Wasdale beer was Christmas Food!

The malt, but only some of it. Use too much smoked malt and it tastes, erm, searches for diplomatic description and fails...

... Ah, yes, I know - it tastes like Titanic beers used to when the brewer in residence had a passion for smoked malt and didn't know the right quantity.

Following up to Steven Pampling

Thanks Steven!

The German beers are brewed mainly in Bamberg, in Franconia, and the brewers use malt which is smoked over beechwood chips.

The most widely-available (and IMO best) is Schlenkerla Rauchbier, and you can get this in this country. I believe there is an importer in Southampton who will deliver to your home, but it's fairly widely available in pubs, too.

It's basically a love it or hate it thing. I've been drinking it for over 25 years, so you can guess which way I swung at the first taste of the stuff.

The brewer didn't know? Tsk tsk! - We'll have to exile him to Franconia for re-education & cultural brain-washing :~)

The malt could have been the UK peat-smoked malt used in whisky, rather than German "rauchmalz".

IIRC Franconians say you only really get a taste for it (or decide you don't like it?) after you've drunk a whole cask, or your body weight in it, or some such.

someone, I know not who, wrote -

Phenolic? TCPish? Like its been filtered through an ashtray, bar-be-que and smoky-bacon crisps? (OK, maybe I failed on the diplomatic front?) cheers Mike McG

Following up to MikeMcG

The brewer at WH, it was a guest beer.

There's also a German "Steinbier" which is similar. IIRC They heat a large rock glowing red hot and drop it in the fermenting vessel before adding the yeast. This causes the sugars to caramelise in a thick layer the stone and adding some smoke flavour from the fire as well. It also heats up the brew to roughly the right temperature. That flavour is smoke/caramel which is another acquired taste.

Following up to Tim Challenger

In the Lake district a large rock would be considered 10 foot across, could be a problem :-)

IIRC the red hot stone is used in the boiling stage of brewing - in the 'copper', not the fermenter (like most German beers, I presume Steinbier is a lagerbier - cold-fermentation).

Although the rock, with its layer of caramelised wort, might then get put in the fermenter once the wort has been cooled down enough for the yeast? MikeMcG

Smoked Porter from the Alaskan Brewing Company is brewed with malt smoked in the local fish smokehouse.

Fortunately the fish are out of season for a month a year and the smokehouse is out of use allowing brewer Geoff Larson to smoke his malt.

Back in May I showed Larson London's beer highlights and he rewarded me with a case of '98 vintage. Trying 2004 alongside the 98 demonstrated this beer is very suitable for laying down. Smoke flavour mellowed and the beer gained a touch of winyness. Gorgeous.

:)

They brew a lot of beer in Germany :)

I think you're probably right. I learnt about it some years ago and the details are a bit fuzzy. I'm not a beer brewer anyway - drinker, yes.

I've not had a very aged bottle, but I enjoyed it very much nontheless

- the smoke melds beautifully with the malt and roast flavours of the porter, not at all 'spiky' like some esoteric brews can be. cheers MikeMcG

Don't suppose it's available in the UK? Sounds interesting.

First time I had Rauchbier I thougt it was like drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette at the same time!

Cheers,

Martin

MikeMcG a écrit :

IIRC, there's a lager version and a weizen version... latter may be top-fermenting...

IIRC again, the rocks are put back in the beer during secondary fermentation / maturation in order to boost it.

Cheers !

Laurent

(no, much better than that - I hate cigarettes!) IIRC imported by James Clay, sold nationally in Safeway along with some other stunning Yankily craftbeers (tho for how long I'm not sure, with t'Morrisons in control) cheers MikeMcG

If you live up north Booths supermarket have had it recently!

Lynda

As I understand it, the stones were indeed used to boil the liquid for mashing - they originally used stones because they couldn't heat the wooden brewing vessels directly over a fire, for obvious reasons. Later they replaced wooden vessels with coppers and the steinbier tradition more or less died out, but it has been revived relatively recently for novelty value.

I think the main example of the style is Rauchenfelser Steinbier, which is a wheat beer, brewed by Franz Joseph Sailer.

Yes, I believe you are again right.

d.

I noticed recently that the Oddbins near where I work had some interesting Yank beers in stock, so I bought a few to sample. I noticed that all of them bore the name of James Clay on the label, and there was a website address too: - might be helpful.

One of the beers I sampled was Victory Hopdevil. Now, I like my beers with plenty of hops, but to be honest, I wasn't desperately impressed with this one - the intense hoppiness was interesing at first but eventually became a bit cloying.

My favourite of the ones I sampled, though, was not a US beer but a Belgian - namely Westmalle Tripel. Truly awesome.

d.

That website might be helpful if it was properly set up. After the front page, all the links are badly formatted and so lead to non-existent pages. Truly appalling.

Martin