Making a starter, Aga, Hardanger

I've been writing about kveik for about four years now, and that word, which seemed so crystal clear to begin with, is now beginning to confuse people. So, let's see if we can set things straight. That's not easy with a word that's already in active use around the globe, but let's at least try.

Let's start with what it does not mean. Kveik is not a style of beer. It means "yeast" or "traditional farmhouse yeast," but definitely not a kind of beer. If you want to say "Norwegian farmhouse ale," without referencing any particular style, then say maltøl. But beware that that's a bit like saying "English beer." There are several very different styles.

When I went looking for kveik in western Norway in 2013 I met Sigmund, and he called his yeast "kveik." So I did the same. A few days later I visited Stein Langlo and his friends in Stranda, and they gave me kveik and answered my questions, without ever making it clear that they didn't call the yeast kveik. In Stranda the word for yeast was "gjær."

So for years I went around talking and writing about kveik, thinking that's what people in western Norway called their yeast. It wasn't until this spring that I went through my material systematically plotting the dialect words people used for their beer yeast in various places. What I found was not at all what I expected to find. See the map below.

Map of dialect words for yeast, based on NEG survey and own interviews (Swedish data from Nordic Museum)

The most common word for yeast in Norway seems to have been pronounced basically "yest" or "yester", and is clearly the same word as English "yeast." Kveik has been common in western and southern Norway, but it was not the only word used. Most of the people in western Norway who have farmhouse yeast today seem to call it kveik. Those few who have yeast in eastern Norway call it "gong".

The original meaning of the word was simply "yeast," because there used to be just a single kind of yeast. That was the one you used in beer, and if you managed to get hold of some wheat you'd use it for baking, too. But then yeast became available in the shops. Now the brewers distinguish between "gjær" (the standard Norwegian word for yeast), which is something you buy in the shop, and "kveik", which is the traditional farmhouse ale yeast.

I started using "kveik" to mean all kinds of traditional farmhouse yeast that has never been purified into a single strain, basically because I felt a word for that was needed. Writing about Lithuanian beer without having a word for this type of yeast was really awkward. Some Lithuanians seem to call it "family yeast," which kind of works. On Gotland people seem to have called their traditional yeast "hemjäst" (home yeast), which also kind of works.

However, now Richard Preiss's research shows that the Norwegian farmhouse yeasts seem to form a separate group of yeasts. They seem to share some flavours, ferment fast and hot, they can be dried, they're non-phenolic, and they're genetically similar. The Lithuanian ones seem to be similar, but can't be dried and are phenolic, and they're not related to the Norwegian ones.

That's awkward, because now it seems we need a word for Norwegian farmhouse yeast, and another for farmhouse yeast generally. Farmhouse yeasts, all over Europe, seem to have been fast fermenters that worked at very high temperatures. So they really do have something in common that sets them apart from the ordinary commercial yeasts.

Richard has proposed using the term "landrace yeasts" for yeast cultures that have not been purified, in analogy with landrace grain and hop varieties. These are the varieties people grew before systematic breeding of grain began, and they consisted of lots of genetically different grain varieties (in the same field) adapted to the place they were grown in. That analogy works, even if the adaptation to a specific place is kind of loose in yeast.

To make things even more complicated, it turns out that some commercial breweries are still, to this day, using yeast that's not purified. So that means we have three concepts: yeast that's not purified to a single strain, farmhouse yeast, and the Norwegian farmhouse yeasts that are all related to each other.

I'm tempted to use "kveik" to mean "Norwegian farmhouse yeast." Jørund Geving points out that if we manage to revive yeasts from central Norway we'll then start calling them "kveik" even though the locals call it "gjester." And the yeasts from Ål in Hallingdal, which the locals call "gong" will then be called kveik by everyone else. That's not ideal, but realistically I think introducing that many words is going to be difficult, unless some of these yeasts really are totally different from the others. Which they could be. We don't know yet.

So, that's my conclusion. I'm going to use "kveik" to mean "Norwegian farmhouse yeast" from now on, and probably "farmhouse yeast" for farmhouse yeast in general. Whether "landrace yeast" catches on I guess we'll see.

Note, though, that kveik is not a single strain of yeast. Each of the cultures contains many strains, and the various kveiks are quite different from one another. The ones from Voss make orange flavour, while the classic Hornindal kveik makes a fruit and milky caramel flavour, while Ebbegarden makes a mango or pineapple-like aroma. To see how many there are, check the registry.

The etymology

Where does the word "kveik" come from, anyway? If we turn to the original dictionary of Norwegian dialects, published by Ivar Aasen in 1873, we find:

kveik , female, yeast, especially bottom sludge in fermentors, from Old Norse "kveika"/"kvikur",

, female, yeast, especially bottom sludge in fermentors, from Old Norse "kveika"/"kvikur", kveik, male, reawakening, new strength, also used for fresh growth in the forest, or sprouting to new life.

The male/female difference is because like most western European languages (German, Spanish etc) Norwegian has gendered nouns. So "kveika" (the kveik) would be yeast, but "kveiken" (the kveik) would be reawakening/fresh sprouts. The two meanings are different nouns with different genders.

You don't need to be a genius to figure out that the first form here comes from the second, because putting yeast in something really kind of does bring it to life. Indeed, if we look up "kveika" in an Old Norse dictionary we find it has both meanings. "Kvikr" seems to be an adjective basically meaning "alive".

And as Martyn Cornell observed, it's obviously related to the English "quick". Which an English etymological dictionary quickly confirms.

If you search the web, or the Norwegian national library, for "kveik" you find lots of examples where it's used in the meaning of putting new life into something. Putting fresh zest into the teetotalling work was a common usage in the early 20th century, for example.