I now found concrete data about how much Steinbier was brewed in the last few years of this style’s existence. Fairly detailed data from 1904 to 1917 (with the exception of 1907-1908) about the production volumes of Carinthian breweries were published in trade journals at the time.
The last three remaining breweries were Ure and Kaschitz, both located in Waidmannsdorf, nowadays part of the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt, and Schorn, from Untergoritschitzen near Klagenfurt.
Production volumes of breweries Ure, Kaschitz and Schorn, 1903-1906, 1906-1917
As you can clearly see in the numbers, before Steinbier brewing ended, it was on an almost steady decline over the course of 13 years. For 1917, the records say that production at Ure and Schorn was shut down, while Kaschitz had produced a mere 52 hectoliters.
Of these breweries, all brewed Steinbier with an original gravity of 6°, with the exception of Wedenig, who brewed a 4° Steinbier.
This low original gravity of Steinbier also seems to show (although not explicitly stated, so this is slight speculation) in the 1889/1890 brewing season beer volume statistics of Austria-Hungary by original gravity: 6° beer was the lowest OG listed, with a production volume of 2,587 hl (which is roughly in the ball park what all the Steinbier breweries together used to brew in a year), and that number is significantly higher than the next stronger beers: of 7° beer, just 49 hl, and of 8° beer, just 102 hl.
In any case, the production volumes are tiny, the numbers are going down, all clear signs of a declining “industry” that was really closer to homebrewing, serving what was probably a tiny market of aging consumers. Despite the fact that brewing stopped because of a lack of ingredients during World War 1, the tiny volumes were probably a big contributor to not resuming brewing after the war.
In 1893, Austrian brewing scientist Franz Schwackhöfer visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, recorded everything related to brewing, and subsequently published a book about it in 1894 titled “Amerikanische Brau-Industrie auf der Weltausstellung in Chicago” (lit. “American brewing industry at the World Exhibition in Chicago”).
It contains a lot of details about American brewing, but what caught my eye are the descriptions of five different mashing methods that were used in the US and were personally witnessed and recorded by Franz Schwackhöfer himself. In this article, I want to describe and dissect one of them (pp.33-34).
Basic Numbers
The recipe is to brew 130 barrels of wort with an OG of 13.1°Balling. The grist consists of 4,300 lb malt and 2,300 lb of unmalted grains (the recipe just mentions grits, but in the parts of the book, grits specifically from white Flint corn are mentioned).
Cereal Mash
800 lb of crushed malt are mash in with 35 barrels of water at a temperature of 25°C, then heated up to 50°C. 2,300 lb of grits are then added and the mash is heated up to 66°C. After a rest of 15 minutes, the mash is heated up to 75°C over the course of 20 minutes. It is then diluted with 6 barrels of thin mash from the main mash (this is meant to help saccharify more of the starches and make the mash more liquid), and then brought to a boil. The whole mash is boiled for 60 minutes under constant stirring.
Mashing, Lautering, Sparging
3,500 lb of crushed malt are mashed in with 27 barrels of water of 37.5°C and stirred for 40 minutes. Then over the course of 15 minutes, the cereal mash is slowly mixed in. This should increase the mash temperature to about 67.5 to 68.75°C, at which temperature it is rested for 30 minutes. To get to the final temperature of about 73°C, 23 barrels of boiling water are underlet (through a Pfaff) and mixed in. Stirring then stops and the mash is rested for 90 minutes, that’s when lautering begins.
The specific gravity of the first runnings is 19.2°Balling. Sparging happens in four different steps, first with 10 barrels, then 35 barrels, then 25 and finally 24 barrels to hot water of about 77 to 81°C. The specific gravity of the final runnings should be 2.5°Balling.
Boiling the Wort
When 25 barrels of wort have been collected in the kettle, heating begins. At 70 barrels, the wort should start boiling and 15 lb of hops are added. When the kettle is full, the boil of 2 hours begins. 30 minutes before the end of the boil, 35 lb of hops are added, and at 10 minutes before the end of the boil, another 55 lb of hops are added. The total hop addition is 105 lb per 130 barrels of wort, which is equivalent to 3.15 grams per liter. For the final hop addition, more high quality hops are used. Together with the final hop addition, 4 lb of Icelandic moss is added to help with precipitation of proteins (I think this should actually be Irish moss as this is frequently used for exactly that in brewing).
125 barrels of wort end up in the hop jack, where it is left to sit for 40 minutes so that the hops can settle out. The hop remains are then sparged with 5 barrels of boiling water.
Allegedly, some breweries add fir pitch to the kettle at a rate of 3-4 lb per 100 barrels of wort to impart a pitch flavour to the beer, as the lagering vessels are not pitched but only lacquered.
At Home-Brew Scale
If you want to rebrew this at home-brew scale to produce about 20 liters of beer, do the cereal mash with 650g of crushed malt, 1850g of grits and 5.9 liters of water. For the main mash, use 2850g of crushed malt and 4.6 liters of water to mash in. For the final temperature step, use 3.9 liters of boiling water. Sparge with a total of 16 liters of water, though you may require a bit more sparge water, so prepare more.
The hop additions should be 10g hops at 120 minutes, 23g at 30 minutes, and 37g hosp together with 2.5g of Irish moss at 10 minutes. Assuming Cluster hops at 7% alpha acid, this should end up with a nice 32 IBU (calculated) of bitterness. Unfortunately, the whole book does not mention specific varieties of hops, only for another recipe, it mentions that exclusively hops from New York state were being used.
In any case, I think there is enough information available to recreate this specific 1890s mashing method from the US. Not that I’ve tried it, but it certainly sounds intriguing, and the resulting beer (13.1°P OG, about 32 IBU of bitterness, and an estimated 5.4% ABV) actually sounds quite nice.
The (then) new brewhouse of Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, as shown in Franz Schwackhöfer’s book
While researching a different topic, I recently came across an article in the Austro-Hungarian Café and Inn Newspaper (it really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) that I hadn’t seen before. It basically contains general information about the size and the operation of both the breweries belonging to Anton Dreher (in particular Kleinschwechat, Steinbruch, Michelob and Trieste) and the Burghers’ Brewery in Pilsen (since 1898 and nowadays better known as Pilsner Urquell). It’s full of numbers, but because they’re from the same time period, they allow for some interesting comparisons about the extent of the businesses.
In terms of production, the largest brewery was of course Dreher Kleinschwechat, with about 610,000 hl for the brewing season 1892/1893. Pilsen on the other hand brewed 522,270 hl in the same time period. Dreher’s Hungary-based brewery in Steinbruch brewed another 400,000 hl, while for the other two Dreher breweries, no volumes are listed. It shows to what a large operation the Pilsner brewery had grown, while Dreher’s advantage was having multiple large breweries across Austria-Hungary that were all serving different markets.
As for the malting and brewing operation itself, there were some stark differences: Kleinschwechat had about 23,000 m2 in malting floors as well as 14 kilns, Steinbruch had 10,788 m2 with 7 kilns, while Trieste only operated a single kiln. Practically, most of its malt was actually produced in Kleinschwechat and shipped down to Trieste. The malting capacity of Michelob was not listed. Pilsen did well with “just” 9,000 m2 of malting floor and 10 kilns.
When it came to brewing itself, Kleinschwechat featured 3 coppers for boiling wort, 4 mash tuns, 4 coppers (mash kettles) for boiling mash, and 4 lauter tuns. The wort was cooled on a total of 29 copper coolships of a total surface area of 2,500 m2.
Steinbruch operated 8 coppers (presumably smaller ones than in Kleinschwechat) and 11 coolships of 698 m2.
Pilsen on the other hand had 5 separate brew houses: the original one with 1 copper and 1 mash tun (since no dedicated mash kettles or lauter tuns were listed, I assume the copper was used for boiling decoctions and the mash tun also functioned as lauter tun), one built in 1852 with 1 copper and 1 mash tun, then the third brew house built in 1862 and extended twice in 1872 and 1874, with a total of 6 coppers and 6 mash tuns, and then two more brew houses, built in 1888 and 1894, with 2 coppers and 2 mash tuns each. That’s a total of 12 coppers and 12 mash tuns. Cooling operations were supported by 22 iron coolships.
In the fermentation cellar, Kleinschwechat had 2,000 fermenters with a total capacity of 40,000 hl, Steinbruch 1,200 fermenters with 30,000 hl capacity, and Trieste just 210 fermenters of an average size of 30 hl, adding up to 6,300 hl. Pilsen operated 2,000 fermenters, but no volume is listed.
One thing though where Pilsen absolutely excelled the Dreher breweries was the number of beer wagons: while Kleinschwechat owned and operated 60 of them, and Steinbruch 20, Pilsen had much more capacity for export with a whopping 132 beer wagons. With the improved train connectivity of Pilsen since the 1860s (the article specifically cites the 1862 opening of the Bohemian Western Railway that connected Pilsen to Prague by train), it could ship its beer all over Europe and beyond.
Technical drawing of the Ringhoffer beer wagon design
The construction was double boarded, and the space between the boards was filled with a poor heat conductor as insulation material. It contained 2 ice reservoirs for up to 1,100 kg of ice that could hold the inside at a constant 4°C for 5 and half days. Melted water and condensation was drained at the bottom, using a bend to ensure that no outside air could get into the sealed wagon. That way, any freight could rest on a completely dry floor. The remaining space was sufficient to transport 25 casks of 200 liters each, i.e. each wagon could hold up to 50 hl of beer at a time. This was only slightly less than the ice wagons used by Dreher, which had a capacity of 54 hl and could keep its load cool at 4°C for up to 7 days.
In terms of refrigeration at the respective breweries, all of them used Linde refrigerators. Linde had actually been contracted to develop an artificial refrigeration machine for Dreher’s Trieste brewery, and while development was done by Linde at Spaten brewery in Munich, the first Linde refrigerator was officially sold to Dreher in Trieste. In 1894, the Trieste brewery was operating two of them, while Kleinschwechat had 8 Linde refrigerators “Nr. VI” (presumably a newer model), and Steinbruch operated 6 of them. According to the article, Pilsen only operated a single Linde refrigerator, but it’s unclear which specific model.
Interestingly, the refrigeration machine the brewery in Pilsen was using had been built under license from Linde by E. Škoda, the Pilsen-based mechnical engineering company, probably best known through the Škoda car brand and the Škoda trams in Prague.
A map of Burghers’ Brewery Pilsen’s distribution centers across Europe, ca. 1894. Not pictured: Sarajevo, Belgrade
The article also lists all the distribution centers in Austria-Hungary, Germany and the rest of Europe plus one importer in New York City, which I turned into a map to get a better feeling about how widespread their beer was.
In addition to all these statistics I listed above, we also learn more details about the Burghers’ Brewery Pilsen. As you’re probably aware, the brewery was founded by the citizens of Pilsen with brewing rights in 1839. The article specifically says that it was 250 houses with brewing rights, and their duty was to elect a new administrative committee every 3 years.
We also get more insight into the beer types that were brewed at the time: as was still usual at the time, two types were produced, an 11% Schankbier (the percentage refers to the original gravity, not the ABV) that still needed 2-3 weeks of lagering before it was tapped and was brewed and sold only during the winter, and a 12% Lagerbier that was entirely free from yeast (due to the long lagering) and only sold during the summer season.
The article also discusses the modest beginnings of the brewery itself: the first brew only had a volume of 64 Eimer (3621 liter), and the total volume of the first brewing season was a mere 3657 hl. In 1843, Pilsen had a population of 8,892, that’s just a bit more than 41 liters per capita. Could it be that the amount of beer produced by the Burghers’ Brewery was initially not nearly enough to cover the demand of consumers?
In any case, the business grew so well over the years that Burghers’ Brewery Pilsen grew to a size similar to Dreher’s Kleinschwechat brewery. While the production volume was still smaller in 1894, it seems like the Pilsen brewery was prepared much better for export across Europe. By 1912, Pilsner Urquell produced almost 1 million hl of beer per year and was considered to be Austria’s largest brewery, while Dreher Kleinschwechat was “only” producing 594,865 hl in 1912 and about 621,398 hl in 1913.
If you want to learn more about Vienna Lager and the history of Dreher’s breweries in Kleinschwechat and elsewhere, you can find more about the topic in my book Vienna Lager.
Yesterday, I brewed a Kellerbier, a recipe that I had developed myself but was based on a number of inspirations that I picked up over the last year, such as water profile, mash profile and ingredients.
The grist I chose was based on what I had heard about Knoblach, as they apparently use 50% Pilsner and 50% Vienna malt in their pale lagers. I just liked the idea of adding that bit more malt complexity to a pale beer.
The water profile was based on what Stefan Zehendner talked about at HBCon 2024. Fortunately, my Berlin tap water is already as hard as it should be on the calcium side, all I had to do was to add magnesium. Epsom salts are the way to do that.
The hops I chose were Aurum, a relatively new variety (first approved in 2020 and probably a bit lost in the whole COVID troubles) that is a daughter of Tettnanger with a “highly fine” hop aroma. It apparently has a high disease resistance and better agronomic properties in hotter, drier climates. From what I remember reading, it is expected to take over other varieties like Tradition and Perle, so I thought I’d better try it out now.
And finally, the mash profile: instead of doing my typical double decoction, I thought I’d try out the Mönchsambacher mash profile Stefan Zehendner described at HBCon 2024. Only when I actually used it, I realised how low-key brilliant it is. It basically goes like a normal multi-step mash: start with a protein rest, then heat up to 62°C for the beta amylase to do much of the conversion, followed by a rest at 72°C for the alpha amylase. This forms dextrins for body and also gets glycoproteins into solution for better head retention. Finish by heating up the mash to denature most of the enzymes.
If this is done as a multi-step infusion mash, the temperature steps are simple done by heating up the mash and stirring. The difference at Mönchsambacher is that the step from 62°C to 72°C is done as a decoction instead: about a third of the volume is drawn off and heated up, briefly rested at 72°C for 15 minutes, then brought to a boil and boiled for 5 minutes until it is mixed back into the main mash. The main mash still remains at 62°C until mixing back.
A time/temperature diagram that illustrates the single decoction mash profile that I used.
So what’s so brilliant about it? Well, the whole mash overall takes about the same time, no matter whether done as multi-step infusion mash or as single decoction mash. But most importantly, a part of the mash is boiled, causing Maillard reaction products to be formed. It’s really the best of both worlds: more Maillard products while not spending most of the brew day on extensively boiling decoctions.
The decoction portion of the mash, while boiling.
The main mash, visibly paler than the boiling decoction portion.
The main mash after the decoction portion has been mixed back in, noticeably darker than the main mash before mixing back.
So what’s the downside? Well, efficiency. I’ve not noticed any significant increase in efficiency between multi-step infusion mash and single decoction mash. The enhanced double decoction (which involves boiling two thirds of the whole mash) I normally on the other hand use gives me a bump of about 4-5 percentage points in efficiency. To compensate for that, I just need to buy 10% more in malt. At homebrew scale, those additional costs are very manageable (about €1).
This very positive experience made me rethink my approach to decoction mashing for German beer styles. I think I will stick to double decoction as a mash profile for Czech styles for maximum intensity, but for German styles, single decoction seems absolutely sufficient and saves me 1 to 1.5 hours of time.
In this addendum to my series of lager beer that I discovered in the US, I will cover all the lager beers I had that we tried but weren’t quite top tier.
The Perch, Wicker Park, Chicago
After 9 hours of non-stop flying from Zürich to Chicago, a long wait in immigration, an excruciatingly long Uber drive from the airport to our Airbnb and generally being awake for 22 hours straight, we just wanted to have a quick bite and maybe a beer or two. We mainly chose Perch because it was close to where we stayed and the food seemed good, but it turned out the beer was also great. I enjoyed their Woodpecker Pils, which was dry and bitter enough, and their Cream Ale, brewed from 6-row malt, corn and Saaz hops (I know, not a lager). The latter was refreshing, slightly husky from the 6-row, with a distinct taste of corn that I enjoyed a lot.
Pils and Kölsch, served in nonik pint glasses.
Old Style at Wrigley Field
I was told Heileman’s Old Style was the iconic beer at Wrigley Field when watching baseball. I had it, it was okay, probably wouldn’t order it again. What fascinated me more about Old Style was how it was advertised around Chicago, like this sign in a dive bar’s window in Wicker Park:
A sign with the logo of Heileman’s Old Style, with the slogan “Authentically Kraeusened”.
Who would know these days what kraeusened means if they’re not somehow involved in or adjacent to the brewing industry?
Old Irving Brewing Co., Irving Park, Chicago
If we hadn’t been invited by my friend Colin to meet up there for drinks and food, we wouldn’t even have thought about going to Old Irving Brewery. I unfortunately forgot to take pictures that day (only took some of the Malört we had later on…), but both the beer and the food were really good. Both the Maibock and the Helles were really solid, but the highlight was probably the food. While most of the beers they brew aren’t exactly what I drink, I’d probably come back for the relaxed atmosphere, the food, and the lagers.
Meanwhile Brewing Co., Austin
After our fantastic experience at Live Oak, we also wanted to see other breweries. One stop was Meanwhile. We didn’t exactly know what to expect, other than that we knew that they had some lagers on tap. Louise really enjoyed their Helles, while my first beer was the Polotmavý. It wasn’t the best version of the style, too little body and too dry for my taste, but in the grand scheme very clean and refreshing (which was very necessary that day). My second beer was Gift of Gab, a Dry Nitro Stout, which was pretty amazing. Very creamy, super drinkable and surprisingly refreshing. Not exactly like Guinness, but slightly more flavourful while retaining that same drinkability.
Helles, Nitro Stout and smoked peanuts at Meanwhile Brewing.
Distant Relatives has their barbecue food truck directly at Meanwhile, and while we didn’t want to eat any barbecue there as we still had leftovers from Franklin Barbecue and Micklethwait at home, we still got their smoked peanuts which were a fantastic beer snack. In retrospect, we really regret not at least trying some of their smoked chicken or ribs.
The beer garden at Meanwhile also felt the most Texan: a relaxed atmosphere among trees with shade, while the seating arrangement was mostly not trying to imitate a Bavarian beer garden and the ground was soft grass and wood chip mulch, not gravel.
Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co., Austin
After our visit at Meanwhile, we popped over to Austin Beer Garden Brewery. Pilsner, Helles, Pre-Prohibition Pilsner and Pale Ale were all very good. The free water tasted of mould, the people that were sat next to us called it “that Texas taste.” Some of the beers were sold as 16 floz (473 ml) but were poured into 0.5 liter Seidla glasses with very little foam. We guesstimated by how much it was overpoured, and think that it was at least an extra 20% of free beer. Also, when we were there, most other customers seemed to have been there for some country music and dancing thing. When that ended, the whole place very quickly emptied.
Tables and stage at The Austin Beer Garden Brewery. Over the stage, it says “PILS! PILS! PILS!” in large, illuminated letters.
Macro Lagers at Dive Bars
Of course I had to try all the macro lagers I’ve been warned about it, so I had Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Lone Star, Busch Light and Natural Light. They all tasted… fine. They were all technically flawless beers, just bland and boring, but still fulfilling a purpose. At strengths around 4% ABV, I’d rather have one of these than a 6% IPA, especially with the Texas heat.
A tallboy can of Natural LightA tallboy can of Busch LightA bottle of Coors BanquetA tallboy can of Lonestar
Trillium – Fenway, Boston
After our great baseball experience in Chicago, we wanted to see even more baseball, so we spontaneously bought some ticket for Fenway Park, to watch the Red Sox play Phillies. Our pre-game stop for drinks was the Trillium bar at Fenway. Lots of Red Sox fans hanging out there. The beer was fine but was served in plastic cups. My favourite was probably the nitro dark mild at 2.8% ABV, but at $8 for a pint, it does not feel like you’re getting good value. Also, I don’t particularly care about a menu of 8 sours and 12 IPAs.
Jack’s Abby House Lager at Fenway Park
Jack’s Abby House Lager is a pretty good Bavarian-style Helles, but brewed locally just outside of Boston. Available in cans at Fenway Park, it’s probably the best beer option in the whole stadium. We unfortunately did not make it to Jack’s Abby’s taproom/brewery ourselves, so having cans of their House Lager at least partially made up for it.
My hand holding up a can of Jack’s Abby House Lager, with Fenway Park in the background.
A Lagery Tour through Somerville
Somerville is located just outside of Boston, while fully connected through public transport, in particular the Green Line (they call it a train, but it’s really a tram). That’s where we met our friend Chris and his wife for drinks on our last full day in Boston. I’ve known Chris for 7 years or so, as he’s one of the original members of our Stammtisch in Berlin. Chris is a Canadian diplomat, and spent time in Munich (where we had last met him January 2020, just before COVID broke out properly) before being posted in Boston.
Like us, Chris very much likes his lager beers, so he decided to show us the best spots around his area. We started off at Olde Magoun’s Saloon, an Irish-themed pub with a particularly good beer selection. I started off with Sacred Profane‘s Pale Lager (another brewery I would have liked to visit, but it was just a tiny bit too far out from Boston) which was an absolutely solid pale lager with a strong reminiscence of Czech beer (I bet it tastes even better at the brewery when served as tank beer).
My second beer was Schilling Jakobus, an excellent German-style Pilsner of yet another brewery I would have liked to visit, but couldn’t make. I would have loved to try Volksgarten, their Vienna Lager (also based on information from my book), but couldn’t see it anywhere in or around Boston.
Louise started off with Hofbräu Helles and continued with a locally brewed cask bitter (served from hand pumps, of course) that tasted light and fruity but was visually slightly underwhelming since it was unfined.
We then continued to Aeronaut Brewing, a short Uber ride away, because Chris said we specifically needed to try their Czech Dark Lager (a style about which I have opinions). Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite up to my taste: too roasty, a bit too thin, just lacking overall body, and more like a bottom-fermented stout. The atmosphere in the outside seating area was nice and relaxed, but still busy enough.
One beer was enough there for us, so we went on to Remnant Brewing for another recommendation Chris had for us: Hella Crispy, a Corn Lager. Honestly, I could not taste any corn in this beer, but what I could taste seemed like a pretty good Czech-style pale lager with a firm bitterness and a very clean hop aroma, good body, super crushable. We only stayed for one last beer until we headed home.
An Attempt at a Summary
The United States has lots of good beer. The stereotype these days is that it’s either macro lagers or hazy IPAs, pastry stouts and fruited sours. If neither of that is to your liking, you will always been acceptable lager options, and if you look around a bit, you will come across some very good or sometimes even excellent lager of all kinds of styles. What still impresses me the most is the variety: whenever a brewery brews lager beers, and focuses on it, you will be able to drink a broader spectrum of beer styles than anywhere in Germany, in a quality close to or equal to some of the best breweries here.
I just hope I’ll be able to make it back to the US just to enjoy all that great beer.
Me holding a plastic cup of Heileman’s Old Style, with Wrigley Field Stadium in the background.
This is the fourth part in my series about some of the excellent lager beer that we had on our trip to the US in June 2024. Our final stop was Boston, MA. One place my wife and I definitely wanted to visit was Salem (probably best known for the deadliest witch hunt in the history of North America) just outside of Boston, but it wasn’t for the touristy witch trial stuff. Rather, we wanted to go to Notch Brewing, known for brewing top-notch (no pun intended) examples of Central European beer styles.
Notch Brewing (Salem, MA): Session Beer Experts
Unlike the previous visits at Dovetail, Goldfinger, and Live Oak, I did not know anyone at the brewery, didn’t get in touch previously, and wasn’t introduced by anybody. Notch were also the only ones of these that didn’t serve a Vienna Lager at the time of my visit (it is apparently a thing, though, according to untappd), so this was just a visit for our own quiet enjoyment.
After just 35 minutes on the train from Boston North Station to Salem and another 15 to 20 minutes of walking we arrived at the brewery that had only just opened. My plan was clear: to try as many of the classic styles as possible. Fortunately, Notch makes this very easy as most beers are between 4.0 and 4.5% ABV, and are optionally served as Schnitt/šnyt.
A view at the menu at Notch, with a long row of beer glasses on two shelves underneath.
Louise’s first choice was Ungespundet, Notch’s take on a Franconian Kellerbier, while I went for Tenner, a 10° Czech-style pale lager. That beer strength is known in Czech as desítka, of which “tenner” is a direct translation.
We sat down with our beers in the gravelly beer garden that was set up with classic German beer tables and benches and wide sun umbrellas, right next to Salem’s harbour.
The Tenner was perfection. I feel like a broken record over the 4 parts of this series, but that beer was a great example of a 10° Czech pale lager, formulated and brewed by someone who obviously understands the style very well and enjoys it themselves.
A Notch-branded Willibecher of Ungespundet next to a Tübinger glass of Tenner.
Louise equally enjoyed her Kellerbier, and after I tried it as well, we both came to the conclusion that it bears resemblance to pre-2021 Mahrs aU. It is obviously not a direct clone, but again a beer developed by someone who knows their Franconian beers very well (and frankly speaking, Notch Ungespundet would fit perfectly into any Franconian Bierkeller).
That someone is Chris Lohring, a 30 year veteran of the Massachusetts craft brewing scene. Much has been written about him and Notch, like this article by my friend Joe in the Brewing Industry Guide, or this brewery portrait in Good Beer Hunting. And he’s certainly a man with strong opinions, like in this podcast episode of Craft Beer & Brewing (and I’m not somebody to agree with all his opinions, but it’s a great source to gain a better understanding how he approaches brewing at Notch).
The view from the outside into the brew house at Notch in Salem. While the gate is open, access is blocked off with a yellow chain and a sign saying “Authorized Personnel Only”.
After this first excellent thirst quencher, I went on to try other beers. As a big fan of Czech Dark Lager with some strong opinions about it (read about my favourite tmavý recipe which is probably the best beer I ever brewed), I of course had to try Notch’s version. While it was very good, it was also a bit too roasty for my taste. But that’s fine, tmavé pivo comes in many expressions, some sweeter, some drier, some more going towards chocolate and caramel, some more roasted, some stronger, some lighter, some brown, some black.
A Tübinger glass with Notch Tmavý. Thick foam sticks to the side of the glass, while the beer is a very dark brown that still lets pass through a little bit of light.
In the connected world of the 21st century, I’m always “on” with my Stammtisch friends, so when I posted pictures of Notch to our private Signal channel, including the menu, I almost immediately got a request what to try next. It was the Kölsch (served in a half-liter Willibecher, sorry purists!) that I chose. With only a medium bitterness, a hint of floral hops, and a restrained fruitiness from the top-fermenting yeast it was very convincing and I think captured the essence of good Kölsch. Probably the only two things that stood in the way of the beer not getting served by a Köbes in Cologne were where it was produced (i.e. not in Cologne) and that it was unfiltered and looked ever so slightly hazy. Nevertheless an excellent example of the style.
I then went on to try all the other beers that I could: I remember the German Pils as generally very good but not to the point where I remember anything specific about it (I did not take any notes, as this brewery visit was just about enjoying ourselves), while the Helles Rauchbier was memorable as what I basically perceived as a clone of Schlenkerla Helles. Ironically, Schlenkerla does not serve their smoked Helles in their Bamberg pub/restaurant at all, so getting a beer like that from draft anywhere always feels like somebody outsmarted Schlenkerla a bit at their smoked Helles game.
Finally, The Standard, their 12° Czech Pale Lager: it felt more full-bodied, more rounded out, and most importantly more balanced than the Tenner. And just like it, a beer that feels like it has teleported you back to Czechia. As it was the last one I had on site, I sipped it more slowly while we were playing a few rounds of skee-ball.
Just before leaving, we also asked for crowlers (1 quart cans that were filled and closed up right at the bar, and they’re meant to be consumed within 2 weeks) of The Standard, Ungespundet and the Kölsch to bring back home. We shared them with our friend Ben about 1.5 weeks after canning. Both Kölsch and The Standard held up really nicely, while the Ungespundet unfortunately did not travel so well and had developed a bit too much diacetyl that ultimately made it not as good and pleasant to drink as straight from the source in Salem.
Inside the taproom, a doorway to a separate room with tables, with the letters “STAMMTISCH” over it, and antlers on the wallA Tübinger glass of Der Standard, the 12° Czech Pale LagerA locked cabinet with Notch-branded 1 liter Steinkrüge
As with the other breweries discussed in this series, Notch was fantastic to visit as a place that offers a wide range of Central European styles, all super drinkable, all as good as you’d find them in some of the best breweries where the styles originated, and all bundled in a single brewery taproom, like you wouldn’t find it in Europe.
So, what’s next?
This article concludes my series about the 4 best breweries we visited on our trip to the US in June 2024. But worry not, there will be an article with all the other breweries we visited and/or whose beer we drank that didn’t quite make the cut to warrant their own blog posts, because frankly, even though they weren’t quite as amazing as Dovetail, Goldfinger, Live Oak or Notch, there was still lots of great beer that we enjoyed in Chicago, Austin and Boston.
This is the third part in my series about some of the excellent lager beer that I had on our trip to the US in June 2024. After almost a week in Chicago, we flew to Austin, TX for a change in scenery and culture. While a big part of our visit to Austin was about experiencing Texas barbecue, we still visited a few of breweries, one of which especially stood out.
Live Oak Brewing Company (Del Valle, TX): Trailblazers of Texas Craft Beer
There are others who have told the story of Live Oak, located just outside Austin, TX, much better than I ever could, like Ruvani de Silva, who called it “Bamberg on the Colorado” in her article for Good Beer Hunting from 2022.
We had actually gotten in touch with Ruvani a few months before our trip and said we’d meet up for a few beers. As things worked out, we agreed to meet her and her husband Justin at Live Oak. Parallel to that, Tom Beckmann of Goldfinger also gave me the contact details of Dusan Kwiatkowski, Live Oak’s head brewer. Arriving at the brewery, we were greeted by Dusan and quickly joined by Chip McElroy, one of Live Oak’s co-founders. This all very quickly turned into a conversation of beer nerds talking about beer nerd things, followed by even more beer nerd talk when Ruvani and Justin arrived.
Beer-nerd alert!!A fab night chatting all things beer history, styles, ingredients & culture with fellow beer writer @akrennmair.bsky.social ,his lovely wife @louise.krennmair.bsky.social & @LiveOakBrewing ‘s dream-team Chip & Dusan, while tucking into their ever-brilliant brews – cheers y’all!🤠🍻👍🏽
I had brought a bottle of Knoblach Hell for Ruvani as a small gift from Germany, and she decided to share it with everyone, while I was asked to sign the brewery’s copy of my Vienna Lager book.
Dusan and Chip were so nice to invite us again the next day to actually show us around the brewery and hang out a bit more. Dusan even dropped us off at the Airbnb we were staying and picked us up again, as he happened to live basically around the corner.
Live Oak is a true trailblazer of Texas craft beer. When they started out in 1997, they basically had to make things work with the little funding they had, in a state that at the time did not have much microbrewing going on yet (to this day, Live Oak is Texas’ 7th-oldest operating brewery).
And what they were doing seemed very unusual at the time, namely to have a lager-focused brewery. To this day, Live Oak’s flagship beer is Pilz, a Czech-style pale lager, and they started out with just that beer because it was what the co-founders Chip McElroy and Brian “Swifty” Peters wanted to drink. Since then, the range of beer has grown substantially, but the focus on lager and Central European beer styles is still there (even the two IPAs on the menu when we visited were bottom-fermented Cold IPAs).
The first beer I had at the brewery was Big Bark. They call it an amber lager but it really is a Vienna Lager, and a pretty good one, too. Pilz was equally good, and even better straight from the Zwickel, which is how Chip served it to us.
Chip MyElroy pouring Live Oak Pilz directly from a tank into a Tübinger glass. Please note Chip’s t-shirt saying “Spudweiser”, a potato adjunct lager that they had brewed.
I tried all the classic styles, and they were all as good as they could be. The Hefeweizen caught me out in how poor my tasting skills are, as I misperceived the clove as banana. The Grodziskie at 3.0% ABV was absolutely on point, while the Schwarzbier captured the essence of the style: definitely a lot more flavourful and complex than Köstritzer, probably the baseline for the style, without getting too malty or full-bodied and/or verging into Czech Dark Lager territory (like some Franconian examples such as Neder Schwarze Anna do). Gold is their German Pilsner that I also couldn’t fault. Two friends of mine had told me beforehand that they actually preferred Live Oak Gold to Live Oak Pilz, and I get why. Personally, I found both equally good
Their latest beer on tap was Lyghte, a 3.2% American Light Lager, and it was absolutely gorgeous (for the style). Just the perfect lower-ABV beer for the summer heat in Texas, and unlike the classic big brewery brand examples of the style, full of flavour.
One thing I found particularly interesting was how both Chip and Dusan were drinking their own beer. More than once, Chip ordered a “Pilziskie”, a pour of half Pilz and half Grodziskie. I of course also had to try that, and yes, I get the appeal: just a hint of smoke (the pure Grodziskie doesn’t have much smoke aroma in the first place), and slightly less alcohol than Pilz. Dusan on the other hand drank a “Bark Lyghte” when he welcomed us, a blend of Big Bark and the new Lyghte. I found that one even better, as the malt character of Big Bark was still there, just as an overall lighter beer. Lower-ABV Vienna Lager, aka Abzugbier, was a thing after all (and still is if you brew it yourself). Louise suggested a “Spud Lyghte” blend if they ever brew their “Spudweiser” potato beer again.
As for being a trailblazing brewery, Live Oak was also very early in brewing a Grodziskie, and even brewed a collaboration once with Browar Grodzisk in Poland back in 2018. They even went all to way to specifically use Nowotomyski hops, a Polish hop variety that had been on the brink of extinction. Live Oak have since then formed a closer relationship to Polish hop-growers and hop-breeders, also had some of them over for a visit in Austin, and brew a seasonal Polish-style Pils called “Piwko Pils” using Polish hops. Stan Hieronymus’ 2019 article about Grodziskie tells us even more about Live Oak’s approach to the beer style.
The brewer on shift (I forgot your name, sorry!), looking at the sight glass while drawing off wort from the kettle after the boil.The sight glass of the kettle, with a lamp behind it. Around it, lots of pipes can be seen.
Like most lager-focused breweries, Live Oak also love their decoction mashing. Their kit is not optimal for it, as they have a setup of a heatable mash tun, a lauter tun and a kettle. They actually use the mash tun for boiling the decoctions, but it means extra effort, as for every decoction, the portion of the mash not to be boiled needs to be pumped over into the lauter tun, then the decoction needs to be brought to a boil, then pumped over into the lauter tun, and finally the whole mash needs to be pumped back into the mash tun. It makes the process last quite a bit longer, but as Chip and Dusan said, it’s definitely worth it. They hope to eventually extend the brewery with a smaller kettle dedicated to just boiling decoctions which should significantly improve the brewing process and turnaround times.
Having been a trailblazer of Texas craft beer, Live Oak probably felt it the most how COVID and places serving draft beer basically shutting down completely leveled the field within the industry. When Live Oak started out, they had a hard time getting their beer into bars, and it was a lot of work for them to establish themselves on the market. Chip said that most of their draft accounts got wiped out, and instead of being one of only very few craft beer options in the state of Texas when they started out, post-COVID they now have to compete with 60+ other breweries to get their beers back into bars and restaurants. The trend towards drinking at home during COVID only partially covered the loss in draft beer business, and Live Oak still isn’t at pre-COVID production volumes.
Live Oak are still firmly rooted in their local community, though. Texas supermarket chain H-E-B is apparently their biggest customer (when we went shopping there once, I bought a six pack of Big Bark), while both barbecue places we went to, Franklin Barbecue and Micklethwait Craft Meats, had Live Oak beers on offer (for the record, I had Lone Star at Franklin because it’s probably the most iconic Texan beer and so I just had to have it at one of the best barbecue restaurants in the state of Texas, and Stiegl Grapefruit Radler at Micklethwait because it was just so incredibly hot).
Lots of horizontal lagering tanks at Live Oak.
If you’re a subscriber to Craft Beer & Brewing magazine, Live Oak have published recipes to two of their beers in the magazine, in particular for their Grodziskie and for Schwarzer Rauch, their smoked Schwarzbier.
And even totally outside the topic of beer, Live Oak’s taproom is absolutely worth a visit. There’s a food truck there, a large outdoor seating area, and if you’re into Disc Golf (to be honest, I’ve not heard of it before visiting Live Oak), they have a large Disc Golf course, designed by head brewer Dusan.
In any case, Live Oak Brewing just outside of Austin is absolutely worth a visit, and was one of my top 4 breweries that I visited in the US.
This is the second part in my series about some of the excellent lager beer that I had on our trip to the US in June 2024.
Goldfinger Brewing Company (Downers Grove, IL): History and Community
I had first been in touch with Tom Beckmann, the founder and brewer of Goldfinger Brewing Company, a few years ago, when they had first launched Danube Swabian, their interpretation of a historic Vienna Lager based on specs from my book about the beer style. I found that truly honouring, not just that somebody makes product decisions and takes a certain business risk based on things I like to write in my free time, but the extent to which Tom implemented it was better than I could have ever hoped.
Tom is a big proponent of decoction mashing, so that was of course an element of this beer, but I think what influenced the character of the beer even more was the decision to recreate a historic Vienna malt, in cooperation with Sugar Creek Malt in Lebanon, Indiana. Using Haná barley grown in Indiana and the description from my book of how Vienna malt used to be made historically (with some adjustments), they recreated a Vienna malt quite close to the historic original.
Downers Grove is an easy 50 minute train ride away from Chicago Union Station. Add 10 minutes of walking, and you’re at Goldfinger’s taproom. When we did our trip on a Saturday, it was quite rainy. Several people in Chicago later told me how the weather was “icky”, but I actually enjoyed that, and taking the commuter train through some of Chicago’s southwestern suburbs was surprisingly relaxing.
Tom had mentioned that he was at a “brewery of the month” event in a local market hall and that he was going to join us later, so we just sat down in the busy taproom and ordered beers. Goldfinger Original (a Helles) for Louise, their regular Vienna Lager (of course!) for me.
On the front right, a Tübinger glass with Vienna Lager. Behind it on the left, a Helles in a Tübinger glass. Both beers have a very dense, white head.
With a very recent impression of Dovetail’s excellent beers, these two were quite different. Well, as different as beers of the same respective styles could be. What I very much noticed about the Vienna Lager was a slight residual malt sweetness, and I was somehow immediately transported back to Czechia, but was also reminded of the historic example I had brewed years ago myself.
Yes, if Dovetail’s Vienna Lager is Franconian in its character, then Goldfinger’s Vienna Lager is very much Czech in the best way possible. This is not a judgment of relative quality, in my book both are equally excellent and without exaggeration some of the best Vienna Lagers I’ve ever had.
The beer was so good, I tried not to down it too quickly. Eventually, Tom arrived, and we got chatting, first and foremost about his brewery, his family history (Goldfinger brewery is named after Markus Goldfinger, a brewer and brewing equipment manufacturer from Kraków in modern-day Poland, and an ancestor of Tom), and of course about his beers.
Oh, yes, the beers: I tried all of them on the menu. I don’t remember all the details of all of them, but a lasting impression for me was that every single one of them was absolutely flawless, full of flavour, and so enticing that you would have wanted a second one of every single one of them. Goldfinger Original, Vienna Lager, German Pils, Mexican Lager, Heller Bock (it was the end of Maibock season, after all) and Hefeweizen were on tap, and all of them excellent examples of their respective styles. Not just excellent, but formulated and brewed to absolute precision.
Specifically for the German Pils, Tom told us that he was inspired by Tegernseer Pils when he spent time in Bavaria as part of his brewing education at World Brewing Academy (a cooperation of Siebel in Chicago and Doemens just outside of Munich). While it wasn’t an identical clone, I absolutely got the similarity. Bavarian Pils, whether it’s from Schönramer, Augustiner, Tegernseer or Hofbräuhaus Traunstein, is the best Pils in Germany in my book, and Goldfinger’s German Pils plays in the same league with its fine hop aroma and incredible drinkability.
Of course, no visit to a brewery is complete without a tour around the brewery facilities themselves.
Goldfinger’s brew kit.The view from the steps of the brew kit towards at least 10 horizontal lagering tanks stacked on top of each other, as well as a cylindroconical tank and two homebrew-sized cylindroconcial tanks. In the background, parts of the brewery taproom can be seen.
You could tell by the size of everything that Tom has big plans for Goldfinger, and fortunately still lots of space to expand to.
While showing us around, he told us about some of the approaches he takes when it comes to ingredients. What I found interesting is that he uses domestic base malts from large producers such as Rahr, then local craft malts from Sugar Creek, and imported malts from e.g. Weyermann, and blends them as he sees fit.
We got to try a sample of Sugar Creek Pilsner malt, it was the most complex tasting Pilsner malt I’ve ever come across. Tom was really pleased with the malt, and I can totally understand why. In fact, I’d love to brew with malt like that myself.
Another peculiarity is that Tom is strictly sticking to lager brewing only, so only bottom-fermenting yeast will enter his brewery. You may have noticed earlier that I did drink a Hefeweizen. It was actually a collaboration with nearby Skeleton Key Brewery, where it was also produced (in my opinion, it was as good as some of the better Bavarian versions; in fact, it reminded me of Schneider Helle Weisse).
Similarly with another seasonal beer that I think has been released only a few weeks ago, the New Zealand Lager: when we told him that the first New Zealand Pilsner brewed at Emerson’s in Dunedin was actually just fermented with US-05 (a top-fermenting American ale yeast strain) at cool temperatures, Tom insisted that he’d only ever brew the style as a bottom-fermented beer.
To be completely honest, I can’t exactly remember whether we tried the NZ Lager from the tank because we tried so many beers that afternoon, but what we most definitely sampled was the Märzen and the Summer Beer. The Summer Beer was also released recently, and was inspired by Anchor Summer Beer. It’s not a clone, but Tom was apparently so impressed by the original, he took all the elements he liked so much about it and recreated them in this summerly 4.0% ABV beer.
The Märzen on the other is a completely different beast, at (IIRC) just over 6% ABV. It’s amber-coloured and has the right amount of malt flavour to make it taste distinctly like the style it’s supposed to be. I also remember a slight residual sweetness, but the beer itself was the opposite of cloying. I could see myself leisurely drinking a few Maß of that beer over the course of a long afternoon in a beer garden or a beer tent. And there was just something about it that very much reminded me of Ayinger’s Festbier of which I once had an unfiltered sample from the lagering tank.
Tom Beckmann squatting in front of one of the lagering tanks, pouring samples of Märzen straight from the tank’s Zwickel. In the background, the people in the taproom can be seen through a large window.
(when you have an Austrian go to a small brewery in Chicagoan suburbia, drink their beer and suddenly reminisce about all the great Bavarian beers it reminds him of, you know the brewery is doing something very right)
Lagering times are another area where Tom doesn’t compromise. No beer is rushed, and some styles are given even more time to condition and mature, like the Märzen which gets a full 6 months of lagering, much longer than what even contemporary Bavarian breweries would do.
We eventually had to catch our train back to Chicago, so just before we were about to leave, Tom surprised us with a four-pack of Danube Swabian as well as some Goldfinger merch. I had assumed that batch of beer was completely sold out and gone, but he had kept a few. What a fantastic gift!
A selfie of a very happy me with Tom Beckmann, holding said four-pack of Danube Swabian in my hand.
I managed to sample the beer when we were finally back in Berlin (at the time of writing, I still have 3 cans in my beer fridge), and there is definitely something special about it. It’s ever so slightly paler than a Vienna Lager made from modern Vienna malt would typically be, but it has a complex malt aroma and flavour that decidedly makes it not a Pilsner. To me, being able to drink that beer means so much, as I never would have thought 4 or 5 years ago when I still worked on my Vienna Lager book that it could inspire people around the world to do such meticulous collaborative work and create the most faithful reproduction of a historic Vienna Lager as of now.
(for the record, Westerham Brewery in Kent is a very close second, which got Crisp Maltings to produce a Haná Vienna malt; I unfortunately never got to actually try it).
Besides the beer and the brewery itself, there were things that particularly impressed me about Goldfinger after my visit: a deep understanding of their own history, and a great sense of community.
The History
While Goldfinger Brewing in Downers Grove, IL, was only founded in 2020, Tom’s family’s connection to brewing goes back to the 19th century, when his ancestor Markus Goldfinger had founded a brewery in Kraków in 1874. When you enter the brewery, the entrance area is basically a mini exhibition about Markus Goldfinger and his brewery and brewing equipment business. Tom even owns a historic Goldfinger-branded tap from the time period.
The close connection to this history absolutely resonated with me. Naturally, I was interested in how much I was able to find out about Markus Goldfinger myself. And it turns out, a few things:
Markus Goldfinger officially registered the firm “M. Goldfinger” on March 20, 1874 at the company register at the Imperial-Royal Regional Court in Kraków (source).
His son Samuel got married in Vienna on March 5, 1889 to Sidonie Silberstein, to which Gambrinus, one of the Austrian brewing and hop trade newspapers at the time, congratulated them. Markus Goldfinger is acknowledged as Brauherr (brewery owner) in Kraków (source).
In the following years, his name appears several times in guest lists of the Austria spa town of Baden bei Wien, e.g here. In later years, his profession is simply described as Kaufmann (i.e. merchant or business man), and I wonder whether it has to do with a shift towards his brewing equipment business.
What got me excited the most though was when I found Markus Goldfinger’s name in a short list of breweries of Kraków, in an index of breweries, distilleries and sugar factories in Austria-Hungary from 1880 (source).
One of the other names appearing in this list is Johann Götz. He was a cousin of Anton Dreher, and was working as brewing foreman (basically head brewer) at Kleinschwechat where he helped invent and brew the very early Vienna Lager, until 1845, when he left Kleinschwechat and founded Okocim Brewery in what is nowadays Poland. While I don’t have definite, conclusive proof, I would say that it’s extremely likely that the few brewery owners of Kraków at the time must have all known each other. At least in Vienna and its suburbs, the brewers all had a Stammtisch where they met regularly. So quite likely, Markus Goldfinger hung out with Johann Götz, someone very closely connected with the invention of Vienna Lager, and discussed the latest innovations in the brewing world.
One of the things I have yet to find out more about is something Tom told me about: Markus Goldfinger apparently owned a number of patents on various brewing equipment he had developed. Unfortunately, in the Austrian Patent Office’s online archive of historic “privileges” (“Privileg” was the historic term for what is nowadays a patent), nothing seems to come up, so either it’s not been digitised yet or is simply not in the archive.
In any case, Tom’s interest in the history of brewing and how he connects it with his brewery was just astounding to me, and definitely showed to me how much thought he put into everything in and around the brewery.
The Community
But Tom isn’t just celebrating the history of brewing with Goldfinger, the brewery also seems to be very community-focused. I first noticed this when we visited the taproom. The weather was quite miserable, there weren’t that many cars parked outside, and yet, the taproom seemed almost full, at a brewery that only serves lager beer styles in a country with a beer scene that is now infamous for its obsession with IPAs. So very clearly, there must be something special about the brewery and the beer that attracts people to just go there (and I guess, quite a few people made it part of their Saturday afternoon walk, or even walked there despite the rain).
We were made really welcome already when we ordered our first beers, everyone of the staff were super friendly and explained everything they offered and did (when I first ordered my Vienna Lager, I asked for a “large” beer, assuming it would be small 0.3l and large 0.5l pours; no, the large option is indeed a Maßkrug, and I was kindly warned about this, LOL).
When you follow the brewery on Instagram (please do!), you will also notice that quite often, visiting food trucks are regularly being announced which also seems to attract quite a crowd. An even cooler event are the monthly tappings of Stichfässer every first Tuesday of the month, just a cask of gravity-poured beer, each time tapped by a different guest tapper from another local brewery. If I lived anywhere near Downers Grove, that alone would be a good reason for me to visit regularly. Most recently, an unfiltered, only briefly lagered version of their Pils was served (a true Keller-Pils), while the month before that, a sneak peek of the Märzen was served, when it still had 3 more months to lager.
The other aspect of community is how Tom interacts with everyone in the beer scene, whether it’s customers at the taproom, professional brewers or beer writers like me. I felt incredibly welcome, and Tom was just such a lovely and generous host that made my visit truly memorable. He also brings together brewers (like inviting guest tappers for the monthly Stichfass), and connected me with head brewer Dusan at Live Oak in Austin, TX (more about them in my next post) for which I’m really grateful. Also, my friend Colin who happened to visit the brewery with his family just a day before us seemed taken aback when he mentioned that he had spoken to Tom, and Tom had remembered him from his only other visit several years back.
So, yeah, Goldfinger Brewing in Downers Grove, Illinois is one of the top places in the US for amazing lager beers and to spend a great time in a vibrant and yet relaxed atmosphere. If you’re ever in Chicago, don’t miss out on their beers, and say hello to Tom if he’s there.
If you want to hear about all this from Tom himself, Craft Beer & Brewing have recorded a podcast with him last year, and if you want to brew one of their beers (and are a subscriber to Craft Beer & Brewing, which I really recommend #notanad), you can find the recipe for Smoked Helles (a collaboration with Fair State Brewing Cooperative) here.
Remember how rainy it was on Saturday, June 1, 2024 in Downers Grove, Illinois? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
My wife and I spent the first two weeks of June 2024 in the US for our holiday. I got this trip as a gift for my 40th birthday last year from my lovely wife (lucky me!): we started in Chicago, IL, then went to Austin, TX, and finished the trip with a few days in Boston, MA.
I could tell you all the details of my trip, and how absolutely amazing it was, but this is not a travel blog. I rather want to talk about beer. More specifically, about lager beer, because that’s what interests me, and that’s what I want to drink. So that’s what I did: lager beers of whatever style available was my first choice when ordering beer in the US. I had plenty of excellent ones, some good ones, some okay ones, and some bland and boring ones. So let me tell you about the outstanding ones, about 4 breweries that I was very much interested in from the start, and which did not disappoint. This is part 1 of a series of articles that I intend to publish in the next few weeks.
Dovetail (Chicago): Franconian at Heart
I had heard about Dovetail quite a few years ago, everyone I know who had visited there had told me that their beers were excellent, so naturally, I just had to go there as well. As I had previously communicated with them by email, I mentioned my intention to visit and say hello, and was invited for a tour around the brewery.
On our first full day in Chicago, our plan was to watch a baseball game (Cubs v Phillies) and then to visit the brewery for a few beers afterwards (Dovetail isn’t far away from Wrigley Field, the Cubs’ gorgeous historic stadium), which is exactly what we did. After ordering our beers (Vienna Lager for me, of course), we were greeted by Jenny Pfäfflin (one of Dovetail’s employees who I’ve known on social media for years) and Hagen Dost and Bill Wesselink, the brewery founders. We were chatting and trying out the beers. By coincidence, another group of people from Canada also visited the brewery to meet Hagen et al, so we also got to say hello to them. It was a pleasant surprise to discover Jordan St. John in the group, who I had followed online for years. The beer world seems so small when something like that happens.
We were eventually shown around by Hagen and Jenny in a private tour of the brewery. Dovetail’s brew kit is very German: a mash tun, a lauter tun, a kettle, and a holding vessel.
Dovetail’s brewing system. From left to right: holding vessel, kettle, mash tun, lauter tun. They are accessible through a gallery via stairs. On the front, a computer panel is installed. Next to the stairs is a small standing desk with lab equipment and documents.
Following a rather traditional vibe, the brew kit is accompanied by a coolship located upstairs, into which wort is pumped after boiling and left to cool there until it’s dropped to 75°C (167F) after which it’s pumped through a plate chiller and into open fermenters (accomplishing the traditional vibe).
As Hagen had to leave but we had so much more to talk about, he invited me to come around another day for me to witness some of their brewing. And that was truly exciting: sure, I got to see somebody brewing on the kit, but most excitingly, I witnessed wort being cooled in the coolship!
A happy looking Hagen Dost leaning against the side of the coolship which is getting filled with wort of the day’s first turn of Hefeweizen, while the room fills with steam.
In my conversation with Hagen, what became clear to me is how well he understands Bavarian and Franconian beer culture, and how much he’s done to discover some great breweries off the beaten path. He then showed us how a coolship was part of the plan when he was brewing with Bill before they had even founded Dovetail: on one side of the room, a small rectangular metal vat was leaning against the wall, which is what they used as a coolship when they still test-brewed on essentially home-brew scale.
But Dovetail isn’t just a German-style brewery: they will brew the classic Central European styles, whether they’re from Germany, Austria, Czechia or Poland, but also do spontaneously fermented beers in the style of Belgian Lambic (they don’t call it that, though). I didn’t try any of the sour beers, but I tried plenty of the others: Helles, Dunkles, Vienna Lager, Lager (their idea of a Franconian Landbier), Sticke (a slightly stronger Altbier), Kölsch, Rauchbier, and Grodziskie. Honestly, I couldn’t fault any of them.
The Vienna Lager is straight to the point: just Vienna malt and Styrian Golding hops. According to Jenny, they occasionally get people complaining how it’s not adherent to the BJCP style guidelines, and they’re right. But neither would have been historic Vienna Lager, and the BJCP is meant for competitions. Dovetail’s Vienna Lager has a certain minimalism about it that just makes it an easy-drinking, uncomplicated beer with the right amount of malt complexity to make it exciting and a beer I could’ve been drinking the whole afternoon/evening (if I hadn’t wanted to try many/most/all of their beers).
The Dunkles was equally good, and exactly what I’d expect in a Bavarian brewery. Hagen later told me it had been inspired by Kloster Weltenburg’s Dunkel. Their Lager was a kind of Helles, similar but different from their regular Helles, and definitely something I’d expect in a small Franconian brewery served as the #1 beer consumed in large quantities by most of the village. Sticke and Kölsch tasted like the Rhineland, the Rauchbier would probably be well-received in Bamberg (personally, it reminded me more of Spezial than of Schlenkerla), and the Grodziskie wasn’t very different from the one I tried a few months ago.
But most importantly, all of the beers had character. They weren’t just very good, clean examples of their respective styles, they all had something about them that made them truly exciting to drink. Some cleaner, some maybe a bit rustic, but all of them with something that just screamed “this is the style in which we brew our beers, and we like it like that” to me.
That’s when I realised that there is something very Franconian about Dovetail, not just in the aspects of traditional brewing (like the coolship and the open fermentation), but also the “house style” that goes into them. At the same time, Hagen is very technically minded: he spoke to me about how they are very specific about certain temperature rests during mashing, such as alpha amylase rest (a mash rest at a temperature range that promotes the activity of alpha amylase, an enzyme that chops down chains of starch first into unfermentable dextrines and if given enough time, eventually into some fermentable sugars), as there are other things happening at around 72°C, such as the extraction of glycoproteins, which are relevant for head retention. Hagen even specifically spoke about glycoprotein rest and how important it was for their Hefeweizen which they brewed that day.
(Back home in Germany, I looked up glycoproteins in brewing literature, and really, Prof. Narziss mentions it in a few sentences in his book)
Four open fermenters in the fermentation room at Dovetail, accompanied by two yeast harvesting vessels.
Hagen also emphasised the importance of the coolship in removing DMS precursors from their wort. What I could contribute was to teach him the German term for that: “ausstinken” (lit. “to stink off”), and that it’s not only used to describe what happens in the coolship, but also in open fermentation, another traditional element Dovetail employs.
All in all, I was really happy with every single beer I drank at Dovetail. I also have to thank everyone at Dovetail, but especially Jenny, Hagen and Bill, for the friendly welcome we received. We actually brought a few cans of their Helles and their Vienna Lager back to Berlin, and they travelled quite well.
Thinking back, there is something quite special about a brewery like Dovetail, something that I wouldn’t be able to find the same way in Germany: I could go there to drink really well-brewed German, Czech, Polish styles, easily at the same level as a good, traditional brewery back in Europe. But unlike here, I could enjoy a whole range of local styles from all over Central Europe at the same time. I don’t know of any brewery that serves a Helles, a Kölsch, an Altbier, a Rauchbier, a Hefeweizen and a Grodziskie all at once, at an incredible quality.
A handled beer glass of Helles on the left, and a Willibecher of Vienna Lager on the right, both sat on coasters on the bar at Dovetail. In the background, a historic copper Grant with swan neck taps for lautering can be seen embedded in the wall.
I feel like I’ve mostly blogged about beer history in the last year, but the truth is: I still brew beer at home. So this time, I want to talk about what beers I brewed for myself together with friends as the summer beers of 2024.
Czech 8° Pale Lager, Revision 3
Both in 2021 and 2022, I brewed Czech Pale Lagers specifically for the summer: refreshing, with lots of character, but lower in alcohol. In Czechia, beer “styles” are most often described in two dimensions, one is the colour (pale, semi-dark, dark, black), the other one is a band of strength, but not alcohol content, but rather original gravity, i.e. the amount of sugar in the wort before fermentation. “Eight degrees” thus refers to an original gravity of 8° Plato. It’s certainly on the lower end for Czech draught beers (10° is much more common), but it’s certainly allowed, though quite rare these days.
In my first version in 2021, I tried out a grist of mostly Pilsner malt with a small amount of dark caramel malt (CaraBohemian in my case), double decoction mash of course, Czech Saaz hops for bittering, German Brewers Gold hops as a late addition, and fermented with Lallemand Diamond Lager yeast. The idea was to get a citrusy-zesty note from the Brewers Gold like I had tasted it in other beers I had previously brewed, but in practice, the beer was a bit fruitier than expected. Still, it was very drinkable and well-received even by a few professional brewers I gave samples to.
In my second version in 2022, I slightly changed things: still double decoction mash, but just 100% Bohemian Pilsner malt this time, 100% Czech Saaz hops (did somebody say SMaSH?), and Imperial L28 yeast (allegedly the Pilsner Urquell D strain). That one was absolutely amazing.
So for my third version for 2024 (I had only brewing plans for 2023), I collaborated with my friend Christian, co-founder of THE MASH PIT (which unfortunately had to close during the pandemic) to brew a slightly different version: the change this time was to the grist: instead of 100% Bohemian Pilsner malt, we instead went for 80% Pilsner and 20% Munich malt. Christian in his time as brewer had made the experience that such additions of Munich malt can add just a bit more malt complexity, while I had noticed the use of Munich malt in Vinohradský Pivovar’s Káranská 9 beer which is described as being brewed with Munich and Pilsner malt.
We still stuck to 100% Saaz as well as double decoction mashing, but changed the yeast to the more affordable option of W-34/70 (because it doesn’t make that much of a difference, anyway).
The Recipe
Now that the beer is finished and both Christian and I tasted it, I can report back that it’s also a smashing success. Here are the ingredients:
A Tübinger glass with a slightly hazy, dark golden to pale amber beer in it, topped by a thick layer of white foam. It’s darker on the photo than what it really looks like.
And this is how we brewed it:
We mashed in all the malt with 20 liters of water to end up with a mash temperature of 32°C. After a brief wait, we pulled 12 liters of thick decoction, heated it up to 72°C, let it rest for 15 minutes, brought it to a boil for 5 minutes, then mixed it back. The resulting temperature of the mash was 66°C.
After 33 minutes, we pulled 8 liters of thin decoction, brought it to a boil, boiled it for 5 minutes, and mixed it back. The resulting mash temperature was 72°C.
We then rested it for 10 minutes, heated it up to 78°C, and then moved the mash into the lauter tun. After lautering and sparging, we brought the wort to a boil, and boiled it for 60 minutes, with hop additions at 60 minutes and 5 minutes before the end of the boil.
We then transferred the chilled wort to a fermenter and pitched two sachets of rehydrated W-34/70 yeast at 10°C. The beer then fermented until terminal gravity and was then lagered for 3 weeks at 1°C. We bottled it with some of the wort that we had held back so that it could referment in the bottle for natural carbonation.
Looking back at the first version of a Czech-style summer beer, I noticed that I had mentioned Mahrs Sommerpils in my blog post as an inspiration that lower-ABV beers with lots of bitterness and hop aroma can actually work. I actually had a bottle of Mahrs Sommerpils just the other day, and it’s just not the same beer it was back in 2019 when I first had it directly from the source. It lacks that bitterness and hop aroma it initially had. Even if I had Mahrs Sommerpils available in my local supermarket, I would still rather drink my home-brewed summer beer, and it’s definitely something I will brew again next year.
A beer label I designed for the 8° Pale Lager and printed using linocut. It consists of a circle that says “SVĚTLE PIVO” (pale beer) on the top and “OSMIČKA” (eighter, referring to the 8° Plato strength) on the bottom. Inside the circle, there is a Tübinger glass on top, left and right below it two hop cones, and underneath it, a circle with the text “8°” inside, again referring to the beer’s strength.
Best Bitter
This is a beer that I brewed with another friend and former work colleague of mine, Joel. It was actually born out of failure: Joel wanted to learn how to brew beer at home, so I showed it to him, but the first recipe for a Best Bitter I had come up with was not very good: a slight touch of chocolate malt turned the beer to be too roasted and astringent, while the substandard quality of the liquid yeast caused it to perform badly during fermentation. The resulting beer was also too hazy.
So this beer was a revision of that, and I wanted to approach it as simple as possible this time: about 90% pale malt, 10% Dark Crystal malt, Irish moss to help with a clearer beer, and the popular and often-used SafAle S-04 yeast.
The Recipe
3.75 kg (90.4%) Pale malt (Weyermann)
0.4 kg (9.6%) Warminster Crystal Malt 150 EBC
60 g Fuggles (3.1% alpha acid) @ 60 min
30 g Fuggles (3.1% alpha acid) @ 10 min
1 tsp Irish moss @ 10 min
2 sachets SafAle S-04 yeast
Basic specs:
OG 10°P
FG 2.8°P
3.8% ABV
Colour 18.6 EBC (calculated)
Bitterness 26.3 IBU (calculated)
This time, the approach was much simpler: we mashed in all the malt with 15 liters of water to end up at a mash temperature of 67°C. We then rested it for 60 minutes. We then heated up the mash to 72°C and rested it for another 10 minutes. We then lautered and sparged it, followed by boiling the wort for 60 minutes, with hop additions 60 minutes and 10 minutes before the end of the boil. We then chilled down the wort to 20°C, pitched two sachets of S-04 yeast, let it ferment, and then bottled it with wort we had held back so that the beer could referment in the bottle for natural carbonation.
In the end, I was actually quite surprised about the resulting beer: it does taste remarkably close to a proper cask bitter (though it may be slightly undercarbonated), it has the right expression of fruity esters that makes bitters so unique, and it has absolutely the right malt character. I very firmly believe that British bitters, whether it’s ordinary, best or extra special bitter, stand and fall with using the right ingredients, and crystal malt from a British maltings is quite crucial for that, I think a lot more important than what people think it is. And I think it’s where most non-British brewers fail, even if they get the hops, the yeast and the water treatment right.
And while a Best Bitter may not be the most typical summer beer, I think what still makes it very good for this time of the year is the relatively low amount of alcohol of just 3.8% ABV.
The Best Bitter in the wrong kind of beer glass, visibly undercarbonated, with signs of chill haze.
