My latest article for the Bend Bulletin out this week features The Ale Apothecary and a wild ale representing one of its unique and unusual brewing processes: Oregon Compound, a rum barrel aged wild ale.

The brewing process is the same for all brewers….

After boiling and cooling, there is a layer of sediment left behind that has settled out of the wort, called trub. This is typically discarded, but [owner and brewmaster Paul] Arney is not one to waste any part of the brewing cycle.

“We capture and ferment our trub after letting the wort settle overnight to remove the hot and cold break,” he said via email. “We tend to have about 3-6 gallons of this trub left over after removing the clean wort. We simply dump the trub into a carboy and add a bit of our yeast.”

The yeast slowly ferments this leftover wort material, which further settles out to leave clear fermented beer on top. It takes a fair amount of trub to produce enough beer to package.

As far as I know, The Ale Apothecary is the only brewery crafting beers from this “trub recovery” process—though if anyone knows of others, I’d love to hear about it!

The article contains a few more details as well as my tasting notes on Oregon Compound (I’m likening it to something of an American lambic-inspired wild ale). One tidbit that Arney shared that didn’t make it into the article, is that his blend of wild yeast cultures are banked with Imperial Yeast, “to avoid catastrophe!” (No, don’t expect Imperial Yeast to share these with you, but of course you could always try harvesting the yeast from a bottle yourself.)