Rauchbier

ABV 4.8-6% · IBU 20-30 · SRM 12-22 · Serve 45-50F · Glass Half litre Willibecher

Identify

Deep amber to coppery brown and clear, under a large creamy tan head. The smell reaches you before the glass does: smoked ham, bacon, a bonfire the morning after. Underneath the smoke is ordinary toasted malt, and it is easy to miss on the first go. Medium bodied and smooth, with a clean lager finish. The smoke is savoury rather than sweet, and it tastes of food rather than of an ashtray. The finish runs medium dry to dry, and the smoke stays in your mouth after the beer has gone.

Place

Bamberg, in Franconia, northern Bavaria. Two breweries in one town keep the tradition alive

Cause

Barley has to be steeped, sprouted and then dried before it can be brewed. At Schlenkerla that last step happens in a kiln with a beechwood fire burning underneath it, so smoke passes through the wet grain for roughly a day. The flavour goes into the barley and stays there.

Confused with

Marzen, which is the same beer with the smoke left out. Any smoked porter or stout, which piles roast on top of the smoke. Peated whisky, which people reach for and which is a different smoke entirely.

Numbers

Rauch is German for smoke. A Rauchbier is an ordinary amber Bavarian lager made with malt that was dried over a beechwood fire, so the smoke went into the grain before the brewing ever started. Everything else about the beer is completely conventional. You will smell it before you touch it.

Will you like it, Order and Try

Plenty of people take one mouthful of Schlenkerla and put the glass down. That is a normal reaction to a beer built almost entirely from smoked malt. It is not a failure of taste and there is nothing to work through if you do not want to.

Pair, Judge, Myth and Remember

What does not work: delicate white fish, fresh salad, and almost any dessert. This beer buries subtlety, and next to sugar the smoke turns strange and ashy. Clear deep amber to coppery brown with a large creamy tan head. Smoke that smells like smoked ham rather than like an ashtray, with real toasted malt underneath it.