Wayfinder debuts Malted Hard Seltzer brand

When Portland, OR-based Wayfinder Beer reopens their taproom this Friday, April 2nd, they will have the latest innovative creation from brewer Kevin Davey on tap - Malted Hard Seltzer. Known for their German-style lagers, Italian-style Pilsner, as well as Davey’s continued reinvention of beer styles ala Cold IPA, Wayfinder’s latest is an effort to repackage old school ales and lagers for a White Claw world.

Brewmaster Kevin Davey says of his debut seltzer flavor Malt Hammer that he hopes it would become a gateway beverage for beer geeks tired of drinking microbrews.

“I’ve got an opinion to share…I don’t like most seltzers” says Davey. “Sure, many are delicious and in no way am I saying that the seltzer most breweries are making is bad, but the vast majority are, to me at least, clunky. The clunkiness comes across in two ways: they don’t have the beautiful contribution of imported Munich malts or the aromatic and spicy qualities of modern hops.”

“Back in 2017, when I was designing the early beers for Wayfinder, I really didn’t want to make any hard seltzer. We may be more known for our lager beers to which I’m delighted, but Portland has just been seeing the trend of hard seltzer and I knew I wanted to master that style and put my own spin on it, as we did with Cold IPA.”

His solution: to replace fermented cane sugar syrup usually used as the base in seltzers with malted barley derived sugar instead, and rather than use fruit juices and extracts in most seltzer and instead get those fruity notes from trendy hop varieties like Citra and Mandarina Bavaria.

“I wanted to incorporate rich and delicate German and American maltsters product into seltzer. Brewing with malt may be the most American way of making beer so it seems to fit that we incorporate it into a seltzer too,” says Davey.

This means that all Wayfinder seltzers are 100% fermentable derived sugars from malts instead of cheaper adjuncts, and every seltzer is triple-decocted in true German brewing tradition. This method involves removing portions of the mash, heating them separately to a boil, and then returning them to the main mash over four temperature stages. This will boost the concentration of sugars in the wort and increase the final gravity to make as highly fermentable liquid as possible while boosting the tannins and melanoidins not usually present in seltzer. An extra addition of flaked rice serves to lighten the wort color and make for a lighter dryer body similar to a lager, malt liquor, or cold IPA.

“Theoretically, you could decoct your mash two, three, or even a dozen times, but I wanted to stay true to the classics with a triple decoction mash,” says Davey, who hopes that this method will become standard for hard seltzer brewers in the future.

Using malt instead of cane sugar does add a certain body and mouthfeel and a lasting frothy white foam on top of the glass you wouldn’t expect in a seltzer as well as yellow-gold color that is similar to a filtered ale.

Wayfinder Malt Hammer is dry-hopped like an American-style IPA, but with all the kettle hops added in the whirlpool, and the DDH that modern drinkers expect in their hype beers, only this time it’s called seltzer. The goal was to make a type of hard seltzer that can earn four stars on untappd and compete with other brands such as Smooj.

“I added the technique we use for Italian Pilsners: the dry-hop spund or dry hop krausen. In this nerdy process, we dry hop at the tail end of fermentation when there is still plenty of activity or we add fresh fermenting beer -I mean seltzer- to a finished tank with the dry hops. We achieve three things by doing this. 1. We fully carbonate the seltzer beer. 2. The still active yeast scrubs any oxygen we add during the dry hopping. 3. Biotransformation of hops.”

The fermentation is wrapped up with Wayfinder’s house lager yeast that excels under these conditions. The final product has light cereal notes, fruity esters, is light and frothy yet full-bodied with just a little honey-like sweetness and a punch of citrusy and tropical bitterness reminiscent of pineapple, mango, grapefruit and weed. It all adds up to a seltzer that could almost be confused for a beer but it’s definitely a hard seltzer according to Davey.

“Look, most beer is just not sexy anymore and I just thought it needed a refresh” - Kevin Davey.

Malt Hammer seltzer will be on draft at the Wayfinder brewpub in inner southeast Portland, but the brewery hopes to begin putting it into slim 10oz seltzer-style cans in the future.