In the event you’re a craft beer fanatic and love zippy, musty, funky beers that transcend the hop-forward type of India Pale Ales or the traditional, malt-forward type of porters or stouts, you’ve doubtless heard of sahti. You’ll have even tasted it.

A standard farmhouse ale, sahti is exclusive to Finland and one of many world’s oldest beers. There’s proof of casks onboard a sunken Viking ship from the ninth century. 

The beer is historically flavored with juniper together with, or as a substitute of, hops. The historic vessel that sahti is brewed in known as a kuurna. This historical lauter tun, made historically from hollowed-out wood logs, separates the worts from the mash solids.

Sahti fell out of favor within the early 1900s. Prohibition worn out many small, family-run sahti breweries in Finland. Commercially produced lagers turned the favored type. 

Within the late Seventies, sahti loved a small resurgence in Finland, as homebrewers revisited the centuries-old ale.

Sahti is taken into account one of the crucial conventional recipes within the Nordic nation’s historical past. It’s additionally one of many few indigenous merchandise in Europe that falls beneath a protected designation of origin (PDO) like France’s Camembert cheese and Italy’s Parma ham. 

The perfect and most genuine sahti is discovered within the Finnish countryside, situated within the southern and western elements of the nation. Farmers typically make the brew for private consumption. 

The preferred business sahti producer in Finland is Lammin Sahti. Proprietor Pekka Kääriäinen makes near 25,000 liters of beer per yr in his mother or father’s outdated farmhouse, the identical place the place he brewed his first sahti at age 14. 

Different brewers embody Finlandia Sahti, identified for a extra fruit-forward type, and Pyynikin Craft Brewery, a producer of extra hoppy types. The breweries make sahti primarily based on conventional recipes which usually embody “[malted] grains, water, baker’s yeast, juniper branches and typically hops,” says Finland-based sahti brewer Marjokaisa Piironen.

Kääriäinen, additionally the chairman of the Finnish sahti society, acknowledges that the ale may be divisive. 

“You both prefer it otherwise you don’t. And most of the people don’t as a result of they’ve dangerous reminiscences of consuming not-so-good sahti,” says Kääriäinen. “The individuals who do prefer it, grew up consuming it and are used to the flavour.”  

The distinct taste of sahti

In distinction to business beers, sahti has little-to-no fizz. 

“Not like trendy beers, sahti is flat, and there are not any bubbles. This results in a easy and refreshing drink,” says Piironen. 

Piironen says her brewmaking type may be very clear and permits the fermentation to occur in “peace earlier than being loved in two weeks after the wort is made.”

Sahti is mostly between 6-8% ABV and has a robust aroma of banana. Piironen says these fruity aromatics are intentional. “It’s a candy, darkish ale and also you get a odor of bananas, which in lots of beers is an error,” she says. “However in sahti, it belongs.” 

Some producers like Kääriäinen joke that they throw bananas into the kuurna together with the juniper branches. In reality, the banana notes emerge due to using baker’s yeast, somewhat than the business yeast generally utilized in mainstream beer manufacturing.

Piironen says that sahti is thought for its lack of bitterness.

“There are two causes for this,” she says. “Sahti wort is just not boiled in any respect, however simply heated to about 80 to 85° Celsius (176°F). There’s additionally a scarcity of hops, or not less than it’s utilized in a really minimal quantity, to cease any bitterness from creating.” 

As an alternative, contemporary juniper helps sahti attain that required pungency. 

Find out how to strive sahti

There’s a significant barrier that retains sahti from being exported outdoors of Finland. It has a really brief shelf life. With its lack of pasteurization, minimal quantity of hops, and using baker’s yeast, which may go bitter if not consumed instantly, sahti is very perishable. 

“Nobody exports sahti to the U.S. or wherever [in the world] as a result of sahti is a contemporary product that must be handled like contemporary milk,” says Piironen.

Piironen says that freezing her sahti doesn’t compromise its style, nevertheless. 

Whereas a visit to a Finnish farm to style genuine sahti appears interesting, craft beer lovers in America can now strive the type with out touring 1000’s of miles. In recent times, U.S. breweries have crafted variations of the normal Finnish drink. 

These breweries can’t replicate the precise recipe made in Finland. Most American shoppers aren’t prepared to surrender carbonation of their beers fully, and a few Finnish elements simply aren’t out there Stateside. However these scrumptious, sahti-style brews are the closest we’ve discovered.

Barrel + Beam Sahti

Nick VanCourt, co-founder and head brewer of Barrel + Beam in Michigan began to brew a couple of “actually Nordic” beers in 2019, all of which fell beneath the sahti class. 

VanCourt makes use of juniper boughs and both malted or uncooked rye, for a “malty, toasty and fruity ale with undertones of spice rye and woody juniper,” he says. Barrel + Beam ferments with its home yeast pressure somewhat than bread yeasts, and it absolutely carbonates its sahti somewhat than providing the normal nonetheless type.

Ale Apothecary Sahti

This fall, Bend, Oregon’s Ale Apothecary will launch an aged sahti, a matured model of a beforehand brewed expression. Following the brewery’s ethos to give attention to extra obscure beers, head brewer Connor Currie says that it was a pure development to brew sahti due to the “conventional and historic brewing strategies” concerned.

A sequence of experimental brews led Currie to a contemporary spin on conventional Finnish sahti. Ale Apothecary Sahti is aged in oak barrels and carbonated, one thing that Currie says his clientele wishes. The bottling consists of malted barley and rye from their native grower and maltster, Mecca Grade Property Malt. Currie says that the prolonged getting older course of and carbonation end in a drier, lighter beer with a pleasing mouthfeel, in comparison with a conventional nonetheless sahti.

Dogfish Head Brewery Sah’tea

Delaware’s Dogfish Head Brewery is likely one of the few U.S.-based operations that has a seasonal sahti beer in its rotation. Referred to as Sah’tea, the brew is a contemporary tackle the normal Nordic ale.

To copy the medieval sahti brewing course of, scorching rocks are thrown right into a metal tank that incorporates sahti wort, which is then boiled to offer an earthy character. Black tea, cumin, and coriander are added to imitate the Finnish juniper flavors present in conventional sahti. The identical “lovely, banana bread-like” aromas may be present in Sah’tea. 

Off Colour Brewing Naked Bear Ale

Chicago’s Off Colour Brewing admits that not one of the conventional gear present in a sahti farmhouse brewery is used to make its model, however ardour for the type remains to be evident. 

The sahti-style Naked Bear Ale is 7% ABV. Juniper berries and oak staves are added to the mash, which produces an particularly tannic character. The brewery makes use of a saison yeast as a substitute of the normal baker’s yeast. Although the beer-making course of might look completely different, the ensuing brew is complicated and scrumptious, with all of the sahti notes and aromas. 

Brewery Vivant Michigan Sahti

Michigan’s Brewery Vivant just lately launched its personal tackle conventional sahti. Through the use of corn mash and Simcoe hops within the physique, and juniper berries within the whirlpool, the brewer was in a position to obtain the identical Finnish botanical notes you’d discover within the Nordics. The funky beer is barely candy, amber in shade, and has a reasonably heavy physique with a 7.4% ABV.