Stormcloud Brewing Co.
Dear Replicator, I’ve been on a quest to learn more about brewing with kveik yeast and recently got the opportunity to try Stormcloud Brewing’s Sunrunnr. What an interesting beer! I would love to be able to brew something that’ll have my friends as curious as this one had me. Any tips?
Geoff Crowell,
Miami, Florida
For Brian Confer, Co-Owner and Head Brewer of Stormcloud Brewing Company, the path to professional brewing didn’t start at a commercial brewhouse, or even a garage-based one. It began in a photography darkroom.
Before opening Stormcloud in 2013 with his business partner Rick Schmitt, Confer was a freelance photographer in northern Michigan. As the photography industry made the transition from film to digital, however, his basement darkroom began to sit unused. Soon, Confer realized that an underutilized darkroom was not a loss, but an opportunity for a budding homebrewer. Equipped with a large sink, proper ventilation, commercial refrigeration, and ample storage, it was an environment practically tailor-made for the brewing process.
Confer converted the space into a homebrew lab and approached brewing with the same methodical eye he used behind the camera. “In some ways, it wasn’t that different from becoming a photographer,” he says. “Study the process, repeat it, evaluate the results honestly, make adjustments, and keep going.” That rigorous approach laid the foundation for Stormcloud, a brewery situated in the picturesque, seasonal town of Frankfort, Michigan.
Stormcloud is known for its Belgian-inspired portfolio, a strategic choice made early on to set themselves apart in a region already dominated by IPAs and pale ales. But as the brewery has evolved, so too have its techniques. Confer himself is particular to saisons, but after dealing with a Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus infection in their production facility, the team had a tough call to make. To mitigate risk, they decided to move away from diastaticus-positive strains entirely. Searching for a way to maintain a dry, expressive, fermentation-driven character without the risk, Confer and his team began experimenting with kveik yeast coupled with amylase enzymes. At the same time, the team had also begun to play around with thiolized yeast strains. This exploration eventually birthed the beer known today as Sunrunnr.
“Eventually it occurred to me that we might be able to combine those two ideas: Use a thiolized yeast strain and kveik together to create a beer that had some witbier-like qualities and a big fruity summer character, but without using any actual fruit,” Confer says.
Stormcloud categorizes Sunrunnr as a witbier. Philosophically and conceptually, Confer says, the base recipe is built like one. But instead of a classic Belgian witbier strain, the brewery relies on a very specific blend of yeast to create this unique beer. Confer says the goal, was to create a bright, refreshing, fruity summer beer that could be turned around quickly to meet the demands of the brewery’s peak tourist season.
After experimenting with a blend of Voss kveik and Omega Lab’s Helio Gazer, the brewery faced consistency issues, as the two strains grew at different rates, causing the blend to drift from batch to batch. The solution arrived when Omega released Vossa Nova, a thiolized version of their standard Voss Kveik. By blending 80% traditional Voss with 20% Vossa Nova, Confer found he was able to achieve a stable, homogeneous pitch. The result is a beer bursting with tropical, citrusy brightness and witbier-like qualities, achieved entirely through fermentation rather than fruit additions.
Inevitably, the beer’s complicated background has resulted in a few marketing conundrums. Sunrunnr was originally listed as “Farmhouse – Other” on Untappd because the site lacked a “kveik” category. “I actually reached out to Untappd about adding one, and their response was that so many breweries use kveik to make other styles that a broad ‘kveik beer’ category might confuse consumers,” Confer says. Instead, the brewery has simply leaned into marketing Sunrunnr as a witbier, allowing their singular creation to stand out for its uniqueness.
“For most consumers, ‘kveik beer’ doesn’t communicate much and may make a refreshing, approachable summer beer sound more intimidating than it is,” Confer says.
The largely unmapped territory explored by Sunrunnr provides plenty of space for at-home experimentation. While the brewing world often focuses on hops for thiol precursors, base malt can play a significant role in thiol expression as well. During trials with zero hops, four different malts yielded four completely different levels of thiols, Confer said. For Sunrunnr, Stormcloud opts for 100% pale malt over their usual Pilsner malt base in order to hit the perfect flavor profile.
“Kveik yeast is fascinating because it can be treated so differently than traditional ale yeast,” Confer says. “I’ve heard of people using it in almost every way imaginable — fermenting at 100 °F (38 °C), pitching at extremely low rates, and generally pushing it much harder than a conventional yeast. We did a fair amount of trialing, especially around pitch rate, and fermented it at temperatures all over the map. Where we eventually settled was not as extreme as some of what you hear.”
For Sunrunnr, Confer favors a more measured approach. He lowers the pitch rate slightly (0.6 million cells per milliliter per degree Plato) and ferments warm — around 80 °F (27 °C). “We keep the process fairly normal,” he says, including oxygenating the wort at a traditional rate.
Stormcloud Brewing Co.’s Sunrunnr clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.014
IBU = 20 SRM = 8 ABV = 5.2%
Marketed as a witbier, Sunrunnr does not include the traditional witbier spices. It instead relies on yeast to contribute wit-like flavors in this unique ale that pairs perfectly with summer sun.
Ingredients
6.1 lbs. (2.8 kg) 2-row pale malt
4.5 lbs. (2 kg) white wheat malt
3.3 oz. (94 g) Gambrinus honey malt
2.5 oz. (71 g) acidulated malt
0.8 oz. (23 g) Briess Midnight Wheat malt
2.4 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.2 oz./6 g at 12% alpha acids)
2.1 AAU Czech Saaz hops (60 min.) (0.7 oz./20 g at 3% alpha acids)
2 AAU Mandarina Bavaria hops (15 min.) (0.25 oz./7 g at 8% alpha acids)
Lactic or phosphoric acid (for post-boil pH adjustment, if needed)
Omega Yeast OYL-061 (Voss Kveik) (80% of yeast pitch) or similar
Omega Yeast OYL-407 (Vossa Nova) (20% of yeast pitch)*
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
With the goal of creating a moderately dextrinous wort, mash in with 2.75 gallons (10.5 L) of strike water to achieve a single-infusion rest temperature of 156 °F (69 °C). Hold at this temperature for 60 minutes.
Sparge with enough water at 170 °F (77 °C) to collect about 6 gallons (23 L) of wort. Boil wort for 60 minutes, adding hops at times indicated. At the end of the boil, if needed, adjust the kettle pH down to 5.1.
Chill wort to 72 °F (22 °C). Oxygenate normally and pitch the kveik yeast blend at a slightly reduced rate. Cap fermentation temperature at 80 °F (27 °C).
When fermentation is over, add priming sugar and bottle or keg and force carbonate, targeting a carbonation of 2.6 volumes.
Stormcloud Brewing Co.’s Sunrunnr clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.014
IBU = 20 SRM = 8 ABV = 5.2%
Ingredients
3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) wheat liquid malt extract
3 lbs. (1.4 kg) light dried malt extract
3.3 oz. (94 g) Gambrinus honey malt
0.8 oz. (23 g) Briess Midnight Wheat malt
2.4 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.2 oz./6 g at 12% alpha acids)
2.1 AAU Czech Saaz hops (60 min.) (0.7 oz./20 g at 3% alpha acids)
2 AAU Mandarina Bavaria hops (15 min.) (0.25 oz./7 g at 8% alpha acids)
Lactic or phosphoric acid (for post-boil pH adjustment, if needed)
Omega Yeast OYL-061 (Voss Kveik) (80% of yeast pitch) or similar
Omega Yeast OYL-407 (Vossa Nova) (20% of yeast pitch)*
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Place the honey malt and Midnight Wheat in a muslin bag. Steep in 2 gallons (7.6 L) of water as it comes up to 170 °F (68–77 °C). Remove the grain bag, placing it in a colander over the kettle, and gently rinse with 1 gallon (3.8 L) of warm water.
Add water to the kettle to reach a pre-boil volume of approximately 6 gallons (23 L). Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and carefully stir in the malt extracts until fully dissolved.
Return to heat and boil 60 minutes, adding hops as indicated.
Follow the remainder of the all-grain recipe.
* Tips for Success:
Omega Yeast no longer sells its thiolized strains — including Vossa Nova — in homebrew-size quantities. If you cannot harvest yeast from a can of Sunrunnr or get a small quantity of Vossa Nova from your local brewery, the best bet for replicating the yeast in this recipe would be to substitute it with White Lab’s thiolized yeast strain WLP077 (Tropicale).
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