Bare Bear. I got a solid, tan head that was ginormous. The din of the fizzying and the bursting of the bubbles could be heard a foot away from the mug. Inside the glass was a veritable horde of bubbles charging upwards. Crap.

Shaking off my disappointment, I made to give the beer a whiff and caught the smell of banana wafting to my nose before it was even near the glass. Once at the glass, I smelled a pleasant earthiness which I thought was the rye and the juniper, although I can't rule out a bit of the Nugget hops in there as well.

It should come as no surprise that the carbonation was quite prominent. Tasting beyond that I found that wonderful rye earthy spice, a little caramel, a hint of plum, and bread. The juniper was pretty mild with it being a piney taste in the background. And of course there was banana. It was a big estery wave accented by a little clove. I loved it! Well, except for the carbonation which, if I may paraphrase Ralph Wiggum, tasted like burning.

On the finish all those tasty yeast and malt flavors faded quickly leaving some resiny juniper flavor and some hoppy bitterness too. Plus the ubiquitous carbonic bite which made the finale quite a bit drier than I think was intended. All the foam slid down into the glass so there was no lacing to be had.

How sad. Underneath all the fizz and behind the carbonic bite is a wonderful brew that juggles several flavors at once quite deftly. The banana and clove from the yeast jockey for your tongue's attention alongside the earthy/spicy rye and juniper (and hops on the finish too). Underneath this tantalizing mixture is solid malty foundation that has a little sweetness and a little savory. Just fantastic. It's such a shame you have to wade through so much carbonation to get to this gustatory wonderland.

Junk food pairing: Pair Bare Bear with a bag of smoked gouda potato chips. The smokiness adds another earthy layer of flavor. Cape Cod and Lay's both make this flavor chip.

The Yule Goat: Joulupukki by Vintage Brewing

On my most recent trek to Vintage I was disappointed to find out that I was a day late for this winter's Joulupukki as the last barrel had been emptied the day before. But fate smiled upon me last weekend on a trip to the Woodshed Ale House where the terminal keg of the season was still spilling out its juniper goodness.

"Joulupukki" has become the Finnish word for Santa Claus though more literally it means "Yule goat". It is also the name of one of Scott Manning's winter seasonals – his take on the Finnish sahti beer. The sahti is a traditional Finnish style of beer that can involve grains aplenty other than barley and is flavored with juniper. It's generally one the higher side in alcohol compared to other styles. Beer Advocate says the style ranges from 7%-10%.

This beer beer has a lovely deep amber color. It's clear but opaque. My pour didn't generate much of a head although there were bubbles lingering at the top. My nose nearly climaxed at the heavenly aroma with malty sweetness mixing with a bright floral scent and the trademark pine of the juniper. It was very refreshing not to smell any hops.

On the tongue, Joulupukki tastes much like it smells. The malt has a stone fruit sweetness here which is balanced somewhat by piney, resinous juniper and a hint of spice from the rye. Scott cleared out his spice cabinet for this one with cardamom, orange peel, clove, and whatever else he found at the ready making its way into the brew. These flavors were not very prominent but they did complement the malt very well and toned down the brighter flavors just a bit. For such a malt-forward beer, it was very light on the tongue and not syrupy at all. Although the carbonation didn't stick out on the pour, I could really feel the effervescence on my tongue making a nice contrast to the sweetness.

The beer finished smoothly with a hint of dryness as the bittering hops (~8 I.B.U.s) came through and melded with the lingering juniper. Sadly, there was no lacing on the glass. Presumably this is due to the paucity of hops. Joulupukki, if memory serves, weighs in at 6.8% A.B.V. This is not the heartiest beer ever but it will warm you up and, after a few too many, you'll have that blue alcoholic gleam just like the Finns in John Dos Passos novels.

I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful boreal mix of flavors that is Joulupukki. This is not at all surprising since I love rye in my beer, love juniper, and am not a hophead. The emphasis here is on the malt sweetness along with the spicy rye which are complemented by the earthy flavors brought by the juniper and other spices. Joulupukki is heady enough to be a fine winter warmer when seeking shelter from a cold winter's night but can also be a nice, cool refresher upon stepping out of the sauna. My plan is to convince Scott to age some of next year's batch in akvavit barrels.

Junk food pairing: Joulupukki goes well with Annie's Extra Cheesy Cheddar Bunnies. Just don't eat them while you're in the sauna.