Most traditional beer styles can be made anywhere on the planet. All you need is access to the basic ingredients, preserved and delivered in a timely manner, and a means of production. That’s what makes beer a manufactured product more than an agricultural one in most people’s minds. But breweries like Jester King are changing that. They’re incorporating hyper-local ingredients, often seasonally, and taking advantage of free resources like bacteria and wild yeast to complete the picture. It’s more akin to cider and wine making than beer production — and Jester King doesn’t just do this for the special stuff.

"All of our beer now contains native yeast and bacteria,” explains Extract. “It’s an impression of where we are, a sense of place. Wildflowers, berries, the air, and our land. Take that and mix the organisms into to a new environment, and the equilibrium and flavors will change. Let it ferment for as long as it needs to ferment, to a complete dryness. We like dry beers and the flavors theses yeasts produce when they run out of sugar to eat and start to wind down, kicking out other flavors and aromas. From kettle to glass the quickest we can make beer is about three months. They could just as easily take six months or more if they need to. It takes a long as it takes. It’s ready when it tells us it's ready. Our spontaneous fermentation program with the coolship, in the winter we’re making beer that goes from kettle to coolship, cools overnight, starts off with 100% native airborne yeast, and ferments several years in oak barrels until it’s ready — or it doesn’t and we dump it. For us, it’s about embracing nature and taking risks.”

Indeed, at the cross-streets of “black metal and commercial suicide” this team has been hard at work finding ways to off-set the feasibility problems faced by many of their ideas. The costs of sourcing grains from a local malster, water from a well, fruits from local farmers, and waiting — so much waiting — adds up fast. And then there’s the strain on their infrastructure. “We brewed a bière de garde with hay in the mash,” recalls brewer Garrett Crowell. “It's going to be aged in some brandy casks starting next week.” What does hay do in a mash? "Mostly it breaks the rakes in your mash tun,” explains Crowell. “Word to the wise — 80lbs of hay in the mash is a terrible idea. But you can get some minuscule amounts of sugar from it. Used properly, it can aid in run-off like rice hulls. And the aroma comes through in the wort.”