German Beers

German Beer Styles:
Variety, Quality, Complexity, Versatility

Brewing in Style
Germans are very conscious of distinct beer styles. When they order a beer, they rarely ask for it by its brand name. Rather they order beer by its style designation, asking for a Pils, an Alt, a Kölsch, a Weissbier, a Helles or a Dunkel, for instance. Depending on your definition of beer style, there are arguably between two and four or five dozen styles in Germany. Some people consider Bockbier, for instance, a broad style that comprises many subcategories, such as the stronger Doppelbock and the even stronger Eisbock, while others count each of these brews as a separate style. The same goes for Altbier and its stronger version, the Sticke Alt, for instance. Likewise, the large family of yeast-turbid German wheat ales, called Weissbiers or Hefeweizens, has a clear, filtered member, called Kristallweizen, as well as a strong member, called, Weizenbock, which many consider separate styles.

Except perhaps for the ubiquitous Pils,which holds a roughly 60% market share throughout Germany, most styles have a stronger following in their regions of origin but are much less known, though usually available, elsewhere. The unfiltered, low-carbonation, malty Kellerbier, for instance, is a specialty of Franconia in northern Bavaria, but it can be hard to find along the Atlantic and Baltic coastlines. Likewise, the blond Kölsch, which is by far the most popular beer in and around Cologne as well as the copper-colored Altbier, which holds the same rank in and around Düsseldorf, would be hard to find in, say, southern Bavaria. Conversely, Weissbier, which is the most popular beer style in Bavaria, with more than a one-third market share there, holds only about a 10% market in the rest of Germany.

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German Beer Regions
German beer making has taken different paths in different parts of the country. Broadly speaking, beers become maltier as you travel from north to south and hoppier as you travel in the reverse direction. In addition, some styles have more than one, often regional, name. A Kellerbier, for instance, may also be called Zwickelbier, Kräusenbier or Zoigl; a Dortmunder may be called Export; a Maibock, Helles Bock.

Among all the German regions, the southern-most state, Bavaria, clearly has spawned the greatest variety of beer styles. They vary in shades of color and strength. There are very blond and almost black lagers as well as clear and yeast-turbid, pale and brown wheat ales. Some brews, like the Helles, are quaffing, or easy-drinking, beers, while others, like the Eisbock, are sipping beers.

Neighboring Bohemia to the east of Bavaria (once part of the German-speaking Autro-Hungarian Empire and now part of the Czech Republic) has produced, under Bavarian influence, the world's most popular style, the Pilsner, which is the mother of all modern lagers, including the popular German Pils, the Dortmunder Export, and the Bavarian Helles.

Rhineland and Westphalia, which together now form the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, probably rank second in contributions to the German beer landscape. The Rhineland, with its Alt and Kölsch ales, has become the custodian of the ancient German ale tradition, while Westphalia has enriched the world with its peculiar interpretation of the blond lager, the Dortmunder Export.

The northern regions, until the late Middle Ages hot-beds of ale brewing, have given us the dry, assertively hoppy Pils, the original Bock from Einbeck (which was an ale in the Middle Ages), and a light, acidic wheat beer called Berliner Weisse. 

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Understanding German Beer Labels
German breweries often use prefixes or adjectives in conjunction with their style names to highlight a particular characteristic of their beer. For instance, ungespundet means a low-effervescence beer that was fermented to the finish in an unpressurized fermenter. The carbon dioxide in the solution, therefore, is minimal and the beer tastes only gently pétillant and very smooth.

The word hell or helles means "light," but, unlike in North America, this designation refers to color only, not to the beer's calories or alcoholic strength. A light beer in the North American sense would be called leicht or, more commonly, by the English term "light."

If a beer features the prefix ur or urtyp, which mean "original" or "original type," the brewery tries to emphasize the authenticity of its beverage.

A spezial is just what you suspect it is: A beer that the brewery made as a seasonal special or one it considers especially good.

Singapore beers

It has remained unknown to me until a recent business trip that Singapore is a developed country not only in terms of its economy and infrastructure but also in terms of the wide range of beers available on this dense and bustling, but relatively small, island.

While Singapore is known around the world for its enthusiastic use of the death penalty, corporal punishment and fining people for chewing gum and not flushing after using public toilets it has remained virtually unreported that Singapore is a relative oasis of beer in an otherwise alcoholically undeveloped region.

While I have been slumming drinking cheap chemi-brews in Thailand and other South East Asian countries and quite often moaning about them to all and sundry not one person has ever mentioned that Singapore offers a good variety of domestically produced beers with three micro breweries (Brewerkz and another couple of new start ups) and two large scale breweries (Tiger and Carlsberg), not to mention the unusually good selection of imported brews equal to those available in any western country.

A visit to a Singporean supermarket uncovered an entire section dedicated to beer. Not just a shelf or a small space in a fridge but an entire dedicated row of shelves rising from the bottom to the top. I was so impressed by this that I took the photo that you see above. There was pretty much everything there from local and regional favourites such Tiger, Chang and San Miguel to international brews such as Guinness (Draft), Becks, Grolsch and Stellas Artois. They even had space for crap like Miller Lite and a number of no-brand European beers.

Some of the bars I visited also offered a tempting and varied array of brews. Most bars, restaurants and pubs normally offered two or three beers on draft but Harry’s Bar had at least five beers on tap including Guinness, Paulaner Weissbrau, Kilkenny, Carlsberg and Tiger.

The most noteworthy drinking establishment I visited was the Brewerkz Microbrewery at Riverpoint on Merchant Street. Offering nearly twenty different brews made either by themselves or by other selected microbreweries the drink menu at Brewerkz caused me much salivation. Expect a full and glowing review of the place in the near future….

It is only fair to note though that the major downside to drinking beer in Singapore is the high cost. Frequenters of Orchard Towers will pay around 12 Singapore Dollars per mug of beer, which works out to about 8 US Dollars, while those who hang around the trendy river area will pay upwards of 15 Sing Dollars. A can of Carlsberg in a 7-11 costs as much as 4 Sing Dollars but supermarkets seem to offer the best prices if you purchase in bulk.

My trip to Singapore was very enjoyable and I am quite glad that my work took me there as it had never been high on my travel wish list and I would never have visited the country under my own steam.

The sheer joy of drinking really good beer in a clean and vibrant, if expensive, city was what made my time there so pleasurable and I hope to return at some time in the future to try a few more brews.

Australian whisky

The last few years have seen a meteoric increase in both the popularity and quality of Australian whisky, yet by world standards, the industry is young. This comes as quite a surprise for several reasons. A taste for spirits arrived with the First Fleet (1788), as did the British Navy custom of trading and rationing spirits (beer and wine didn't keep well on long voyages). Initially, these were mainly rum type concoctions meant strictly for officers and officials and used medicinally or on special occasions. However, they quickly became an article of exchange between all social classes. Convicts and soldiers were often paid with rum, even abstainers received a ration. Given the difficult conditions in the young colony combined with an ignorance of viticulture, it's not surprising that strong spirit became entrenched as the preferred palliative well before wine and beer. Spirits were set to be big business. The privately contracted Second Fleet which arrived in 1790 sought to maximise the material opportunities of the voyage, loading ships with goods to trade at exorbitant prices - including spirits. Recognising 'New Holland' as a lucrative market, visits from other suppliers followed. With them came a diversity of peoples, many of whom brought skills and practises previously unseen to Australia, affording them the opportunity to establish businesses that could supply other immigrants with a taste of home.

One might have anticipated a scenario in early Australia similar to that which led to the birth of American Bourbon and its sister whiskies, when in the early 1700s, a combination of bad economic times and religious unrest against the established Church in Great Britain set off a wave of emigration from Scotland and Ireland. These settlers who came to be known as the "Scotch-Irish" in the new World, brought to North America their religion, their distrust of government control, and their skill at distilling whiskey.

Instead in Australia, the wine industry won out, although many early wineries did produce Brandy (an oak matured spirit distilled from grapes) in large quantities for both consumption and the fortification of wines such as Port, Tokay, and Muscat - all of which were far more popular than table wines until relatively recently. It's also noteworthy that while beer has been an enormous part of Australia's drinking culture for well over a century, whisky has not - despite the fact that the primary ingredient of beer is malted barley, also the key ingredient for Scotland's malt whiskies. One is a logical extension of the other. By contrast, the American whiskey industry was founded by immigrants who made use of surplus local ingredients, namely corn, wheat and rye (in fact, several existing American stills were originally named 'beer stills'). In short, the ingredients (grains), the knowledge (immigrants) and equipment (pot stills & barrels) have been available in Australia for a long time. As to why Australia didn't take to whisky earlier remains uncertain.

The elements of great Scotch whisky - peat (a primitive form of coal), casks for maturation, clean water and quality grains are all available in Australia. A thought for quiet contemplation next time you taste one of Australia's whiskies: If the ingredients (grain, peat), the knowledge (immigrants) and equipment (pot stills & barrels) have long been available in Australia, why has it taken over 200 years to begin producing whisky of global renown?

Indian rums

Few people realize that the top five selling brands of rum in the world are Bacardi of Puerto Rico, Tanduay of the Philippines, Old Monk and McDowell's of India and Captain Morgan of Puerto Rico.

Old Monk 7 Rum is the most popular
cane spirit exported from India
Photo by Robert Burr.

What do we know of the popular rums of India? With two thirds of the world's population living in Asia, rum is the spirit of choice for hundreds of millions of consumers half a world away from the Caribbean.

Old Monk 7 Year Old Rum is a vatted Indian Rum, blended and aged for 7 years. Old Monk is said to be the third largest selling rum in the world with 7.2 million cases sold each year, and the leader in exporting Indian rum to the world.

Old Monk also has a 12 year old version. Both are dark rums with rich buttery flavor, full of molasses and caramel.

American rums

New American Rum: mind the wave

Last week I spent four days at the American Distilling Institute's annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. This year's focus was on rum distilling. (I gave a short talk on rum history. And sold some books. See photo below.) This was chiefly a gathering of microdistillers, who seem to be happily growing in number by the day. And the rum focus this year drew folks out of the woodworks interested in making our great American spirit. I'm here to tell you that American rum seem to be poised to go big.

Most of the current rum microdistillers I knew about were here: Rogue from Oregon; Dogfish from Delaware; New Orleans Rum from, well, you know; Bardenay from Boise, Idaho; and Prichard's from Tennessee. Pirate's Choice also made an appearance (they market two rums, a lime flavored rum and an aged rum, both produced under contract by Phil Prichard). Maui rum was here in spirit, if not represented by a distiller.

But then there were the new kids on the block – or rather, the new kids visible down on the next block: Newport Storm brewery from Rhode island has been producing rum several weeks, putting some in the barrel and getting some ready to sell sooner as a white rum. It should be on the shelves this summer, although they're not yet revealing what the name is. They're looking to emphasize the historical connection of rum to New England – an idea so simple and powerful I'm puzzled that no one else has gotten there first.

Someone is on Newport Storm's heels, however. Another Newport, R.I., resident flew into the conference, with a head full of plans to start producing a New England rum and a whole bunch of domain names registered in advance. He's done a bunch of research on Rhode Island rum history, and was raring to go. Not surprisingly, he was a bit crestfallen to find out that someone had anticipated his idea, and was out of the gate ahead of him. But he insists he's still pushing on. I'll update as I hear more. (In the small world department: they're both graduates of the same college: Colby in Maine.)

I also spoke with a North Carolinian headed to New Mexico to distill a molasses-based rum on the Rio Grande south of Albuquerque. It will be called Rio Grande Rum; they haven't yet applied for permits, but they have a facility already. Rum and the southwest don't have much of a history, but he's made a connection, if with tongue a bit in cheek: Rum is from the Caribbean. The Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Slogan: It took 400 years to make it to the headwaters.

Green Bay Distilling in Wisconsin also has rum in the pipeline. They're producing a white rum that's aged six months then filtered, as well as one- and three-year rums aged in old bourbon barrels.

Those are the folks who are moving along. I met several others with ideas and lots of ambition, but as yet no facility nor permit nor firm timetable. But rum distilling seems to be seriously returning to American shores. Clearly, it's not just palm trees and piña coladas anymore.

I'll try to update as I get a chance to savor some of the New American Rums, and report back when some of those in the pipeline start to decant onto the shelves.

Russian beers

Russian beer (Russian пиво – Pivo): in Russia, beer is the second most popular alcoholic drink after Vodka, but is seen by many as a healthier almost non-alcoholic alternative (such that it is the number one alcoholic drink in the always more westward leaning St.Petersburg, consumption 95 l. per capita, 2005).

Unlike the Germanic language speaking peoples (i.e. English, Dutch and German Speakers), Russians (like Spanish speakers) categorize beer by color, and not by fermentation process: Light, Red or Semi-Dark, and Dark. Light is a more or less equivalent to Lager and the

Thailand beers

Brewing beer in Thailand began in 1934. (although the Singha label says "SINCE 1933") Locally produced Thai beers face competition from major international brands, but have successfully found their own niche in the Thai market and abroad.

Thai beer is typically lager. The oldest and most popular Thai beer in Thailand and abroad isSingha, brewed by Boon Rawd Brewery. Singha also appears in Thailand in Light (3.5% ABV) and Draught versions.

Recently, Singha has been challenged by Chang beer, made by Thai Beverages. Chang is noted globally for its sponsorship of Liverpool's Everton football club, as