KVEIK – Norway’s gift to the world, the hottest thing you never heard about

The Western Norway Cultural Academy at Voss has taken the initiative to enlist farmhouse brewing of beer with kveik into Unesco's representative list for world cultural heritage. The national and international marking and kick-off for this process will take place at Voss on February 27, 2020.

The yeast kveik has been around in Western Norway and has been used for farmhouse brewing of beer for many years. Each farm has had home brewery traditions with its own yeast, which had been transferred and used within the families from generation to generation. The brewing activity has greatly diminished in recent decades, but there are still some people who still brew beer on their farms by using their own yeast - the kveik. The farmhouse brewery tradition with the use of kveik is now only found in Western Norway from Sunnmøre to Sogn, Hardanger and Voss.

A few years ago, almost no one knew what kveik was, but today, kveik has revolutionized beer brewing in many countries of the world, such as the United States, Ireland and Australia. It has in many ways become a commercial competition advantage internationally within the brewery business.

Kveik is tolerant of high temperatures and gives high alcohol content. It can be dried and come back to life after decades. The tastes vary from kveik to kveik depending on what farm the yeast comes from. Now some of the kveiks are spread over large parts of the world and are available commercially from yeast labs.

It is important that those who use kveik, know and honour the origin and history of this wonderful yeast. How many brewers around the world can say that they brew beer with their own yeast, which has been inherited for thousands of years? As the great beer- and whisky journalist, Michael Jackson, stated when he tasted beer brewed with kveik for the first time: “This is the missing link to ancient beer traditions in Mesopotamia.”

The traditional home brewing with kveik is one of the last links we have to our long and extensive beer brewing history back to prehistoric times. To use the kveik just for its performance, without being linked to the living farmhouse brewing tradition in Western Norway and the transmitted intangible cultural heritage, is to lose sight of the history and cultural tradition kveik belongs to as part of a very proud farmhouse brewing culture in Western Norway.

Press contact
Atle Ove Martinussen
Managing Director
Vestnorsk kulturakademi
Phone: 0047 - 90368990
Email: atleove58@gmail.com