Ingredients: Water, Barleymalt (BIO Pilsner, BIO Pale, BIO Vienna), Utrechtse Blauwe, Hops (Pilgrim BIO, Malling BIO), Gist (Weihenstephan Weizen)

Utrechtse Blauwe

Utrechtse Blauwe is a blue Emmer (Triticum dicoccum), an ancient predecessor of what eventually became modern day wheat (Triticum aestivum) . The name stems from the color of the chaff, a blue black colour, and the region where it was historically cultivated a lot. Application of Emmer in beer was and is to this day pretty rare, Utrechtse Blauwe is uniquely found in this beer.

Collab!

This beer is a collab between grain specialists at Zonnespelt, conservationists at Laurentius VOF and K.E.G.S. The Utrechtse Blauwe was brought back into the Utrecht landscape by the conservationists a few years ago to promote biodiversity. A great success because a few years later several tonnes were ready to harvest. That had to be used somehow so through Zonnespelt they ended up at K.E.G.S.

Blue Weizen

Weizen is a German style which literally translates to wheat. Similarly in old Dutch the word “Wit” was used to indicate wheat. This beer is technically not a “true” weizen because we use Emmer instead of regular wheat. Like wheat, Emmer does not have hulls around the kernels which means they fall apart completely during mashing resulting in a glue-like liquid. Not very practical if want the wort to be filtered through a nice and loose grain bed. To resolve that problem we had to resort to traditional brewing techniques and include an extra step in the mash to break down the glue-like substance. Incidentally this step also lays the foundation to form the characteristic clove-like flavor found in a weizen. Emmer therefore lends itself perfectly well to making a weizen, but obviously a Blue Weizen!

Hops

Pilgrim: grassy, pear, spicy.

Malling: mint, pepper.