Beer of the Week: Pitted Peach

If you ask most beer fans what they’re favorite base ingredient is, most of them – especially in Southern California – will say hops. Move to the midwest and you’re likely to find more people with an appreciation for malt and the roasty, toasty, biscuity, bready and chocolaty nuances it adds to ales and lagers. Over the years, as I’ve turned the mirror to myself and become more introspective, I’ve come to realize that my fave of the fab four that is hops, malt, water and yeast, is the latter. I love Belgian yeast and the floral, fruity esters it brings to the party. And don’t even get me started on my adoration of the fifty shades of funk brought about by different strains of Brettanomyces. I even enjoy bacteria that find their way into the fermentation of wild and spontaneous ales, such as lactobacillus and pediococcus, and have traveled halfway across the world to visit breweries that preserve decades-old cobwebs in an effort to retain their house bugs. So when I heard that The Brigantine restaurant group’s in-house craft-beer operation, Ketch Brewing, was using a new variety of yeast extracted from the bellies of wasps, rather than ruling it out I was all in. Enter this week’s featured brew, Pitted Peach Gose. This beer is of German descent with roots tracing back to the town of Goslar, where the water used to brew these sour ales came from saline-rich aquifers. Modern-day breweries add sodium chloride and, in Ketch’s case, peaches, to bring on a pleasant salty-sweet flavor profile with pronounced, recognizable fruitiness. But in the case of this beer, it’s what the yeast offers that makes it unique. Underneath the obvious – and delicious – flavors of peach and salt are other fruit flavors that come across on my palate as green grapes and kiwi. It’s an alluring degree of depth added to an already impressive beer. Wasp-borne microorganisms are capable of enhancing ancient German beer styles. Who’d have known?

We’re really happy with how this beer turned out. It has a gentle tartness that is balanced by the perceived sweetness of fermented peach and finishes slightly salty, making it nice and refreshing. There are subtle notes of honey and melon in there, too, along with a silky mouthfeel. All of these features (minus the salt and peach flavors) are produced using a novel species of yeast, Lachancea thermotolerans, which was discovered on wasps and, as it turns out, makes great beer. The cool thing about this species of yeast is that it sours the beer completely on its own by producing its own lactic acid, so no bacteria are required during fermentation. It also produces a lot of glycerol, giving the beer a nice, full mouthfeel. I am told that we are the first brewery in Southern California – and one of the first in the world – to use this particular newly developed strain of Lachancea thermotolerans. It ended up being a really fun and tasty experiment!”

Sam Billheimer, Head Brewer, Ketch Brewing

Ketch Brewing is located at 7889 Ostrow Street in Kearny Mesa