Stjørdalsmalt (smoked malt) - 100G - Alstadberg Tradisjonsbryggeri

Stjørdalsmalt from Alstadberg Tradisjonsbryggeri

We are proud to offer authentic Stjørdalsmalt malted in a traditional kiln house (såinnhus) by Roar Sandodden at Alstadberg Tradisjonsbryggeri in Skatval, Stjørdal municipality. Based on the same technique and equipment used by the Vikings to make their malt. True craftsmanship!

Stjørdalsmalt is an important ingredient in Stjørdalsøl, a malt ale brewed according to very old traditions in the areas around Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag. Similar farmhouse ales have been brewed throughout Norway south of the Arctic Circle since prehistoric times, but brewing has eventually died out in most places in Norway. Stjørdal is the only area that has maintained the tradition of malting its own malt from local grain. Stjørdalsøl is traditionally brewed as homebrew, but is now also commercially available. Klostergården Håndbryggeri, in collaboration with Alstadberg Tradisjonsbryggeri, has brewed Alstadberger - a Stjørdalsøl. It is also available as a beer kit at Brewshop.

You can look forward to a strong but relatively mild smoky character. You should expect a slightly lower yield from this malt than commercial base malt.

A brief history of Stjørdalsmalt:

In Stjørdal, there is nothing to suggest that the local brewing tradition does not follow an unbroken line from before the Viking Age, perhaps even 2300 years back in time when the Greek Pytheas sailed "to the land of Thule six days' journey north of Britannia", which Fridtjof Nansen later calculated must have been somewhere between Møre and Helgeland.

The same technique has been used elsewhere in the country, but today only the people of Stjørdal do it this way. In olden times, the grain was steeped in sacks in a stream; now other various devices are used before the grain is transferred to a germinating bed to sprout. Then the green malt is moved to a såinn, consisting of a large stone oven with a flat top made of wooden boards with thousands of small holes. Below this, a fire is lit in the fireplace, called a "kjærringa", using alder wood, which has little tar and burns cleanly.

The drying technique was probably not developed in Stjørdal. The word "såinn" is not found in Old Norse before the Viking Age, but it is found after the Viking Age. The Celts dried malt on something they called "sorn". A thousand years ago, the Celts had a number of unwelcome visits from Norwegian Vikings, who took home everything they liked from Celtic communities. This undoubtedly included the malt drying technique.

Alstadberg Tradisjonsbryggeri was established in 2013, and the såinnhus at Alstadberg was built the same year. Previously, owner Roar Sandodden had borrowed various såinnhus in the valley and tried to incorporate the best of these into his own.

According to British beer expert and journalist Michael Jackson, no one else in the world today dries malt using such an ancient technique. Jackson has visited 3000 of the world's 5000 breweries, and has written countless books and articles, as well as made many television programs about the golden brew. He knows most everything about beer cultures around the globe. Yet, he has only heard of såinnhus in Stjørdal.