Brewery – Urban Artifact
Beer – Missing Linck
Style – Historic Golden Ale
ABV – 5.8%
Ancient yeast from the defunct Linck Brewery in Cincinnati. Unearthed after 150 years of dormancy! Traditional ale style.
This beer has a hell of a history, and a great story that goes along with how it came to be. You can listen to the full details about it on our ‘Missing Linck’ episode of Cincy Brewcast if you want (and you should want to) – but if you want the extremely abbreviated cliffs notes version it goes a little something like this:
Old brewery closes – brewery’s underground lagering tunnels are sealed up – modern folks discover tunnels including a fermentation vessel (which shouldn’t have survived – Urban Artifact hears about tunnels and vessel – for shits and giggles goes to collect yeast from the space – find a viable brewing yeast – makes beer.
The beer (and it’s yeast) is hopefully going to become a critical part of a new celebration in Cincinnati each year, a celebration of our history, and our modern craft beer community, where different brewers will use the yeast to create their own take on this historic beer… it’s an epic salute to our past – our present and our future.
Cool stuff… right? The first version of the beer was brewed on a small scale in the winter of 2018, and the first big batch (with packaging) was released on 6/1/19.
The beer that the brewery decided upon relies on the yeast. They went with a simple, clean recipe that allows the yeast to showcase it’s personality – and they knocked it out of the park.
My Thoughts on Urban Artifact’s Missing Linck
In the glass the beer pours a non-assuming golden color with a thin light cream colored head. There is a slight haziness to the beer – but other than that? It just seems like your run of the mill lager or golden ale.
Aromas are slightly fruity and just a touch of earthy grassiness.
The taste is light and slightly fruity. The beer comes across as easy drinking… refreshing and approachable to me. The story makes this one 100 times more fun, but it’s still a great, clean beer.