You & Me & Beer Makes Three
Let’s look at a classic American style, Amber Ale, aka Red Ale. And by classic, I mean the craft beer awakening of the 1990’s, not the historic styles of the 1800’s. In the mid-90s you could count on nearly every brewpub and “microbrewery” to have Amber or Red ale on tap. Amber ales are not … Read more
We recently took a look at Dunkelweizen, a dark German wheat ale (weissbier) with traditional weizen (wheat) yeast flavors. There’s another weissbier with similar flavors at the other end of the color scale, Kristallweizen. You don’t have to be a German language expert to guess that Kristall mean a lighter colored beer, but it’s more … Read more
After discussing German Pilsners last week, it makes sense to turn south towards the Czech Republic and look at Bohemian Pilsners. Bohemian Pilsners are the original, first developed in Plzen, Czech in 1842. The story goes that a German Lager Yeast was smuggled from Germany, and combined with Plzen’s soft water, pale malts and Saaz … Read more
Last week we discussed Dunkelweizens, not the first style that comes to mind when discussing German beers. But there’s a good chance one of the first will be Pilsner, Germany’s most famous style. Pilsners are crisp and bitter, and can have a dry finish. You’ll notice grainy flavors, reminding you of bread or biscuits, and … Read more
In the past few weeks we’ve looked at three popular styles from the US, Britain and Belgium. Let’s go to Germany this week and discuss Dunkelweizen. Don’t confuse Dunkelweizen, an ale, with Dunkel lager, also called Munich Dunkel. Dunkel simple means “dark.” Dunkelweizen, like Hefeweizen, is a wheat ale, just a dark one. But it’s not … Read more
