Keep Austin beered

At the Austin Beer Garden Brewery, a country band is playing. Sillhouettes of the occasional cowboy hat stand out amongst the crowd. Behind the stage is a row of large fermentation tanks, crowned by a lit-up sign that reads ‘Pils! Pils! Pils!’ Outside, in the sultry evening heat, long communal tables are just as likely to seat families sharing pizzas as groups of friends enjoying Friday night beers.

The above scene encapsulates much of what is great about Austin; the live music, the warm, welcoming vibe and the lager. Lots of delicious lager.

There are ales on the menu at the ABGB, but on a night like this, straying from the broad selection of bottom-fermented beers is unthinkable. Industry Pils is superb, with a depth of malt flavour that’s rich and hearty, followed by bitter, grassy hops that make it lively and vital. If Industry is a homage to German lagers, Rocket 100 filters that influence through American tradition. Described as a ‘pre-prohibition’ lager, it uses corn in the grist, a practice now associated with bland beer from large breweries and, more often than not, a cost-cutting exercise. It wasn’t always this way; when lager was first brewed in the US, indigenous barley was harsh and needed softening out with rice or corn. Rocket 100 certainly has little in common with the Budweisers of this world; it’s robust and full bodied with notes of toasted, bready malt, but the real draw is the gorgeous floral, herbal hop profile which suggests orange and sherbet. 

Austin Beer Works is the most present brand across the city. They don't necessarily specialise in lager styles, but do excel in this area. Pearl-Snap is, apart from anything else, a wonderful name for a beer. It seems to suggest so much of the flavour you can expect without actually describing it; the smack of fresh, grassy, orange-like hops in the bitter finish was just what I was expecting and exactly what I craved when I ordered this at Easy Tiger, a venue which ingeniously combines a specialist beer bar with a bakery. That means oven-warm pretzels with your German-style lager. I should have drunk Czech Yourself before Pearl-Snap; it's more softly spoken, less brash, and suffered from following the assertive hop character of the previous beer. A shame, as it's a great example of the style.

Of all Austin's breweries, Live Oak Brewing's influences are the most emphatically European. Making your flagship beer a Hefeweizen is a statement of intent, and especially such a straight-up, unapologetically traditional example of the style. If I wasn't such an anxious ticker, I'd happily have drunk nothing but Live Oak Hefeweizen for the entire trip - it is superb. Need I describe it's flavour? Am I capable of doing so without falling back on the same descriptors we still borrow from Michael Jackson to evoke these beers? Banana, clove, etc. It's just pure class - easy drinking, but with such richness and depth of flavour.

Perusing the board at Craft Pride, the Hefeweizen tempted me once again. This log cabin pub, which feels like it could have had a sawdust-strewn floor in a past life, plays old-time country music and has a draught list of over 50 beers, all from Texas. Broadening my horizons but staying with Live Oak, I plumped for Live Oak Gold, a seasonal pilsner for spring. The malt flavour is crisp and the hop character delicate and minty-herbal - it was a great way to celebrate the sun coming back out after an unseasonable cold snap the previous day.

A veritable glass of sunshine came next; Hazed & Confused from Pinthouse Pizza. Pinthouse is a brewpub operating out of two Austin locations; I didn't make it to either, but their opaque, juicy pale ales and IPAs are easy to find elsewhere. Hazed & Confused is extra cool because it's brewed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of local director Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused. It seems weird to describe a beer as 'succulent', but that's the word that springs to mind; drinking this beer is redolent of biting into a chunk of perfectly ripe mango. There's a lot of pineapple in there too, and whilst the near total absence of bitterness might make it sweet for some tastes, it was fine by me.

At Wright Bros. Brew & Brew, I had my pick of several Pinthouse IPAs. As the name implies, this is both a beer bar and a coffee shop. These two functions bleed into one another; visiting at around 9pm, both espressos and pints of porter were pouring; around some tables, punters chatted animatedly whilst at others, people worked on their laptops. The result is a markedly relaxed atmosphere which I like a lot (oh, and don't visit without grabbing a Korean-inspired taco at the Chi'Lantro truck around the corner). Electric Jellyfish departs slightly from the intense fruit salad flavours of Hazed & Confused, balancing the juice with a certain dank, savoury quality.

A less conventional IPA came next; GAMMADELUXE, a collaboration between Jester King and Michigan's Jolly Pumpkin. It's inspired by the New England-style IPAs brewed by Monkish and looks the part, pouring semi-murky and with a distinct yellowish glow. There's a strong tropical fruit component to the flavour, too; juicy pineapple and grapefruit. The twist is in the use of Brettanomyces, which accentuates the fruity notes but adds a gentle musty note. It's gently tart and finishes tannic and dry, with not a hint of its intimidating 7.5% ABV.

A common bumper sticker and tourist T-shirt reads 'Keep Austin Weird'. Known as the live music capital of the world, it's the town that spawned Daniel Johnston, Roky Erickson and the Butthole Surfers, amongst a long list of other glorious oddballs. None of the above venues are especially 'weird', but the Austin's beer spots are consistent with the general vibe of the city. Like Brighton, my home, there's a chilled, live-and-let-live spirit that allows beautiful weirdness to thrive. Places like this make great drinking cities.

"Just beer"; struggling for words to describe pale lager

Recently, after enjoying a bottle of Hell from Bamberg’s Keesman brewery, I attempted to throw together some quick tasting notes for an Untappd check-in. Here’s what I eventually came up with;

“Fresh biscuits & steamed broccoli aroma. Tangy biscuit malt, refreshing carbonation, mineral bitterness in the finish. Wish I had another.”

I threw in the last sentence because I felt that those preceding it failed to a) communicate that I had actually very much enjoyed the beer, or b) make it sound like anything anybody would ever want to drink. Whilst these notes accurately represent my experience of drinking the Hell (I didn't claim to be tasting things I wasn't really tasting), the truth is I was desperately grasping for anything to usefully say about it. That doesn't mean it was boring or unremarkable – I'm just starting to realise that I have a hard time describing the experience of pale lager.

One reason for this might be that pale lager is pretty much my base point for what “beer” means. Since lager is the dominant beer in our culture, this is not unusual; a Google image search for the term ‘beer’ results in pages and pages of  images of foaming glasses of lager, sometimes joined by other glasses of varying ale-like colours but never absent. The first beers I ever tasted were lagers, and lager was almost all I drank between my teenage years and my early twenties.

The result of this is that lager is, often, “just lager”. In my discovery of good beer (revelatory pint of Camden Hells notwithstanding), it took a long time to separate good lager from bad, even if the contrast is night and day to me at this point. I would argue that the differences between macro fizz and properly brewed lager are far more subtle than between, say, Punk IPA and (what I then perceived to be) a boring cask bitter.

But then lager is subtle, even at its most sublime. And that’s definitely part of why I'm lost for words when it’s time to write about one – I recently had the same issue trying to write about mild, a similarly non-imposing style. The complexity of a barrel-aged imperial stout means that tasting notes write themselves. Drinking one, there’s so much going on that you hardly have time to jot down one thought before another hits you. Lager is comparatively simple – this is a large part of its appeal, but it doesn't make for great writing.

There are certain stock phrases and descriptors I keep going back to in my blundering attempts to describe the lager experience, of which crisp is probably the laziest. I know what I mean by it – a suggestion of freshness as well as refreshment, like biting into a juicy, crunchy apple. But in this context, the word has a whiff of corporate copy about it – words like ‘crisp’, ‘cool’ and ‘refreshing’ are often used in advertising macro lagers, presumably as they divert attention away from the lack of actual flavour in most of these products.

Similarly, I know what I mean when I say a lager is clean. A well-made lager given plenty of time to mature has a certain purity to it, and those brewed with less attention to quality don’t – they often have distracting notes of sweetcorn or cabbage, or are weirdly, synthetically sweet or metallic. But it doesn't apply to all great lagers; I love Pilsner Urquell, but it’s big ol’ scoop of diacetyl adds a complexity which, whilst it might not be exactly dirty, isn't clean either.

I mentioned biscuits in reference to the Keesman beer that prompted this post, and variations on biscuity seem to pop up often in tasting notes. There are probably more varieties of biscuits than there are styles of beer, making this about as useful a statement as ‘tastes like beer’. But it does, at least for me, mean something specific. Think of Maltesers. Now, ignore the chocolate (or imagine you've nibbled it off) and focus on the biscuit ball within. There is a specific malty tang within that biscuit that is exactly what I'm referring to when I say ‘biscuity’, and I find that particular flavour in a lot of lagers (obviously malt flavour is part of it, but there’s more to it than that). Until I can find a way to sum that up succinctly and pithily, lager will remain forever ‘biscuity’ for me.

So pale lager, much as I love it, probably won’t be inspiring any upcoming poetry collections.  

Thornbridge vs. Schlenkerla: Battle of the Bocks

I’ve often thought that one of the Thornbridge brewery’s strongest suits is their respectful approach to beer styles, along with an interest in slightly more esoteric or niche styles less often attempted by other UK brewers. A copy of Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion and access to Thornbridge beers can teach a novice beer drinker an awful lot – I know, because I learnt a lot this way myself. Craft Beer Co. in Brighton seems to have at least two of their brews on at any one time and so as I read about, for example, kolsch beer, I was able to sample Tzara – surely the next best thing to a visit to Cologne, and way more satisfying than any imported bottle. Similarly, my first taste of Bière de Garde orginated not in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, but in the Peak District. When my dad returned from a trip to France with a couple of bottles of Dyuck Jenlain Ambrée, I was amazed at how true to style the Thornbridge example, still fresh in my mind, had been.

Considering this, I recently realised I had a bottle of both Thornbridge’s Bamberg and Schnlenkerla’s Urbock in my cupboard. This, I thought, could offer an opportunity to see just how well Thornbridge’s beers hold up in comparison to the classics of their style. And so, I decided to taste the two beers side-by-side. Now, I want to make it clear from the get-go that this is purely a bit of fun. There are many reasons why a comparison of this kind isn’t totally fair, not least the fact that strong smoked beer is kind of a palate scorcher. But the beers are both smoked bocks, with similar ABVs (6.5% for Schlenkerla, 6% for Thornbridge), and Thornbridge are acknowledging the influence of (if not inviting comparison to) Schlenkerla by naming their version after the city that famously houses that brewery. Still, the following is not intended to be anything other than a light-hearted experiment; apart from anything else, the tasting itself was really fun to do.

To help me with this venture, I enlisted the help of my other half, Sidony, who took me to Bamberg earlier in the year and became a Schlenkerla devotee in the process. We began by pouring each bottle into two glasses, after which I attempted a blind taste-test by closing my eyes and asking Sidony to hand me a glass without telling me which of the beers it contained. An unscientific element came into play immediately, however; whilst pouring, the aroma of the Thornbridge beer hit me very strongly. After smelling the two glasses, I predicted the one with the most intense, ham-like aroma was Thornbridge, but my guess was based on this prior information rather than a true blind test. The glass with the more powerful aroma unsurprisingly tasted stronger and smokier, too, and this glass actually turned out to be Schlenkerla.

Schlenkerla’s Urbock is, in every sense, a bigger version of their classic marzen. The meaty smokiness is just as strong, but more nuanced – flavours I haven’t detected in the marzen are apparent here, such as tobacco, oak, liquorice and certain herbal notes, and once the smoke subsides, there’s a poke of citrus sharpness. The elevated ABV is evident and, together with a fuller body and pleasantly oily mouthfeel, this slips down easily and leaves a warmth in the chest. Sidony uses an analogy rarely called upon in the beer world – make-up. There are many types of primer (something that is applied pre make up application). Some are gels & creams that often hit the skin and dry down almost immediately, making whatever comes after it apply roughly, whilst others have a more silicone feeling to them, which lets anything come after it glide on. Drinking the beer is a similarly seamless sensation; it's smooth and silky, slippery, easy drinking.

In comparison, Thornbridge’s Bamberg seems a little puny. To again acknowledge the flaw in this test, it is a little mean to taste this after such an intense beer as the Schlenkerla bock. I rinsed my mouth out with plenty of water in order to best compare them, but my palate was undoubtedly affected by the previous beer’s smoke. The smokiness is far milder here, but Bamberg also seems to me like a much cleaner (if stronger than average) lager than your typical rich, warming bock. The body is noticeably thinner, with more carbonation, and the colour resembles a Vienna lager, far lighter than Schlenkerla’s dark copper. Sidony doesn’t like it at all – for her, it neither warms nor refreshes and it’s neither a summer nor a winter beer. I’m much keener; admittedly, after Schlenkerla, it barely tastes like a smoked beer anymore, but then I think I’d enjoy an unsmoked version just as much, because for me it’s a robust but crisp lager. I’d prefer a slightly lower alcohol content, though, because I don’t feel the boosted ABV brings anything to the beer; the body is no fuller than your average lager, and you don’t get that tingling booze warmth.

As I said at the beginning, this was purely intended as a fun little experiment, and there’s no slight on Thornbridge intended – they remain one of the UK breweries I most admire, and to say that any brewery makes a smoked beer that doesn’t quite measure up to Schlenkerla is truly no insult. Apart from anything else, I really enjoyed Bamberg in its own right, and fully intend on trying it again on its own to appreciate it properly.

Bamberg beer blog pt.2

Michaelsberg Abbey

The next morning we walk up to the enormous, stark and very beautiful cathedral. Here, at the top of one of Bamberg’s many hills, I decide that ticking off every destination on the Bamberg beer trail is not my priority. This may be one of the world’s great beer destinations, but it’s also a stunningly beautiful town, well worth a visit even for teetotallers. A relaxed look around the cathedral and the nearby Michaelsberg Abbey, taking in the views and strolling along the canal in the ‘Little Venice’ area of the city, having some nice, quiet meals together; these are all important aspects of our trip, too, and I’m glad we didn’t miss out on them in favour of rushing around every single tavern.

Not that I’m not keen to sample my fair share of local beer while I’m here, mind you. We stop at a quiet café down the street from Schlenkerla for lunch, and local breweries are served on tap here. I try Keesmann’s Herren Pils, which is a solid pilsner with a respectable bitterness. It’s very drinkable, but doesn’t knock me out. Mahr’s Ungespundet, on the other hand, does, and is perhaps one of the finest lagers I’ve ever tasted. It’s unfiltered, similar to kellerbier, and matured in an open vessel which produces little carbonation. Mine is served in a steinkrug with a beautiful head of foamy suds peeking out over the top. The first several gulps are nothing but foam, and even this is delicious, and when I get to the liquid itself I’m blown away. There’s a certain reaction I have to beers that really knock me out, whereby I tend to widen my eyes and move back from the table a little as if in disbelief – the ungespundent induces this reaction. The yeast lends a delicate hint of ripe banana, and there’s just a wisp of smoke in there, together with a massively refreshing lemon bite. Schenkerla’s rauchbier aside, this is my favourite beer of the trip, one I can’t stop thinking about now that I’m home and wish I could try again.

We’re still getting our bearings so, after lunch, we consult the map app on our phones and head out on the suggested route towards Obere Königsstraße , home to both Fassla and Spezial breweries. It’s a long and uncertain walk across something of a grey no-man’s land between the old and new sections of the city, and we have to wonder on several occasions if we can possibly be going the right way. When we eventually do arrive, Spezial is the first casualty of some very erratic opening hours in the city – it’s closed. Most of the shops are, too, although it’s Saturday, and the actual opening hours of most establishments don’t seem to match up with what’s published on their websites or on display in shop windows. Still, across the street, Fassla is open, and the man behind the serving hatch provides us with two glasses of their lagerbier. This is the kind of solid, endlessly drinkable lager I love, with comfortingly sweet malt and refreshing, citrusy hops. As we’re leaving, we realise where we are, and that the Iphone map has led us on a wild goose chase around the city in place of what could have been a very direct 20 minute walk. I mention it because, if you are visiting Bamberg, it’s probably worth having a more planned out itinerary, and examining a map more carefully before going out, than we did.

Our next stop is Klosterbrau. I’m not sure what to expect from this place – the lady who owns our apartment recommends it as the oldest and best brewery in the city, but pieces I’ve read online don’t seem to regard it as an essential stop. It’s also suspiciously quiet in comparison to the buzzing Fassla – we’re even blessed with a seat here, which is welcome, but makes me wonder if the locals don’t rate the place. I order their seasonal bock; not a style I’d profess to love, but it’s cold outside, and dark bocks work well as winter warmers. Thankfully, it also tastes great, with a depth of chocolate and liquorice flavour that is frankly astonishing.

The next morning, we return to Spezial, hoping it will be open this time. It is, but unfortunately, lots of locals have had the same idea – the place is teeming, with no available seats. The serving hatch in the schwemm is closed, and actually appears to be something more like the old fashioned English 'off-sales' window, with no overflow drinkers in the vicinity. We have to admit defeat. Instead, we head towards Café Abeits, in the modern part of the city. It’s another uncertain walk, our surroundings becoming increasingly residential the further we walk and seeming an unlikely setting for a great beer bar, and those bars we do see look somewhat intimidating and divey, last night’s empty bottles still littering the pavements outside. I haven’t been feeling myself all morning and, somewhere along the way, I take a turn for the worse, almost overcome by a wave of nausea that has me thinking I’m about to vomit all over a neat German lawn. It comes from nowhere – it’s not a hangover, and can’t have come from anything I’ve eaten – just completely random. Still, I’m determined to find the café, and eventually we do. After a momentary panic when I mistakenly think it’s closed, we take a seat in the appealingly unfussy dining room. 

I’m nervous about ordering beer, unsure if I can keep it down, but plump for Schlenkerla’s weissbier. It’s a strange beer, with intense smokiness blending with subtle clove spice, and probably not one I’d have again. Along with some very good food, I finally taste Spezial’s rauchbier lager. It pours an amber colour closer to a traditional marzen, and the smoke is more balanced than Schlenkerla’s version; it’s relatively sweet, with a pronounced vanilla note which, in combination with some refreshing lemon flavours, reminds me of an ice cream float, especially when served with a big, rocky head. Another strange beer, but I really enjoyed it.

Sadly, my stomach doesn’t quite recover, which means no more beer. I had hoped to nip over to Wunderbar and pay a visit to Keesmann and Mahr’s, which sit on opposite sides of the street, before leaving the next afternoon, but I simply can’t face it. I’d be disappointed if I hadn’t had the opportunity to taste them on tap just down the road the day earlier in the trip. They tasted so good then that I doubt they could have got very much fresher.

This won’t be my last visit to Bamberg, and when I return, I’ll make sure I stop by the breweries we didn’t get around this time. The determined drinker could certainly get around most of them, even if you’re just in town for a day, and I’d highly recommend a trip. 

Bamberg Beer Blog pt.1

I’ve wanted to visit Bamberg long before a Schlenkerla rauchbier had ever touched my lips. How could you go wrong with a trip to a picturesque German town crawling with breweries? And, as I began to pick out bacon-like smoke as an enjoyable element of certain dark beers, when I eventually did try a bottle of Schlenkerla’s marzen, I found myself firmly on the fanboy side of this divisive beer. My girlfriend, Sidony, never seemed too enamoured with the idea, though, and I got used to hearing answers along the lines of “we are not going to bloody Bamberg!” whenever I brought it up. Imagine my surprise, then, when she gave me a handmade guide book this Christmas, containing all the details of a trip to Bamberg she’d booked without me knowing, to take place in just a few weeks’ time. I was blown away, and without doubt this is the greatest gift I have ever received.

The space between Christmas and our beery holiday was full of agonising anticipation, but soon enough we were on our way. A problem emerges shortly after our arrival at Nuremberg airport; an inspector on the very plush train we’re on doesn’t like the look of our ticket. We’ve unknowingly boarded a luxurious direct train instead of the stopping service our ticket entitles us to. Nervous at the prospect of a hefty fine before we’ve even arrived at our destination, we plead innocence. “Where is your home?” he asks. When we tell him we’re English, he gives us a look of recognition. “I was waiting for the next one”, he says and, bowing somewhat sarcastically, bids us “good evening.” This incident establishes something of a theme of the whole trip; blundering tourists (us/me) draw attention to themselves by not understanding how anything works. We spent so much of our time here trying to figure out how or where to order a beer, opening the door to a tavern’s kitchen when trying to find the bar, or just simply baffling the locals by our mere presence. But this is all part of the fun, makes it more of an adventure, confirming that removing yourself from your comfort zone can be an exhilarating experience, even if you’re essentially just going to the pub.

There’s a welcoming bottle of Schlenkerla waiting for us in the apartment we’re staying in, and the lady who owns it gives us directions to the tavern, just a few minutes’ walk. A rowdy but friendly crowd drinking on the street outside tells us we’re in the right place and, stepping inside, we find a beautifully shady, high-beamed building teeming with people, everyone holding a glass of the same near-black brew. There are no free seats, so we head for what I understand to be the ‘schwemm’, a kind of covered courtyard where beer is served through a small hatch and often drunk standing up. With quite some anticipation, I join the small queue leading towards the hatch. Only the famous marzen beer is available here, tapped directly from traditional wooden barrels via gravity. This suits me, a confirmed rauchbier fan, down to the ground, but Sidony is sceptical about smoked beer – I’d previously reassured her that she could have the helles, which picks up a little smoky flavour but isn’t brewed with smoked malt. She’ll have to go for the full on rauchbier experience instead.

I order two glasses and, as expected, it’s a revelation, with a depth of flavour that no bottle at home could ever hope to achieve. Whilst I’ve never thought of rauchbier as an endlessly drinkable beer, I polish my glass off in no time, perhaps encouraged by the speed at which the beer is poured and the transaction completed. I love the initial hit of notorious bacon flavour, but continue drinking and the intensity of the blended Frazzles notes fade, and what remains is a remarkable dark lager. This is, without doubt, the greatest beer experience of my life so far, and proof that travelling for beer is worth it – it’ll never taste better than it does here, and the buzz in the tavern as the queue in the schwemm grows, practically pinning us to the wall, is intoxicating. If I had to go home in the morning having only visited Schenkerla, I’d still say it was worth it. And a rauchbier naysayer is converted – Sidony loves it, too.

Continuing the clueless tourist theme of the trip, I make a horrendous blunder when it’s time to order my second beer. A sign on the wall advertises two items; one is a glass of marzen, at €2.60, and the other is something called ‘glasspfand’ at €2. Not speaking German, I don’t know what this word means but, being a dickhead, I decide it’s a seasonal beer and try to order it. It is, in fact, the deposit that you pay on your glass. I’m saved from total embarrassment by the barman simply plonking two glasses of marzen down without listening to what I was saying anyway, but I feel like a total prick and vow not to be so cocky in future. 

To be continued...