Yeast Series: Brettanomyces - Mikkeller, Copenhagen

Mikkeller's Yeast Series is an awesome concept. It's a line of beers, all the same style but fermented with different yeast strains. The bottle I've opened today is Mikkeller's Yeast Series: Brettanomyces. Brettanomyces is the yeast you get in a lot of Belgian style beers that taste like orange peel, coriander and lemon. This Pale Ale is 8.0%, considerably stronger than a lot of brett based beers I've had before. I'm hoping the yeast flavors are able to come through and this isn't just a pale hoppy mess. Mikkeller makes great beers so I have faith in them doing this the right way.

This Yeast Series beer pours a warm orange color into the glass. It settles darker than expected but still light enough that it isn't opaque. The body is cloudy and you can see little bits of sediment suspended throughout. The head of this beer is extremely persistent and will hang around until your down to about a third of your glass. The head looked solid, as in fake... it looked like it was about to develop a skin across the top, it was odd... As the head died down a little and I drank through this beer, there was a lot of lacing along the walls of the glass.

The aroma is easily identifiable, you'll get the brettanomyces right away. There's a little bit of musty horse funk in here as well. It definitely smells like a great Belgian style beer.

The flavor of this Yeast Series beer is as full of brett as the aroma. It's the first thing you'll taste, orangey, lemony and spiced with coriander. It's sweet, but definitely more sour than sweet. The brett flavors are well balanced, not too tart, too sweet or too sour. Beyond the brett, this beer finished more like a Pale Ale, it's crisp and malty with a decent amount of hops to bitter things up. I'm not a big fan of the bitterness in this beer but I appreciate it serving as a base with the pale malt. If I had the other Yeast Series beers with me right now I could compare them against each other, using the Pale Ale components as a familiar mark.

I had a lot of fun drinking this beer. It's a simple but interesting concept. A Pale Ale with a yeast strain, nothing terribly complicated. I never really felt like this beer needed more too it, but I'm a big fan of brettanomyces... I could see why others would want something else in this beer. The flavors that are here, are pretty strong and may not be approachable to beginners. I wouldn't give someone this beer if they'd never tasted brettanomyces before. If you're a fan of Belgian style beers and want to learn more about the different yeast strains though, there's no better way to learn than sitting down to a tray of Yeast Series samples from Mikkeller.