The malt kiln where Gunnar Skare dries his malts. Ørsta.
Gunnar Skare kommer fra Ørsta, ca 45 km fra Hornindal. Han lærte å brygge av faren, som igjen har det fra sin far. Gunnar lager maltet selv, som en av svært få bryggere på Vestlandet. Maltet blir tørket med bjørkeved i en «kylne», vist på bildet over. Gunnar er forsiktig med fyringen, for å unngå for mye røyksmak.
Ølet er råøl med einerlåg, filtrert gjennom orekjepper og einer. Gunnar har sin egen kveik: #41 Skare.
Gunnar har bare deltatt én gang tidligere, i 2017, da han kom på andreplass.
English: Gunnar Skare comes from Ørsta, about 40 minutes by car from Hornindal. He learned to brew from his father, who again learned from his father. Gunnar is one of the few brewers in western Norway who make their own malts. He dries it with birch wood in a «kylne», shown in the photo above. He is very careful about the wood and the fire, in order to keep the smoke aroma to a minimum.
He brews a raw ale similar to those in Hornindal, but with some differences in the recipe. He uses juniper infusion, and filters through alder branches and juniper branches. The beer is fermented with his own kveik, #41 Skare.
Gunnar has participated only once before, in 2017. He placed second that year.
Olav Sverre Gausemel serving his kornøl at the festival in 2016.
Olav Sverre Gausemel kommer fra Hornindal, og bor like ved slektsgården Gausemel ikke langt fra festivalhallen. Han lærte å brygge kornøl av faren i 1976 da han var 16 år gammel, og har brygget selv siden. Første gangen han brygget måtte han lage maltet selv også. Han er opphavet til kveik #18 Gausemel, og faktisk også til #5 Hornindal, for Terje Raftevold fikk kveik og opplæring av Olav Sverre da han begynte å brygge.
Olav Sverre stiller med tradisjonelt kornøl a la Hornindal, ukokt, med kveik og einer.
In English: Olav Sverre Gausemel comes from Hornindal, where he lives right next to the family farm, Gausemel, not far from the festival hall. He learned to brew kornøl from his father in 1976, at the age of 16. The first time he brewed he even had to make malts himself, because buying malts was forbidden at that time in Norway. He’s brewed since.
Idar in his brewhouse at Bruatunet, Hornindal. (Photo by Ståle Raftevold.)
Idar kommer fra Hornindal, der han vokste opp på gården Nygård. Han lærte å brygge av far sin allerede som konfirmant. Det er Idar som har restaurert Bruatunet, der festivalen har ekstra bryggedager. Han brygger selv ølet sitt der.
Kveiken på Nygård døde ut, så Idar har blandet seg en ny kveik fra andre kveiker i Hornindal, og brygger nå med den. Idars øl er et rent råøl.
English: Idar comes from Hornindal, where he grew up on the farm Nygård. He learned to brew from his father, and brewed with him from the age of about 15. Idar restored Bruatunet, which is where the extra brewday for the Brewing+festival tickets is held. That’s also the brewhouse he uses for his own beers.
The farm of Nygård used to have its own kveik, but it died out, so Idar has mixed a new kveik from various other kveiks from Hornindal. Now he brews with this kveik. His beer is a pure raw ale kornøl.
Sigurd Johan kommer fra Tormodgarden i Sykkylven, ca 85 km fra Hornindal, der han lærte å brygge kornøl av sin bestefar og onkel. Sigurd Johan er opphavet til kveik #8 Tormodgarden. Han har også begynt å tilby opplæring i brygging av kornøl under navnet Kveik Training.
Sigurd Johan stiller med en porter gjæret med kveik og en tradisjonell rå kornøl med kveik og einerlåg.
English: Sigurd Johan comes from the farm Tormodgarden in Sykkylven, roughly 85km from Hornindal. Sykkylven is quite close to Ålesund airport. He learned to brew kornøl from his grandfather and uncle. He is the owner of kveik #8 Tormodgarden, and has started offering courses in kornøl brewing under the name Kveik Training.
Sigurd Johan will be serving a porter fermented with kveik and a traditional raw kornøl with kveik and juniper infusion.
Jørund Geving kommer fra Stjørdal og er eneste representant for bryggetradisjonene i Midt-Norge (blant hjemmebryggerne). Stjørdal er kjent for stjørdalsølet, som er berømt/beryktet for røyksmaken, fordi bryggerne selv lager maltet på gammel måte. Jørund lærte å brygge av sin bror, og bruker en gammel vaskemaskin med direkte oppvarming i mesken. Han koker ikke vørteren, og bruker einer. Opprinnelig gjæret han med Idun Blå, men de siste årene har han også brukt kveik.
Jørund ble årets kornølbrygger i 2017, og kom på andreplass i 2018.
In English: Jørund Geving is from Stjørdal and brews stjørdalsøl in the traditional way. He is the only representative (among the home brewers) of the brewing traditions of Central Norway. Jørund makes his own malts in the traditional way, as shown above, which is why his beer is powerfully smoky. He learned to brew from his brother, and mashes in an old, repurposed washing machine that has direct heating of the mash. He does not boil the wort, and uses juniper. Originally he fermented with bread yeast (Idun Blå), but recently he’s also started using kveik.
Jørund was kornøl brewer of the year in 2017, and placed second in 2018.
Lars Andreas Tomasgård demonstrerer kornølbrygging på festivalen i 2016
Lars Andreas Tomasgård er bonde på Larstunet gård i Hornindal, noen hundre meter fra festivalhallen. Han har arvet bryggingen sammen med gården og er en av tradisjonsbærerne for kornøl i Hornindal. Han er opphavet til Kveik #21 Tomasgard, og det er selvsagt den som er brukt i ølet hans, som er et tradisjonelt råøl med einer.
Lars Andreas ble årets kornølbrygger i 2016. Les mer om ham på NRK.no.
In English: Lars Andreas Tomasgård is one of the few farmhouse brewers that also actually are farmers. His farm is Larstunet, a few hundred meters from the festival hall. Lars Andreas inherited the brewing tradition together with the farm and has his own kveik, #21 Tomasgard. He will be serving a traditional kornøl, unboiled, with kveik and juniper.
Lars Andreas won the kornøl brewing competition in 2016.
Carlsberg-laboratoriet er et av de fremste i verden på gjærforskning, og forskerne der har samlet inn og analysert flere kveik-kulturer. De hentet ut en stamme som blir brukt i brygging på Ringnes Brygghus i Oslo (bryggeri-puben til Ringnes, ikke hovedbryggeriet).
Professor Jochen Förster fra Carlsberg kommer til Hornindal for å snakke om forskningen sin på kveik. Den fulle beskrivelsen av hva han gjør står under på engelsk. Tittelen på foredraget er «Fromlager to wild yeast for beer production«. Dette gleder vi oss til!
English: The Carlsberg Laboratory is one of the leading labs in yeast research world-wide, and researchers there have collected and analyzed several kveik cultures. They isolated one strain which is now used in brewing at Ringnes Brygghus in Oslo (a brewpub owned by Ringnes).
Professor Jochen Förster from Carlsberg will be coming to the festival to talk about his research into kveik. Jochen is Professor, Director Yeast and Fermentation at Carlsberg A/S, and is heading the Yeast and Fermentation Platform at the Carlsberg Research Laboratory. Research is dedicated to novel brewing organisms for application in alcoholic and alcohol-free beverages. This includes research with typical brewer’s yeast but also with wild yeast and bacteria.
The title of the talk will be «From lager to wild yeast for beer production.» We’re looking forward to this one!
We have been offering the «Brewing+festival» tickets with accomodation in the hotel, but those are now all sold out. In addition, the brewing session on the Friday is now full.
So new tickets have been added called «Brewing+festival Sunday, X people». These give you exactly the same as the old tickets, except you must participate in the Sunday brewing session, and you’ll stay in the guest house at Knausen.
Since that accomodation is less convenient and less expensive, the price of these tickets is lower.
Vi har vært veldig heldige i år, og fått Sigrid Strætkvern til å være vår konferansier. Sigrid jobber for Ringnes, der hun har tittelen «Stemningsskaper.» Sigrid er kjent for å være både entusiastisk og kunnskapsrik innen øl. I sommer har hun reist Asia rundt og holdt kurs i Carlsberg-systemet.
In English: We’re proud to announce that this year’s announcer will be Sigrid Strætkvern. She works for Ringnes, the biggest brewery in Norway, and is known both for her enthusiasm and her wide knowledge of beer.
Norsk Kornølfestival is the only festival (as far as we know) that is dedicated to traditional farmhouse ale.
The beginning of the festival was in 2015 when William Holden decided there needed to be a festival for the traditional farmhouse ale. He thought right place for it had to be Hornindal, since Hornindal is a major centre for the traditional brewing in north-western Norway.
William started a Non-profit organization for the festival and recruited a board for the organization to help him arrange the festival. He chaired the board himself, and did most of the organization.
The first festival was held in 2016, and was relatively small. The demonstration brew in the hall was a local kornøl, demonstrated by Ståle Raftevold and Lars Andreas Tomasgård. There were only 10 home brewers, but a decent number of attendees, and the festival actually made a small profit. That gave the board confidence enough to try again.
The second festival was in 2017, and this time the profit from 2016 was used to invite Richard Preiss to talk about his kveik research, and Martyn Cornell to blog about it, in order to spread the word abroad. One demonstration brew was a stone beer, brewed by Simonas Gutautas and Vykintas Motuza from Lithuania. Another was a stjørdalsøl brewed by Jørund Geving, who showed how to use an old laundry machine to do a long, circulating mash.
Outside the festival there was even a demonstration of stjørdal-style malt drying, with a såinn custom-built for the festival.
Reimund Geving demonstrating malting on a stjørdal-style såinn.
The third festival was in 2018, and was the largest one yet in terms of the number of attendees and home brewers. The demonstration brew was a keptinis, brewed by Simonas Gutautas and Ričardas Počius from Lithuania.
About a month after the festival William Holden died of cancer, prompting some changes in the festival board. The board decided to carry on the festival without William
The board
The festival is a non-profit organization, so any profit from a year’s festival is used to arrange the next year’s festival. The board is unpaid, but the members have some of their expenses covered.
Amund Polden Arnesen
Amund is the head brewer at Eik og Tid in Oslo. He is the festival’s accountant, and handles everything to do with money.
Eirik is a software engineer living in Ørsta, near Hornindal. He joined the board in 2019, and is responsible for the kitchen serving food at the festival.
Gard Severin Mek
Gard is William Holden’s brother. He lives in Ålesund and handles accomodation, the volunteers, and many other odd jobs.
Ståle Raftevold
Ståle works in the offshore oil industry. He lives in Hornindal, where he’s brewed traditional kornøl for several decades. (He’s the brother of Terje Raftevold.) Ståle takes care of setting up the hall for the festival and cleaning up the mess afterwards, as well as innumerable other tasks best handled by a local.
Roar Sandodden
Roar is a freshwater biologist by day, and helps the festival with communications with the commercial breweries and much else. Roar is a farmhouse brewer and maltster in Stjørdal.
Stig Seljeset
Stig comes from Hornindal, and has brewed kornøl since he was old enough to do it. He’s best known as the original owner of kveik #22 Stalljen. He joined the board in 2018, and helps Ståle with local tasks. He’s also responsible for the brewing demonstration held before and after the festival.
