Bavarian beer keeps campfire burning
Brewery introduces a gentler take on its flagship ale with a less smoky flavour
Matthias Trum is rightfully proud of his brewery’s flagship product. But he’s also realistic enough to know it’s not exactly everyone’s favourite.
Even in the medieval Bavarian town of Bamberg, after all, some people find a beer as smoky as a campfire a little too intense.
“We very often hear that from first timers. In fact, Schlenkerla often divides beer drinkers into two factions: lovers and haters,” said Trum, whose family-run brewery has been in existence since the mid 1600s. Their best-known brew, Rauchbier Marzen, is brewed with malt that has been smoked in the brewery’s beechwood-fired ovens.
When wheat beer’s popularity in Bavarian taverns began surging again in the early 1990s, Trum saw an opportunity to craft something that might appeal to a wider crowd. But in launching their own weissbier, Trum and his brewing team didn’t want to completely break with Schlenkerla’s smoky past. While some of the grain used in their weissbier is regular, unsmoked wheat malt, there’s also a certain proportion of their own house-smoked barley malt. Trum also uses a traditional Bavarian weissbier yeast.
Together, the ingredients produce Rauchbier Weizen, a brew that is recognizable both as a Bavarian-style wheat beer and a smoked beer. There’s more than a hint of campfire smokiness, along with the classic weissbier notes of banana and clove. While the Rauchbier Marzen is about as subtle as a heavy metal guitar riff, here the smoke is better integrated, like a violin in an symphony orchestra.
Yet while it’s a beer that should in theory appeal to a broader group of drinkers, the weissbier is still dwarfed in sales by the Rauchbier Marzen, Trum acknowledges. The weissbier accounts for just 5 per cent of the brewery’s volume, while the flagship brew makes up 80 per cent.
That’s roughly the same proportion sold at the Schlenkerla’s brewpub in Bamberg, a UNESCO world heritage medieval town in Bavaria.
While the Marzen is something Trum tends to drink with anything from grilled meats to the tavern’s whole onion braised in Marzen, he prefers the weissbier with a ripe camembert spread similar to the beer hall classic obatzda.
“The classic Marzen Rauchbier is kind of the everyday drink at our historic brewery tavern. The smoked wheat comes (for me) in specific combinations,” said Trum.