After Hours spotlights a beer every Sunday. As the world of craft beer continues to explode, the number of breweries and beers seems to grow exponentially making the process of selecting your next beer infinitely more difficult. These tasting notes will aim to make the process a bit less challenging.
This week, a distinctive style indigenous to the German region of Franconia is profiled.
Is there a beer that you feel should be spotlighted here in the future? Drop the columnist, Bryan Kolesar, a note to make it happen.
Matthias Trum, left, is pictured at a recent Schlenkerla beer dinner at Brauhaus Schmitz in Philadelphia with Chef Wolfgang Thiel (Schlenkerla), Brauhaus Schmitz Chef Jeremy Nolen and co-owners Kelly Schmitz-Hager and Doug Hager
Name: Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier-Märzen
Brewer: Brauerei Heller-Bräu Trum (Schlenkerla) [Website], established 1678.
Location: Bamberg, Germany
Style: Rauchbier (or Smoke Beer)
Vintage tasted: 2011
Recipe Notes: Malts: Brewed with Original Schlenkerla Smokemalt from the Schlenkerla maltings, Hops: Magnum and Hallertau for bittering, Yeast: 500+ year-long "Classic Schlenkerla" yeast cultivated in the Bamberg & Nürnberg beer caves, Fermentation: takes place for approximately two months in the historic rock cellars beneath the Schlenkerla brewery.
Stats: 5.10% ABV, 30 IBU, 13.2 Plato original gravity
Price Range: $4-$7 per 500ml bottle
Availability: Imported to the States by B. United and readily available in better bottle shops across the country.
Recent Awards: Australian Beer Awards (Silver, '10 & '09); Stockholm Beer Festival (Gold, '07 & '08); World Beer Cup (Gold, '96)
Aroma: Bacon, smoked salmon, spicy cured meats
Taste: A lot more of the same that the aroma suggests plus a light, but noticeable, hop bitterness
Overall: An acquired taste, to be sure, this beer can be drank delightfully on its own but takes on a whole new dimension when paired with food. Don't be put off by the aroma, which is not overly aggressive in its smokiness. The same goes for the intriguing flavors with a smooth mouthfeel and goes down with a lingering, without being overbearing, smoky and hoppy finish.
A case of rauchbier is ready to roll off to customers from Schlenkerla Brewery in Bamberg, Germany
Suggested Food Pairings: The smokiness of this beer will allow it to shine when paired with similar flavors as in pulled pork, brisket, ribs, Bamberg Onion, bacon chocolate bar, or Kentucky Hot Brown.
Tidbits: Matthias Trum is the a 6th generation family brewer, the latest in the company's history of brewing.
To schlenker means to stagger around, almost drunk-like. It's the inspiration behind the brewery's informal name. Read more here. The official brewery name is Heller-Bräu. The brewery's pub was known as the "House to the Blue Lion", circa 1877, where proprietor Andreas Graser was known to schlenker about.
The northern Franconia region is home to 344 of 670 Bavarian breweries and has roughly one brewery for every 5,500 residents.
Quotable:
"Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier is not only among beers but among all alcoholic drinks a classic...Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier is the world's most famous smoked beer." - Michael Jackson, from Pocket Guide to Beer
Quotable from owner/brewer, Matthias Trum (excerpted from an interview which can be found in After Hours' archives via this link)
"Until the industrial revolution, all malts, and hence all beers, were smoky to some extent. With the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern industry malt (i.e. unsmoked), that changed. Until the 1980s the number of German breweries with smokebeer declined steadily, especially since no industry smokemalts were available. Only Schlenkerla and Spezial in Bamberg, who had their own maltings, basically kept the style alive. With the craft beer revolution in the United States, some larger malting factories decided to henceforward produce smokemalts as well."
"Nowadays several dozens of (seasonally) smoked beers are available, most of them brewed by American craft breweries. Ten or so breweries in Bamberg County have also reintroduced more or less smoky beers made with those commercially available smokemalts. Meanwhile Schlenkerla continues along the traditional path, and has with the classic Märzen, the Urbock and newly Oak Smoke the only "full" Rauchbiers with 100% smokemalt."
"All in all the introduction of industry smokemalts has enabled a "renaissance" of smokebeers, and certainly added to the popularity of it. The same accounts, of course, for the craft brewery development in the USA which, in general, has made people more aware and appreciative of different flavours in beer. Here in Franconia the smoke style has a steady fan community, as for the rest of Germany (where smokebeer was extinct, too), we can see a similar development as in the USA."
---Read more of Bryan's work at After Hours in the Communities at the Washington Times.
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