- Luke Zahm: This week on Wisconsin Foodie:

[groovy music]

- Mattea Fischer: We're gonna make some garlic scape kimchi.

- Luke: These aren't your grandmother's garlic scapes anymore. Today's travels take us to Door County.

- I'm Mattea and this is Cultured.

- I love fermented foods.

- Mattea: We focus mainly on bread and bagels, and everything is naturally leavened.

- Did I hear bagels? I know what I'm really gonna taste is all the love and care and time that you put into this. That is legit.

- My name is Matt Sampson. I'm the owner/brewer at Sway Brewing and Blending. 

- Matt uses the art of wild fermentation to create beer that is uniquely from this place. It's like a throwback, but at the same time, it's so far back that you're pushing the entire industry forward. So Nelson, do you feel up to the challenge of tasting this baby beauty?

- As a Wisconsinite, I've been training most of my adult life for this very moment. Oh, my gosh, that's delicious.

- Luke: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering]

Just look for our badge. It's on everything we make.

- Did you know Organic Valley protects over 400,000 acres of organic farmland? So are we an organic food cooperative that protects land, or land conservationists who make delicious food? Yes. Yes, we are. Organic Valley. 

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- Twenty-minute commutes. Weekends on the lake. Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities. Not to mention all the great food! There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin. Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore. From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, the Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers. The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters. Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin. 

[upbeat music]

We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet. We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[meat sizzling]

We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[glasses clinking]

We are storytellers. We are Wisconsin Foodie.

[gentle music]

- We're on the road again, and today's travels take us to Door County. One of the things I love about coming up into the peninsula is seeing the ever-changing landscape of food culture. I'm especially curious to try Cultured, run by Mattea Fischer. Mattea has taken the art of fermentation and applied it to kimchi, sourdough bread, and even bagels. She started her journey in food as a vendor at the Jacksonport Farmer's Market, and only recently has opened up her own storefront, Cultured, in Sister Bay. I'm really excited to see how her work comes together on the plate.

[gentle music]

- I am Mattea Fischer and this is Cultured. We bake bread, we make kimchi and sauerkraut. We focus mainly on bread and bagels with bakery, and everything is naturally leavened. It's the oldest form of breadmaking. I just fell in love with it, because I love fermentation, and as soon as I made my first starter, I was hooked. [gentle music] I grew up about an hour north of Philly, and thought I wanted to be a vegetable farmer. So I did that for a while, which brought me to Milwaukee, and I interned at Growing Power, which is an urban farm there. And then I kept hopping north until I met a friend in Green Bay, who brought me here. And I've been here for about seven years. 

I needed money for my flour budget, so I needed to start charging people. I was just, like, driving around and dropping off loaves at friends' houses or having them pick them up. But it was starting to get tight with all the flour I was ordering, so. [laughing] So right now, we're open four days a week. We do Thursday through Sunday. Like, a line has been out the door pretty much every day for the last month. Thursdays are a little tamer 'cause we just do bakery and no sandwiches.

I just wanna make, like, good food for people, you know? Like, I just like making good food and hope that I make good food and hope that I surround myself with people who, like, complement that and, like, want to do that as well, you know? I love seeing people walk out happy, and yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

My mom was always making kimchi. Growing up, we had a basement fridge that was always full of all kinds of, like, gnarly-looking concoctions and, you know, one of those was kimchi 'cause she was always fermenting anything. She is very much the reason that I love fermentation and the reason that I love food. And it took me, you know, a handful of years to figure that out and to go back to it.

- Mattea, it's so awesome to be here. I'm so excited. I love fermented foods. So can you tell me what we're making?

- We're gonna make some garlic scape kimchi.

- What's the first step here; what are we doing?

- Mattea: We're gonna finish up this daikon radish here, and then we're gonna move on to some garlic scapes.

- My favorite vegetable to process.

- Me too.

- Yeah, exactly. It's just, like, a never-ending game of Jenga where you're pulling it apart and trying to get the ends and line it up so you can be efficient, but it's inefficient. Tell me about what we're going to do with this huge pile of scapes.

- We're going to chop the flower heads off and then dice 'em up a bit. Maybe I'd say no longer than—

- No longer than that. Okay, so we can do, like, a three-inch—

- We can do a very rough chop.

- Okay, cool, awesome.

- Which is the nice thing.

- Can you show me one?

- Surely.

- Luke: Thank you, and don't call me Shirley. It's Luke. 

- Mattea: Luke. Looks good.

- Love it.

- Great.

- Love it. All right, here we go.

- Mattea: All right.

- Luke: Boo-ya! These aren't your grandmother's garlic scapes anymore. New and improved.

[energetic music]

What's your favorite part about, like, the Door County culture and community?

- Mattea: It's really close-knit and supportive. Because we're so small, we've all help each other out, and I think I realized that much, much more this past year, you know, trying to get this place open. Anyone and everyone reached out and asked to help in any way that they could, and it was overwhelming and just, like, really, really wonderful.

- That's awesome; that's awesome. All the ingredients have been processed now. What are the next steps, and can you introduce these ingredients to us?

- Surely. This is fresh cilantro, sea salt, fish sauce, fresh ginger, and gochugaru, which is Vietnamese red chili powder. And we're gonna add all these to the blender, blend 'em up, and add 'em in with the vegetables.

- And how long do you let this sit and kind of ferment together before you really, you know, you consider it to be done?

- For about a week.

- Okay; do you ever taste it before then?

- Of course.

- Oh, good. I'm glad I'm not the only one; oh, my gosh. Let's do this.

- All right.

- Okay, so we're gonna start with ginger.

[bright music]

- Do you wanna do the salt in with the veg?

- Yeah, I do.

- Mattea: Perfect.

- Luke: There.

[processor whirring

Hey, Mattea, I have a question. How important is the consistency of this paste right now?

- Mattea: We don't want it to be completely homogenized. The most important part is getting the ginger in small enough chunks. 
- Sure; so a little bit of rough chunk is great. We're looking for it.

- Yeah, it looks great.

- Luke: Awesome, all right.

- Mattea: Right. Ready for it?

- Oh, man. There's all sorts of good stuff in this bin. It's great. All right, Mattea, what do we need to do to finish this up?

- It's looking good. We just need to add a little bit of lime zest. 

- Oh, yeah, bring that acid in.

- And a little bit of juice too.

- Nice; this smells amazing. Can I taste a little bit of this right now?

- Mattea: Of course.

- I'm gonna go for the bok choy.

- Did you get the lime in there?

- I think so.

- Oh, it's very limey.

- That's wild though; it's so good. It's so good. That acid balances almost perfectly with the gochugaru and the fish sauce. You know, I know fish sauce seems like one of these. . . For a lot of people, it's kind of, like, a really foreign idea. But in American cuisine, we've used Worcestershire. Sh-sh-sh.

- Sh-sh-sh-sh.

- Worcestershire, sh-sh-sh, exactly. You know, we use anchovy in our Caesar dressing. Puttanesca, all those things incorporate that huge umami body that really is found in fish and fish products. So the fish sauce is kind of, like, this beautiful glue that brings all these flavors together.

- Mattea: It really is.

- Luke: It's gorgeous. I am so excited to see what else you do here at Cultured because I know that the kimchi represents one small portion of what y'all are doing. And I think, did I hear bagels?

- Bagels are a huge part. Bigger than I thought they would be. I didn't realize I was opening a bagel shop, but here we are. And then also loaves of bread, focaccia, and some sweet treats as well.

- Would it be possible to see how you put your bagels together?

- Oh, surely.

[mellow music]

- Luke: Oh, my goodness, Mattea, this looks great. What do we have here?

- Mattea: We've got our bagel sammy with garlic scape butter on the bottom, cream cheese on the top, a fried egg, some Nueske's bacon, and we threw some kimchi in there as well.

- I can't even tell you, like, the whole process of walking through these steps with you to see how you kind of unveil your craft. I know that when I taste this, what I'm really gonna taste is all the love and care and time that you put into this. And I honestly, I can't wait. I'm beside myself.

That is legit. So first and foremost, I wanna talk about that bagel. This has that perfect texture of chewy. You get that slight crunch on the outside, where you can tell it was proofed with love and steamed and boiled, all those things. And then the inside is just this fluffy, delicious, well-salted internal bite of bagel. The Nueske's bacon complements the ramp butter. I get a little bit of that, like, acidity that you get from that ramp on the side of your tongue, because it is. It's, like, super garlic, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- And then the kimchi kind of cuts in with the foil, so it breaks down all that richness in the cream cheese, and it is truly delicious. Thank you.

- Mattea: Thank you.

[dreamy music]

- Luke: Door County's full of culinary surprises, and today, we have the opportunity to meet with Matt Sampson, owner of Sway Brewing and Blending. Now, Matt has been a fixture in the Door County brewing scene for many years, but with Sway Brewing and Blending, he has an opportunity to incorporate ingredients sourced from around the peninsula, and uses the art of wild fermentation to create beer that is uniquely from this place.

- My name's Matt Sampson. I'm the owner/brewer at Sway Brewing and Blending. We focus on a lot of oak fermented, mixed culture saisons and other Old World-inspired beers. A lot of similarities to our process in natural wine. Kind of, like, a minimal intervention approach to making beer. Like, we wanna highlight these raw ingredients, and most of our ingredients come from the Midwest or Wisconsin. I have a chemistry background, science background. I've always been interested in fermented foods, different yeast strains.

So yeah, we're canning our food or table saison called Cracks in the Sidewalk. Call it a table beer, and it's just 4% ABV. Sort of, like, a table wine. You would serve it during a meal. It's really refreshing, really citrusy, has some pretty pronounced nuance from a mixed culture of yeast and bacteria. We call it our house mix culture that we ferment a lot of our saisons with. It's all naturally carbonated in the cans. So this is just flat, uncarbonated beer right now, and the cans are actually pretty squishy, and they're gonna carbonate with the yeast and mixed culture of yeast and bacteria that we use to ferment the beer.

[dreamy music]

Being in Door County, we really wanna highlight the area we're in through these different yeast and bacteria we're using, but also in the raw ingredients we're using. We use a lot of local fruit, local herbs, local foraged plants. Yeah, we partner a lot with Cold Climate Farms. We've done a bunch of harvests with them, so we've harvested a bunch of their wild plants that are growing on their property. They're a farm, but these plants are just growing wild on their property. So we've used yarrow, dandelion, we're gonna harvest goldenrod. We're really trying to, yeah, provide, like, locals something they're proud of. Take advantage of the summer too, and provide an awesome spot for tourists to visit. We have an awesome beer garden that people can enjoy outside in the summer.

- Luke: What's up, Matt?

- Matt: Hey, how's it going?

- This is unique. I don't think I've ever been in a barrel room quite like this before with the wooden barrels and you know, some of the equipment here that is nothing short of truly special to this place.

- Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it's definitely your atypical look to a brewery. We don't have a lot of stainless steel shiny tanks like most breweries. We focus on fermentation in these oak foeders here, a lot of smaller oak barrel fermentation, which we'll be digging into today a little bit.

- I think that that's actually one of the reasons that brings me here. There is so much going on, on the fermentation end of the products that you produce that I think it's really, really captivating because it's not as controlled as a lot of breweries like to be, right? Where you have incremental steps that are constantly being measured. There's an element of, you know, absolute caution to the wind, so to speak, when it comes to fermenting these beers.

- Yeah, we ferment most of our oak barrel beer with a mixed culture of yeast and bacteria. Some of that yeast comes from wild sources around Door County. Each kind of foeder or barrel kind of harbors that mixed culture and those bugs and microbes kind of go into that wood and kind of take control of the beer a little bit. So yeah, there is some risk and kind of unknown associated with that type of beer production, but it's also kind of magical when those things team up to make beautiful flavors and nuanced flavors.

- So can you maybe walk me through a little bit of what we can help you with today, or where are we at in the process of the beermaking?

- Yeah, so today, I am just about to blend some oak barrel, some smaller oak barrel beer onto some local Door County cherries. Let's go check out the barrels.

- Luke: Let's do it.

- Here's some of the barrels we're gonna be blending today onto these Door County cherries. 

- Amazing. I, like, looking around here, I'm seeing ingredient names like yarrow, spruce. Tell me a little bit, like, are we foraging all this stuff together or do you have, like, a collection point? How does that work?

- Yeah, so a lot of the barrel-aged beers, barrel-fermented beers we do, we use a lot of locally foraged, or at least wild-harvested ingredients. So the yarrow, that's a native plant up here and to a lot of the Midwest. We harvested that. It's all wildly grown on Cold Climate Farms' property just south of Sturgeon Bay.

- You're doing things that are, like, I mean, they're so unique to this specific operation. I love it. It's, like, a throwback, but at the same time, it's so far back that you're pushing the entire industry forward.

- Right. It's like everyone forgot, like, where we came from and where all these Old World techniques, like, started. 

- All right, my man, walk me through the process.

- Yeah, so in this barrel, we have our spelt saison. It's a mixed culture saison that we fermented directly in this oak barrel. We're gonna use this device here. This is called a bulldog. This just seals in the bunghole here. This device is just gonna be used to get the beer out via pressure. So we're gonna hook up carbon dioxide gas to the bulldog, pressurize the barrel, and we're gonna shoot the beer and transfer it onto the cherries.

- Cool, that sounds great. So we have CO2 coming in on the side.

- Matt: And then we're gonna get it started.

- Luke: Here comes science, whoa.

- Matt: Let's go check it out on the tank. So this is where we have all 400 pounds of the Balaton cherries that I was talking about, and we're now blending those barrels directly onto the cherries. The cherries have already gone through an initial fermentation. For about two and a half weeks, we let them ferment on their own in a process called carbonic maceration. Basically without oxygen, they start fermenting from the inside out, and eventually, the skins will burst. Now the beer is gonna, on the cherries, go through another fermentation, where it re-ferments on the sugars in the cherries themselves.

- Luke: So if I've got this straight, we fermented this with carbonic maceration, you've already fermented the beer in the cask, in the oak barrel, and now you're bringing it together, merging those two, and re-fermenting it?

- Matt: Yeah. 

- Luke: That's a lot of complexity.

- Matt: Yeah, and we chose three different oak barrels specifically that we thought would, you know, pair well with these cherries. So kind of three components that come together to make something pretty unique and pretty sweet.

- This is wild; can I take a look at this? I mean, is that possible?

- Yeah, we can see it. All the beer's in there mingling with these cherries.

- Luke: Getting to know each other. It smells really delicious. At what point do you taste this?

- Yeah, so now that it's all blended, I'm definitely gonna sample it, see how everything was brought together. It's always, like, a little bit of a surprise to see what actually comes out. So this isn't very colored yet with cherries. And so it'll pick up a ton of color over time.

- Sure. [Matt sniffing] Yeah, it tastes great. It already has, like, a hint of cherry, but yeah, excited for it to pick up more cherry flavor and character. It's also gonna pick up character from the cherry pits, like almond and kind of spice notes too. You want to sample it?

- I'm good. I actually don't drink alcohol, but I say that with, like, all the reverence and fascination for exactly what's going on here. Fortunately, we've got a guy on our crew who is really, really talented in the beer world, and would you mind if I had him kind of taste this up?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Awesome; Nelson, you cool?

- Nelson Schneider: Yeah.

- Luke: Yeah?

[energetic music]

What we have in front is this baby beer, correct?

- Yeah, baby in the sense that we just blended it, it's just interacting with cherries for a couple minutes. So it hasn't extracted all that cherry flavor, color yet, and that will happen over many weeks to months.

- So Nelson, do you feel up to the challenge of tasting this baby beauty?

- Nelson: As a Wisconsinite, I've been training most of my adult life for this very moment.

- Nelson goes in with the smell first.

- The aroma's a huge part of the tasting of the beer.

- Absolutely.

- Matt: It's non-carbonated, so. . .

- Yes, I can definitely tell that. Yeah, the usual, like, bubbliness of that is not quite there, yeah. But yeah, you definitely get a little bit of that cherry though, is there. Super nice, easy drinking, on the lighter side but still has, like, some body. It's not like, super, super, like, light. I can't wait to see, like, what it's gonna become though.

- Matt: Yeah, yeah, so we can crack Lovely Cherries from last year, and that is this same beer conditioned on cherries for a few months.

- All right, this obviously is much deeper in color.

- Yeah, it's carbonated, it's frothy, carbonation head to the beer, where this has just come out of a barrel, so it's completely still. Through that can conditioning process, you'll get a lot of pretty high carbonation on this beer.

- And even right away, you can kind of smell that, like, kind of acidic funk to it and, like, those cherries are so much more pronounced.

- Yeah, you can smell, like, the skin, like, the flesh of the cherry for sure. 

[energetic music]

- Ooh, yeah.

- Tangy, tart.

- Yeah, oh, yeah, very tart.

- Lot of cherry flavor.

- Mm-hmm, oh, my gosh, that's delicious.

- Whenever I taste the cherry beer, like, I try to pick up on, like, these subtle things from the pits that I love from cherries. Like, almost, like, winter spice, like, Christmas spice.

- Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that cherry, like, tartness, like, is the first thing that hits, but now as I've kind of, like, swallowed and had that aftertaste, I can definitely get some of those spices that you're talking about for sure. Which is something I've loved about, like, all the beers that we've tried on this shoot, like, behind the scenes has just been, like, just the complexity of them that, like, even after you've swallowed, like, you're still just getting so many levels of, like, flavor coming out of 'em that, like, you do not often get with a lot of other beers. Oh, yeah, that is fine work.

- Matt: Thanks.

- Yeah.

- Thanks so much for stepping in. Thanks so much for creating such a high-quality product. This is so cool. And I love the uniquity of what you guys are putting out here in comparison to just about every other beer I've ever sampled or seen made in the state of Wisconsin.

- Yeah, no, I appreciate you guys taking your time to check out the brewery and the taproom.

- It's been our pleasure, our pleasure. Thanks my, man. 

- Matt: Thank you.

- Luke: Here we go. This has been three dudes sitting on a bench with beards, tasting beer. [laughing]

[energetic music]

- Ready for it?

- Mm-hmm.

[object clattering]

- Oh, no.

- Trouble.

- Oh, well.

[whimsical music]

- Hey. . . 

[both laughing]

- You just spit all over your shirt.

[both laughing]

- Sorry.

[Matt stammering]

[Luke laughing]

I'm a pro at this. Yeah, what about you? Would you like a little taste?

[both laughing]

[background conversation]

- Luke: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese. [crowd cheering] Just look for our badge. It's on everything we make.

- Did you know Organic Valley protects over 400,000 acres of organic farmland? So are we an organic food cooperative that protects land, or land conservationists who make delicious food? Yes, yes, we are. Organic Valley. 

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- Twenty-minute commutes. Weekends on the lake. Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities. Not to mention all the great food! There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin. Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore. From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers. The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters. Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Are you hungry for more? Then go to our YouTube channel and subscribe, and be in the loop every time we release new content, behind-the-scenes footage, and new episodes that you can preview before anyone else. Check us out. 

[gentle music]