3 Smoked Beers & the Only Nordic Malthouse in North America
By David Nilsen
It’s pitch black outside in the predawn hours of a cold January morning in western Indiana. Caleb Michalke of Sugar Creek Malt hands me a headlamp as we put on our shoes. I’ve just rolled out of bed in the Michalke’s guest room at their farm, but coffee and breakfast will have to wait, because the fires in their såinnhus, a Norwegian smokehouse for drying brewing malt, need to be tended.
“It’s a steep hill down to the såinnhus,” Caleb warns me as we step out into the frigid air and navigate the farm yard, dodging a choir of chickens, barn cats, goats, and one very insistent rooster who’s been crowing since 4 am—a nightly occurrence that has earned him the name Quatro.
As we near the såinnhus built into the side of a small hill, the sweet, plummy smell of cherrywood smoke fills the frosty air. When we step inside, it’s more intense and spicy. My eyes begin to burn.
A såinnhus is a Norwegian smokehouse in which the malt-drying bed rests directly above the wood fires. The bed is made from wood planks—in this case pine—with countless holes drilled in them by hand to allow rising smoke to permeate the drying malt. Caleb can burn different types of wood to create malts saturated with unique smoke aromas. This technique traces back across centuries of farmhouse brewing in Norway, and is still practiced by rural homebrewers there today. Caleb is helping to revive the tradition for American breweries today.
Here are three fascinating beers brewed with Sugar Creek’s såinnhus malt.
Fonta Flora Såinnhus
This dark smoked lager made by Fonta Flora Brewery near Asheville, North Carolina, is unlike any smoked beer I’ve ever tasted. Rather than the savory flavor some smoked beers take on, this is like the entire life of a wood fire was distilled into a glass. Ash, coal, dry smoke in cold air, warm wood, the comforting smell of the fire on your favorite flannel shirt...I felt like I was back inside the såinnhus on that cold winter day.
Lock 27 Stjørdalsøl
Stjørdalsøl is a Norwegian farmhouse ale brewed by Lock 27 Brewing in Dayton, Ohio, using Caleb’s Stjørdal malt. Rather than the beechwood used in the beer from Fonta Flora, this malt was smoked over alderwood, and the differences showcase how unique each woodsmoke can be.
Where the Fonta Flora beer had an intense but clean fireside smoke quality, the Lock 27 beer was funkier, with a sweeter impression to the smoke up front along with some sharp, almost medicinal phenolics. This eventually softened into fruity and lightly meaty flavors that dry out to an ashy, smokey char. It’s...a lot, but I loved it.
Fifth Street Brewpub Grätzer
Also from Dayton, Fifth Street Brewpub tackled the low-strength Polish Grätzer style, a 3.5% wheat ale brewed with oak-smoked malt from the Sugar Creek såinnhus. This beer packs a punch of smokey, campfire flavor in a relatively light body, balancing intensity with an easy-drinking strength.