Uiltje x lallemand: You are Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

This summer’s more daring Fresh & Fast release – You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat – is an ode to half a century of swimming in fear. That’s right, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of JAWS, a film that still scares the bejesus out of us. For the occasion, Uiltje’s brewmasters teamed up with the yeast gurus at Lallemand to brew a Cold IPA with real bite. Lallemand’s Carlos de la Barra swung by our brewery for the launch and shared his ambitions to inspire a new beer style for beer geeks around the globe: Northern IPA. 

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Too important or lazy to read the entire interview? Here’s the gist. When it comes to IPAs, yeast has always played backdrop to hop. But those days are waning. More craft brewers are celebrating yeast in both their beer and their storytelling. Uiltje’s newest small-batch brew, You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat, puts this experimental hop to the test as a Cold IPA. Are we witnessing the rise of a new beer genre? Time will tell. 

Uiltje: What the hell did you do to our beer?

Carlos: It wasn’t just me. There were 55 other brewers, scientists and R&D people involved in cultivating this unique strain of yeast. 

Uiltje: It’s not often we get to hang out with biotech geeks around here. What’s the best way to think of Lallemand? A yeast factory? 

Carlos: We’re more like a high tech lab run by people with a lot of experience in food and biotechnology. My background is in brewing and booze. I spent many years in wine before discovering beer, then founded my own brewery and worked with the Swedish brewer Omnipollo for four years. When I joined Lallemand they asked me if I knew anything about their products and I said, ‘Uh yeah, I’ve been using them my entire professional life.’ 

Uiltje: So this collab between Uiltje and Lallemand feels like it was inevitable. You and our head brewer ‘Paddi’ (Aditya Parupudi) have been walking in the same circles for years. 

Carlos: So I’ve been a big fan of Uiltje - is that how you pronounce it? 

Uiltje: Uh, no, it’s ‘Owl-tcha’, but don’t sweat it.  

Carlos: Thanks. Well, anyway, your cans, the artwork, the beer, the stories, the whole experience, it’s just a great brand. There’s a concept behind it, you already have an opinion before you pop open the can or take a sip from the glass. It’s precisely why we sought you guys out. And yes, the relationship is also a bit personal. I lived in New Zealand for about 12 years where Paddi also worked. We never ran into each other but we did run in the same circles. So when we began looking for brewers to experiment with, Uiltje was top of our list. We want to work with brewers who aren’t afraid to try out new things. I called up and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this experimental new yeast, you guys want to try it?’ Without hesitation they said, ‘Shoot some over.’ Everything went from there.

Uiltje: The yeast is a novel strain called Aurora, but until the official naming this June it was known as experimental number 483, right? 

Carlos: The timing of You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat is perfect, as it’s the first time we’re launching the yeast under the new name. I think Uiltje has the premier on that. 

Uiltje: So the name Aurora carries some importance. You named it after the norther lights because you’re hoping to inspire a new beer style called Northern IPA. 

Carlos: We have a yeast bank of over 4,000 strains that are super interesting for craft brewers. A lot of them are used in one-offs, just testing to see if the market likes them. Because this strain ferments so well at lower temperatures, we see it filling the gap between Cold or West Coast IPAs and New England IPAs. We’re simply calling this missing link Northern IPA, and we came up with a name that reflects that. 

Uiltje: Let’s just state the obvious: the hops gets all the glory. What’s up with that? 

Carlos: Exactly, but the tide is changing. I’m seeing more and more brewers incorporating interesting yeasts into their beer but also making it part of their storytelling. Maybe they’re not listing Aurora on the cans, but definitely in the descriptions on their websites. At the end of the day, it’s the yeast that makes the beer. The story I always tell is: the world has always existed as a unique symbiosis between humans and yeast. Hops can’t say that. 

Uiltje: Sounds kind of cool when you put it that way. Hops is the wild child, yeast its more philosophical sibling. 

Carlos: If it results in a new style, great. We just want to give brewers like Uiltje a new tool to make something interesting. The yeast is crisp, clean and fruity with moderate bitterness and a low haze. I think it has great potential.   

Uiltje: Besides Uiltje’s selling out this collab and all our fans screaming hallelujah, what do you define as success for Aurora? 

Carlos: Let’s just say that would be a great start. That’s why we’re here. After that, we’ll see.