1889 August | September 2018

what you want to do, then let’s do it,’”
Johns said. Now they have 100 oak
barrels aging all the time, and plan to
bring in 150 more.
There’s a microscopic wilderness
all around us, floating on air currents,
teeming on fruit and flowers, leaves
and even bark. Apart from the visible
“bloom” of yeast on grapes and
blueberries, it’s a wilderness most of us
will never experience in any meaningful
detail. But in wild fermentations, we can
taste it. Each strain of yeast or bacteria,
even of the same species, produces its
own byproducts during fermentation.
Yeast from Yakima apples will lend a
different background flavor than that of
Cascades rose hips. Microbes harvested
from the air just outside of Tacoma
lend peach notes to E9 brews, while
those from inside the brewery are more
cherry pie.
Johns was among the first of a
cadre of Washington brewers to
go beyond the catalogs of the yeast
laboratory and harvest distinctly
Northwestern microbes from which to
craft distinctively Northwestern beers.
While American wild brewers took
their first cues from the traditional
brewers of Belgium, northern France
and Germany, who have long relied
on ambient yeast to ferment their tart,
funky and refreshing beers, it’s far from
where they stopped.
One purist definition of “wild beer” is
“spontaneously fermented.” This means
the wort is cooled slowly in an open
environment, in a wide, open metal
tray called a “coolship,” an anglicization
of the Flemish koelschip. As it cools,
the hope is that airborne yeast and
bacteria collect on the surface and make
themselves at home in the nutrient-rich
environment. This method produces
beers that are definitely wild. But
without the decades- or centuries-old
breweries and equipment of Europe—
which are already crawling with
the “right” (and arguably somewhat
domesticated) microbes—it’s also dicey.
“Wild” here involves a few different
processes, from coolship inoculation, to
wild harvesting, to hybrid inoculations.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP The exterior of the historic
Engine House No. 9. The bottle-labeling machine at
E9 Brewery. E9 head brewer Shane Johns.
The Northwest has long had the right stuff for crafting fermented beverages.
Even the weather helps contribute to successful fermentations,
which is especially important for the long cooling and
extended aging often required for wild brews. All these factors
brought Ron Extract and Amber Watts from Austin, Texas, to
Burlington, Washington.
“When we started thinking about places, we thought about
where everything exists for making beer,” Watts said. In
addition to the “very unique, beautiful malt,” hops, and fruit,
the Skagit Valley climate is “perfect for minimal temperature intervention
for fermentation,” she said.
Watts and Extract became well-known for expanding the milieu of
artisan beer at Austin’s renowned Jester King brewery. Progressing from
Jester King’s tradition of incorporating plenty of fruit and herbs into the
mix, their fledgling Garden Path Fermentation will produce not only
beer, but mead, fruit wine and cider—a veritable universe of alcoholic
fermentation. Also, unlike most wild brews, Garden Path’s beers won’t
necessarily be sour. Most of them will be what might be described as
“clean drinking.”
“We’re actually exploring the softer side of fermentation,” Extract said.
“If people come up to us at a festival and expect a beer that’s going to
dissolve the enamel off their teeth, they’re not going to find that.”
There’s a misconception that “wild” is synonymous with “sour,” and
indeed the guezes and lambics of Flanders are usually quite sour, so the
terms are sometimes used interchangeably. But a brew can be quickly
soured with fruit juice, or by adding commercial preparations of lactic
60 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE