Without warning, every molecule hovering in the air around us was saturated with the powerful aroma of Taylor’s Taste, the house yeast culture it has kept alive for decades. It was familiar, a scent I had experienced a thousand times over each time I had held a pint of Taylor’s beer beneath my nose. Here, though, it was far more intense. Like it was in my very pores and crawling beneath my fingernails. Like proving bread, stewed apricots, the must of a dry, well cared for cellar.
In the vats, the still fermenting beer was topped with a high krausen, tan-hued foam flecked with darker brown patches where that particular group of yeast had decided its job was done. It was moving. I watched as the foam gently, joyfully rolled atop each of the vats, a lungful of carbon dioxide making me feel dreamy and intoxicated.
Taylor’s Taste and I were reacquainted an hour or so later; in a pint of Landlord at The Inn on the Green, and again in a glass of Boltmaker at the Boltmaker’s Arms. I had always considered Taylor’s beers for their malt, their snap, and their minerality. But no longer. Now it was this effusive, happy yeast that didn’t just meet my senses, but enveloped them. No pint of Timothy Taylor’s beer has ever tasted the same again.
