The landrace is on

Whistle Punk’s Matt Hanson (front) adds hops to his autumn lager while Palouse Pint’s Joel Williamson works on his strong bitter during Monday’s brew day for Bellwether’s upcoming Landrace Grainfest.

A handful of local brewers did some old-school brewing Monday using some very old-school grains.

Brewers from Black Label, Genus, Palouse Pint, Whistle Punk and Young Buck gathered at Bellwether to cook up some homebrew-size batches using a pair of ancient barleys, Scots Bere and Purple Egyptian .

Those are among the “landrace” grains – pre-hybridized varieties cultivated locally around the world – grown by Palouse Heritage near Endicott, Wash.

Bellwether has done small-batch series featuring each of the barleys . Now offerings from all the brewers, including a collaboration, will pour there for a Landrace Grainfest on Nov. 11.

“These guys are my heroes,” Palouse Heritage’s Don Scheuerman said, surveying the scene as brewers scurried back and forth between boiling pots of aromatic liquid.

Several were making bigger beers with the Scots Bere, which provides a deep, rich color and flavor.

Young Buck’s Cameron Johnson was brewing a barleywine. “From what we know it was originally a distilling grain (in Scotland), which is part of the reason I did a big beer,” he said of the Bere.

“I got a lot more color than I expected,” Johnson added. “The aroma and flavor are very unique. It’s like an amalgam of pilsner, rye and Crystal 75 (malts).”

Genus, the brewing operation at the Nu Home Brew supply store, was working on a Belgian-style dubbel. “It’s going to be a beast,” said brewer Logan Cook.

On the lighter side, Whistle Punk’s Matt Hanson made an amber autumn lager with Scots Bere and some of the fruitier, nuttier Purple Egyptian, which will be further conditioned over hazelnuts.

And Black Label’s Dan Dvorak created an old-style Kentucky common using the Purple Egyptian, corn from the LINC Foods farmers’ co-op and caramelized brewer’s sugar.

Joel Williamson of Palouse Pint – the LINC subsidiary that malts the grains grown by Palouse Heritage – brewed a strong bitter using the Bere and some of the Purple Egyptian that he had roasted to a darker hue.

“It’s like a roasted Reese’s peanut butter cup,” Bellwether’s Thomas Croskrey said, sniffing the malt. “I get roasted peanuts and a little chocolate.”

Croskrey also is using some of that for the strong ale collaboration recipe that he’s brewing tomorrow, along with some Purple Egyptian that Scheuerman smoked. Unlike the other beers, that will be a bigger batch that can be shared among the participating breweries beyond the joint event.

He also plans to pour an Amarillo dry-hopped pale that he recently brewed with mostly Purple Egyptian and some Scots Bere, and is experimenting with swanky – an Old World style made with unmalted grain and table sugar – using landrace wheats from Palouse Heritage.

Snohomish’s Lost Canoe Brewing, co-owned by Croskrey’s cousin, also will be bringing a beer to the festival.

Monday’s session was an opportunity for the commercial brewers to kick back and revisit their small-batch roots. As with the typical homebrew day, a bit of imbibing was done, including a round of toasts to the late Iron Goat co-founder Paul Edminster .

“It was cool homebrewing with everyone,” Hanson said.

Johnson also appreciated the time away from his larger system: “It was nice not to be turning valves all the time.”