Who Is The Pest?.

The brewing industry seems to throw up all sorts of interesting opportunities.  Probably one of the more unusual opportunities happened a few months ago when we were approached by the Nordic Food Labs who were running an event on exploring the deliciousness of insects.  They asked if we could make a beer that would be steeped in some form of insects and Koji.  We weren’t about to turn them down, what an interesting opportunity.

We duly received some Koji (being a byproduct of a rice fungus that is used heavily in Sake and soy sauce production) in the post to taste, and then ascertain what style of beer would work well with it.  The insects were to be either Meal Worms or Crickets and both have a different flavour profile, but we had to choose the style of beer before we would know which insect it was to  be.  We decided on an oatmeal stout at 5.6% as the base beer as the Koji imparted flavours that work well with a stout amongst them coffee. A couple of days before we were due to brew the beer our package arrive and once we got through all the packaging and dry ice we found our bag of meal worms to add to the beer.

We broke out the homebrew gear as this was only a 50l brew, and we planned to use the wort from and imperial stout we were brewing and then adding more water to hit the gravity target.  This was also the first Siren Craft Brew beers to hit bottles as Nordic wanted to serve the beers in 750ml bottles on each table.

The beer was well received and both nights were a great success.  Its worth taking a look at Nordic Food Labs blog on the event, its an interesting read.