his Scottish home for a new life in the
The brewery’s specials range is home
Either way, the move to their new facility
Nordics.
to collaborations, riffs on core beers and
in 2018 enabled the team to produce
Põhjala’s maiden beer, Öö Imperial Baltic
seasonal releases such as the 12.5% Win-
more beer than ever before.
Porter, would see the light of day at the
ter Bänger. inspired by British Christmas
“We approached the expansion wide-
start of 2013. For most of that year, their
Cake, gluten-free Imperial Stout Gimme
eyed,” Pilkington recalls. “The options
beers were contract-brewed at other
Danger, Tuul - an Imperial Gose with local
were there; move to a new unit and
breweries’ production facilities while they
delicacy whitecurrants Tuul and Moon-
invest in a slightly larger 20HL brewhouse
prepared to open their own. Construction
raker, a DDH IPA that features a rotating
or take a bigger step, draw a line and in
of the first brewery was completed in
hop bill.
doing so, build a forever home.”
April 2014 in Tallinn’s Nõmme district with
However for overseas drinkers, which
Pilkington having moved to Tallinn the
account for the majority of Põhjala’s pro-
year previous.
duction, it’s the beers that stem from the
The brewery would start out with the five
Forest and Cellar Series, that most hold
An order for an impressive 50HL bre-
24HL FVs but, thanks to the popularity
as a reference point for the brewery’s
whouse from Rolec was placed in 2017,
of other early beers such as Rukkirääk,
output.
with construction taking place the follow-
They chose the latter.
a 5.7% Rye Ale and core beer Virmal-
ing year.
ised IPA, they would quadruple annual
“It felt both like a long time and one that
production capacity within two and a half
passed very quickly, too. When the kit ar-
years, frequently bumping up against
rived in 2018, I thought I’d be on site once
(and raising) the excise limit for small
or twice a week. Instead, I barely left the
breweries in Estonia of 400,000L and
building for all of July and August!” he
then 600,000L.
smiles. “We ended up spending much
Other early numbers like Session IPA Uus Maailm and Must Kuld, its popular porter, complemented a raft of one-off releases, be they hop-forward or barrel-aged in nature. “I’m proud of these beers, but it’s interesting how we evolved from an early age,” Pilkington explains. “Starting out, we had the guiding principle of being a local Estonian brewery that would produce some Belgian styles, some IPAs and maybe a stout.” But the script was flipped. “Now look at us,” he smiles. “In our minds
There would be days where we’d be taking taxis between sites complete with thousands of Euros worth of kit,” Chris Pilkington, Põhjala
more time sweating the small stuff during installation – adding custom pipework and valves everywhere so we could do anything we could think of, like mash in with juniper tea, add apple juice to the wort kettle, cool wort before adding whirlpool hops, or safely add hundreds of kilos of whole fruit whilst boiling. The install and commissioning team ended up having to re-draw the diagrams so many times they lost count.” With the entire team going above and beyond, Põhjala would end up running both breweries concurrently for around five months. “I don’t recommend it, but it happens,”
we’d sell most of our beer locally with the
laughs Pilkington. “There would be days
potential for some minor export opportu-
where we’d be taking taxis between sites
nities. Instead, we found a blank slate and
complete with thousands of Euros worth
we could do anything. We weren’t happy
of kit.”
doing just enough, we wanted to really
“The majority of our production is in light-
He adds: “We couldn’t slow down at
make a mark.”
er beers, but it’s nice to challenge peo-
the old brewery until the new one was
And they did just that. Põhjala’s output
ple’s perceptions for what your brewery
fully online. We ran things down at the
can be split into four categories; core
is about,” says Pilkington. “Approximately
former site to two batches a month from
beers, specials, Cellar Series and the
70% of our volume is in the lighter beers,
a height of doing 19. And once we were
Forest Series.
but I accept that many of these don’t
happy at our new home, it made sense to
In addition to the aforementioned Must
travel to export markets as much our
cease completely.”
Kuld, Uus Maailm, Virmalised, Öö, the
heavier releases.”
core is completed by Orange Gose, Pilky
He adds: “However, I would be more than
Despite the draining workloads, Pilk-
(Pilsner), Rye River, Õhtu (Porter), Kosmos
happy for that to reverse and for darker
ington was happy with the transition to
IPA and Tundra, Põhjala’s first non-alcohol
beers to become our focal point. It’s a
Põhjala’s new facility. The occasional
beer, an IPA brewed with local spruce
badge of honour for being respected
challenge in achieving consistency on
tips.
due to the beers you make, regardless
beers such as its Must Kuld Porter acted
of style.”
as a troubleshooting exercise more than
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SEPTEMBER~OCTOBER 2020
BREWERS JOURNAL