Wednesday 23 June 2010

26 Fungal Strong Ale

What do you call a mushroom with a whoopee cushion? A fun-gi! Mycologists reading this will no doubt be questioning the use of a plural term for fungus to refer to a mushroom with a puerile sense of humour.

My first job after paperboy was mushroom picker. Stooping in damp darkness, washing ladders in bleach and slicing ribbons off of my thumb with a veg knife are my abiding memories of the glamorous world of mushroom farming. It was ordinary white mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) that I used to pick. None of these "shit take" things (as my Nan used to say). Fungal ale will use a range of interesting fungi to hopefully give weird and wonderful flavours. The selection of mycological superstars lighting up fungal strong ale is as follows:

Lentinula edodes

Agaricus bisporus

Brettanomyces bruxellensis

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Aspergillus oryzae

Look at me with my italicised latin names!

With this beer I am after a fragrant bittersweet mélange of fungal excitement. I’m looking for deep complex and probably to most drinkers unappealingly different. I’m sure that it’s all been done before but I think it’s quite exciting.

Tech Spec:

Malt: Pale ale

Hops: Northern Brewer, Perle and Brewer’s Gold

OG:1085

Yeast: Yes

3 comments:

The Puffin said...

No Psilocybin? I'm sure Nevlik could oblige.

Stuart Howe said...

I might take Nevlik up on that for the Hallucingenic Bitter coming up later in the year.

jocko said...

the Ealing beer fest has a dutch mushroom beer on next week.Sadly i will not be providing tasting notes.Fungi beer no.

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