Smoked Beer Preservation Day

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

― Gustav Mahler

As part of our ongoing beer education, Jen and I closed the brewery for a week in January of 2023 to travel to Germany. We journeyed throughout Franconia but spent the bulk of our time in Bamberg, the home of Rauchbier. There is something magical about sipping this smoky, sweet elixir on the cobblestone streets outside Schlenkerla’s iconic brewery. No matter the weather, there is a constant stream of folks spilling into the street after ducking inside to grab a pint of this Bamberg specialty, poured straight from the barrel!

But how’d they get the crazy notion to add smoke flavor anyway? Well, the answer is – they didn’t. Rauchbier wasn’t an invention. It was a necessity.

The World Changed Around Them

In Bamberg, time stood still. This is true of the medieval architecture and the brewing technology. Modern brewers buy malted barley from industrial malting facilities, but originally malting was the task of the brewer. Malting is the process of sprouting, drying and roasting raw barley to unlock more fermentable sugar. We won’t go into details here except to single out the “drying” step.

It is during this crucial step that brewers would literally fire up the kiln – i.e. make a wood fire – and dry the sprouted grain above it on screens. As a result, ALL malt was smoky and ALL beer was relatively dark; usually brown.

That is until July 23rd, 1635, when a clever Englishman was awarded a patent for a “smoke free malt drying machine”. Widespread adoption of this invention was slow, but as drinkers fell in love with the crisp, pale, straw yellow beers this technology allowed; the old, smoky “Bavarian Kiln” was retired.

Everywhere, that is, except Bamberg!

Today, there are 2 breweries which still operate the Bavarian-Style wood fired kiln: Brauerei Spezial and Brauerei Schlenkerla.

These breweries make exceptional, unique and delicious (to our palates anyway) smoky, rich beers.

Preserving the Fire

While our Altbier, Vesuvio, captures a hint of this smoky, roasty goodness of Schlenkerla’s famous Rauchbier but we have started a series of beers inspired by this historic style where we will attempt to get closer and closer to the original process.

In 2022, we experimented with a locally smoked malt for Ombra, a smoked Kellerbier.

In 2023, we brewed Birra Rustica, a 100% Maple Smoked Connecticut Barley Beer. We also experimented with decoction during this brew.

Each year, on July 23rd, we will release another smoky beer that honors this tradition.