Last year, Saint Arnold Brewing Company began releasing their “Movable Yeast” series of beers. The Houston-based brewery selected four beers from their existing portfolio, and brewed them with a different yeast strain. When discussing beer, most conversations tend to focus around hops and barley. According to Saint Arnold Founder Brock Wagner, his goal in the Movable Yeast line was to highlight yeast’s impact on the beer’s flavor.
Saint Arnold’s top selling beer, Fancy Lawnmower, is normally brewed with a Kolsch yeast. The Movable Yeast series kicked off with last summer’s release of the Weedwacker, which was brewed using the same ingredients, except for a Bavarian hefeweizen yeast. Beernews.org broke the story with a picture of the Weedwacker’s bottle label, announcing that the beer is coming to 12 oz bottles. I could see this as a go-to beer during the hot summer months since it has all the refreshing “freshly cut grass” characteristics of the Lawnmower. However, the difference in the yeast is apparent as it created a distingushing flavor with notes of banana and clove. The following picture shows the a side by side comparison between Weedwacker and it’s hazier body (left) against Lawnmower (right).
Besides the Weedwacker, Saint Arnold released Altared Amber (Amber Ale pitched with Trappist yeast) late last fall, as well as Farmer’s Brown (Brown Ale with Saison yeast) last month. The next release is expected to be Bitter Belgian, which is Elissa IPA with Belgian Trappist yeast.
Out of all the Movable Yeasts, this is my favorite. I think this one would be the most commercially successful one for them. Great summer beer, but I do hope that they don’t filter it. That would be a bummer.