BEAR-ly Getting Started 13.1 - Rauchbier

Hosts Jason and Craig kick off their thirteenth series, “Smoky Sips,” exploring the world of smoked beers and their deep roots in brewing history. The inspiration for the series came from Craig’s discovery of several smoked beers in his personal collection — enough to spark an entire new theme focused on rich, smoky flavors perfect for colder weather.

The episode centers around Rauchbier (pronounced “Rauk-beer”), a traditional German smoked Märzen known as one of the most iconic and historic beer styles. Craig, drawing on his expertise as a Certified Cicerone, walks listeners through the evolution of smoked beers — from the primitive malting processes that unintentionally infused grains with smoke to the 19th-century innovations that refined roasting and kilning. Jason adds fascinating historical notes, including the fact that January 23rd is celebrated as Smoke Beer Preservation Day, honoring the long legacy of Bamberg’s Schlenkerla Brewery, the legendary home of Rauchbier.

Featuring Rauchbier from Dovetail Brewery of Chicago, IL.

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Transcript

Jason:

The Buffalo Brews podcast. So now this is going to take us to our 13th series and barely getting started. I talked with my hands there to start with because that I felt like that that was good for presentation.

And then a great idea that came up was doing smoky sips. Smoky. Yeah.

Now what made you think of smoky sips?

Craig:

So I mean, the idea for the series of episodes was me looking at noticeably niche, which we are noteworthy niche, the last series that you hopefully just all listened to or need to. And one of the beers was like, Oh, should I grab a smoked beer? And then I realized, Oh, I forgot when I was grabbing them, because as I've said before, I always squirrel away the can so that, you know, if we get postponed with recording, you know, you name it.

I want to make sure I still have the beer. So it's like, all right, we wanted to talk about X beer and I don't have it and I can't get it because either as a seasonal or just no longer available. So I squirrel them away.

And as I was squirreling away some beers for the last one, I just noticed, man, I got a lot of smoked stuff on the shelf. Like not a lot considering we have 200 plus beers, but I was like, I have like four. And that's a whole series in itself.

So I was like, what if I hold off? And I was like, do I have another noteworthy niche beer? And I was able to find that.

So to me, it was looking for one series and I ended up spawning two series out of that beer search. I put away, you know, eight cans in the fridge instead of four. And then we've been sitting on these, which age well as well.

But you know, we've had these ready to go for a while and then like most things have to come up with a very alliteration type name and, you know, what is smoking on, sipping on smoke, smoky sips, didn't know which one. And I like the preview, you, you, the little teaser trailer you put out yesterday or the day before. And it kind of is the time of year too.

It's colder right now. It's not snowing yet, hopefully, knock on wood. But it's when the chill comes through the air, you have a little bit of more sweater weather and then, you know, campfires and this and that.

This is, this is the time that, you know, smoked beers because typically they're darker. And if they're not darker beers, they're darker in flavor or more intense because of that smoke profile. So it's a good time of the year leading all the way into, you know, by the time we were talking about when these are all coming out, it'll be perfect just today, all the way through every episode airing and then into the next month of winter.

So for those that are looking for something like this to drink after listening to any of these episodes.

Jason:

Right. Yeah. And we've, we've kept the weather well enough around here so that we're not quite getting to that, that winter weather.

We get a little windy day. We get a little chilly day, but we're hanging around in those mid fifties right now this time of year, which I won't say no to hang on to it as long as we can, I guess. But you know, when we talk about the history of, well, we talk about smoky sips, we're talking about smoked beer and there's, there's a bunch of varieties that are out there now, but it all goes to, it all comes back to one beer in one period of time.

And we're starting with that today.

Craig:

Yeah. And you know, it's as a Cicerone, you know, in all the studies I did, this was the style that I was most aware of. So we're going to be trying a Rauch beer.

It's spelled R-A-U-C-H-B-I-E-R. It's a German style. So a lot of people say Rauch beer, but I believe the pronunciation is Rauch and it's a Rauch beer.

So Rauch beer. And I always tell people Rauch, like Rauch paper scissors. And that's just how, yeah, it's just how I remembered it.

And again, it's one of those where I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm saying it right, but I know when I hear someone that's saying it a hundred percent wrong. So I kind of correct people not by saying it's actually, I always just repeat it back to them. So if they came and they'll take the Rauch beer and they say, I'll have a Rauch.

And then I hand them their beer and I'm like, here's a Rauch. I'm like, Oh, is it Rauch? I was like, Oh yeah, I believe it's Rauch.

And I think of Rauch paper scissors. So we're starting with Rauch beer. Now, whether or not this was the, you know, I would say it's probably the most popular and most known smoked beer style there is, but technically you can just, you know, smoke any beer.

We can get, you know, one of the crazy fruited sours we did and smoke it and it's smoked beer.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

So there isn't like Rauch beer is a smoked Mertzen. Okay. So kind of a good beer to come off of Oktoberfest with.

They would just, uh, you know, the traditional Rauch would be a smoked Mertzen, Mertzen would be your base beer, but you can smoke really any type of beer you want. Now, whether or not some of the other beers we're going to try predated, there's one that may potentially predate, um, and I'm not a hundred percent certain about, you know, and I'm sure the historians aren't a hundred percent certain, but one of the reasons smoked beers have stayed around so long is at one point they were all kind of smoky. Uh, you know, I've touched base on this, I think with like sour beers at one point, you know, we were, we knew that if we did X, Y, and Z to, uh, the water that came from steeping grains and hot water, the wort, it would ferment and become something that, um, was potable because we boiled it and we also, uh, caught a little buzz off of it and enjoyed it.

And it was a beverage drank by many and brought people together. So, but it was primitive in the brewing style. And one of the things is you had to create malt, which is taking the grains and basically applying heat so that you're converting, you're basically converting the starches into sugars so that when you do go to mash that you're extracting the sugars and there's more enzymes that help break that down and convert that in the mashing process.

And that's, you know, adding the grain or at this point now the malt to your water and your hot water or your hot liquor, they'll refer to it as, and then that starts to, uh, you know, convert the starches into sugars and so on and so forth. But you didn't really have the best technique to dry and malt grains. And you'll see stuff like floor malted where they're literally kind of like when they're drying grain for bread, they're just laying it out on the ground, letting it dry, kind of like in a greenhouse type aspect where they're, you're just trying to use sunlight.

Jason:

Like the old malt houses used to be around Buffalo back in the day.

Craig:

Yeah. And it literally, you know, is being churned with an auger. And if you ever go to like Breyer Brothers, they have in the back bar, they have like the old augers that were in that grain silo.

But really what's happening is it's like keep turning it over, let it keep drying. And eventually when it dries out, you know, it's dry. But if you wanted to make it darker and you wanted to brew a like amber to dark beer, they were, they were basically doing it over open flame and kind of roasting it over flame.

So Daniel Wheeler, like in long time afterwards in the 1700s, he, uh, he developed a roasting drum and I've talked about that before, but that allowed you to kind of, you know, it kind of took like coffee roasting techniques, applied it to grains and allowed you to go and really fine tune your roasting and your malting. So you can have light crystal, you know, where it's more caramel and then these dark roasted malts that weren't super smoky or burnt flavor because you had more control over it. But prior to that, it was like, okay, they're going to get some smoke in it because you're over open flame.

So that wasn't as prevalent because like Rauk beer is, uh, usually I think they use the, the, like a white cedar or some sort of, uh, beechwood, beechwood cedar, I think it is. They smoked, not beechwood cedar, smoked beechwood. So beechwood's what they're using.

They would be smoking that to smoke the malt. So now when you make a smoked beer, people are buying smoked malt. They're not smoking it themselves.

I mean, some people obviously might be, I'm not trying to say what everyone's doing. Just typically you buy some smoked grains, you add the amount you want for your recipe to decide, like, how smoky do I want it, a hint, or does it take over? And, you know, that will provide that smoked flavor.

Kind of got rid of the sourness when it wasn't, uh, desired with refrigeration and better sanitation. And then, you know, the smokiness kind of went away when we were able to do indirect kilning and then got even more and more fine tuned. But for a while, everything was a little bit smoky.

So I think people kind of miss that flavor and they want to, like, revisit it. And, you know, we're into smoking things, you know, smoked meats for barbecue. There's been smoked beer for a very long period of time, as we'll discuss a little bit.

I think you have some facts to talk about. But, you know, the whole bourbon and, like, the smoked Manhattan craze that's been around for the last decade or so, the smoked cocktail, it's just, you know.

Jason:

I don't know how much I, you know, like a recent conversation with Bree and I, we talked about, um, smoked cocktails and I don't know how much I would be into that. I know people who like love it, swear by it. Like you take a, what they call a revolver, which is just, it's bullet bourbon and that's the base for that cocktail really.

But the difference between what they call a blank revolver and a smoking revolver is the smoking the glass with orange and then the cedar. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't, I don't know.

I just haven't seen much of a difference in cocktails.

Craig:

And with the cocktail, it's done in front of you. So to me, it's a little bit of part of the show. It's elevating it.

There's smoke in the air now. And that's all a part of the experience. So when you have smoke, you see smoke, you smell smoke, you're going to taste a little bit of smoke.

But right now there's no smoke in here. There's no bartenders. It's just me and Jason.

And when we crack this beer and we try this beer, you're gonna be like, wow, this is a smoked beer. The only other time, you know, I've had a life before beer. And when I was in the cocktail world, I didn't come up with it, but we were utilizing it for this speakeasy.

We were doing smoked ice. It's like, what do you do? I mean, doesn't it melt the ice?

And it's like, no, you just smoke water, right? You just get that water pan, put it in the smoker. The water gets smoky and you freeze that.

And now you have an ice cube that when it melts, it's like a smoked component that's not super smoky. And that would add to a quote unquote smoke cocktail because it's literally imparting that flavor. Whereas, you know, if you're just, you know, some of these I see them do it with the little blowtorch and it's on top, you just cover up your cocktail and put some smoke in there.

And then, you know, that limited contact, it's more the smoke presence on the glass and on the surface of the beverage. And then what's residually, you know, floating around in the air that just creates that kind of smoke experience.

Jason:

Maybe you get one sip that's like really good, but I just feel like.

Craig:

Yeah. And after that, it's like, all right, I could have gotten this cocktail five minutes sooner if I chose not to smoke it. So.

So, yeah, smoky sips. These are smoked in the can, not not literally. I just mean, you know, when you crack it open, the smoke's already there.

You don't have to add anything. So the traditional route beer, the one we're enjoying is from a very reputable brewery in Chicago. It's Dovetail, Dovetail Brewery.

And they focus on traditional continental brews. So they have all traditional styles, nothing too crazy. I actually had the pleasure of visiting this brewery.

They're not too far from where the Cicerone headquarters in Chicago is. OK. And it was whirlwind of my life.

I was getting Magic Bear up and running. I just had my son in less than a month into that. That's, you know, this is all around 2021 and prior 2020 to 2021.

And then my son was born in August of 21. And I think early September or whatever, September of 21 is when I took my exam. They hadn't offered in-person tastings in over a year because of the pandemic.

So I was like, I need to get this done. I was asking my wife and I went and I just booked it, booked it, got ready, left. It was the first night away from being a new dad.

So I was like, I slept in, took the exam and I was like, my plane's not till later. So I ended up going here and a couple other breweries. And it was the first time I really imbibed in quite some time during that time period.

And I just thoroughly enjoyed all the beers that they had and was stoked to see when we were able to start getting some Dovetail distributed to us here. So they have some really good beers, but their Rauk beer is not around too often. So when I saw it, I had to snag it up.

And again, this is going to be a Mertzen base. So Mertzen is kind of what we think of for Oktoberfest, even though, you know, we're barely getting started. I'm not going to go into that, but there's Oktoberfest beer and Oktoberfest beer Mertzen.

So basically this is the darker, more copper, a little bit maltier version of what you would have at the festival. Whereas nowadays it's more just a Oktoberfest beer, which is a little lighter, a little sweeter and not as malty, but definitely a malt forward beverage to celebrate with. So smoked Mertzen, if it's not a smoked Mertzen, it's typically just a smoked whatever it is, not a Rauk beer.

So to be a Rauk beer, it has to be a Mertzen base. And one of the most quintessential places, I think the whole city of Germany is a UNESCO or UNESCO, whatever it's called, World Heritage Site. It's called Bamberg, Germany.

They've got the most famous is Schlenkerle, I believe. So Schlenkerle makes a smoked Rauk beer and Rauk beer literally translates to smoked beer, by the way, didn't get there. But just like many German beers we've talked about, it usually is named after the city and the beer style itself is very self-explanatory of what you anticipate drinking.

So smoked beer, Mertzen base, popularized from the breweries in Bamberg. They kind of brought it to the rest of the German drinking culture and then the rest of the world. A quick story about Schlenkerle that I read up on is they always say, because this goes for any kind of smoked beer and pretty much any beer that has a strong flavor profile.

You know, the first one may be intimidating. I'd be like, oh, that's that's a lot. That's too much.

And they say by the second or third, your palate really becomes adjusted and you almost don't notice that smoke flavor anymore. And you are now just enjoying the well-balanced brew with the hint of smoke as if now it's just been there all along and it's not so much a, you know, karate chop to your lungs or your face. And, you know, I always, you know, think of things when they say that and it's like, yeah, well, you're also now a little bit more inebriated after two, three, you know, five and a half, six and a half percent beers.

This one that we're having is going to be 5.6. You know, you've loosened up a little bit and it's not going to notice as much because you're just not noticing everything as much. But that's kind of my prelude into Rauk beer and where it comes from, what base style is expected in there. So if you were judging a Rauk beer, if it didn't have Mertzin base, I would say this is not a Rauk beer.

This is a smoked porter or this is a, you know, a smoked Helles. And you see lots of that stuff, but you're not going to see something. And, you know, a brewer might do it, but you're not really going to see a Rauk beer and it's not a Mertzin.

It's going to be marketed as a smoked fill in the blank for the style, if that makes sense.

Jason:

The Schlenkarla that you were talking about. So the very famous and historic, probably the OG smoke beer brewery that existed history in the history books, they list January the 23rd as the smoke beer preservation day. That's the day that it was celebrated.

And in the history books, it's 1635 that is considered the first smoke-free malt drying machine that was patented. This is before the drum. So obviously, because we know the drum came in the 1700s from previous talks.

And then it says that as a consequence, smoke-free beer became dominant all over the world and then turned into rare, almost extinct specialty at that time. So one of the things that they also talk about is that they believe that the Bamberg Rauk beer that we know might have been from as early as the Middle Ages. But a lot of the historians say that's Holcomb because there's no documented proof of that.

And they're talking about how when castles would burn, that they would still use the malt left over to be able to create. Which I would think would be Holcomb, too, because if you're going to have a castle that burns down next thing you know, am I going to be preserving, oh, save the malt so we can make beer with it, I don't think so. But historians have been able to find through archaeological digs in Israel, in Turkey, through what they call the Crescent in the Middle East.

And they found out that there's proof, that there's physical proof of smoked beer production going back as far as 15,000 years. So, yeah, who knows where they can pinpoint it. But they do talk about 1635 being this preservation day.

Craig:

It being the day that's like, oh, no, don't, don't. We have to have a day. Yeah, I just was fact checking myself there because 1700 sounded a little too early for Daniel Wheeler and it was 1817.

Jason:

Oh, maybe we did say the date, though, because you've talked about it a few times.

Craig:

1817. No, I said earlier in the podcast, I said in like the 1700s, 1700s is when Porter became really big. And then the Daniel Wheeler's invention of the roasting drum helped change the recipe of Porter, basically, because it's like, hey, we don't need as many dark malts because we have, we can get really dark malt and use a lighter roasted grain and save some money.

And that's what changed the flavor profile of Porter. And that roasting drum also helped lead to the creation and discovery of the Czech Republic's Pilsner because of the lighter malt. So, yeah, I was just like, all right, it seems a little too early.

And I said it. So I just wanted to check that. So, yeah, I mean, they went from, you know, mid 1600s, like you were saying, to machine to not smoke the actual malts.

You'd be able to do basically, you know, same thing, but without an over direct flame. And now you have it where you have can really dial in by, you know, early 1800s how roasted you want to get where indirect kind of cut out the smoke. But this really dialed in the darkness and the amount of roast actually in there.

So not only are you controlling the smoke, you're controlling as much roasty bitterness as possible as well.

Jason:

Yeah, it sounds to me like it's tasting time. Yeah, I've seen the shifting of the glasses here. Yeah, I put the glasses over.

Here comes the quintessential crack. A little more information on Dovetail while you're in the pour here is like you said, out of Chicago, Illinois, they focus on those continental European styles, traditional methods of brewing as well. What I like is that they don't have fancy names for they only use like creative names for like special things, like really special things.

But everything that they have is literally it's Rauk beer, it's lager, it's Pilsner, it's Hellis, they don't they don't do anything overly special. They're master brewers. The names are Bill Wasselink and Hagen Dost.

And they met actually in Munich when they were both going to university at, if I've got this pronunciation, Dolmen's Academy, which is a famous brewing academy in Germany.

Craig:

That I'm not 100 percent like, I 100 percent believe you. I just don't know.

Jason:

I can't I can't comment.

Craig:

I don't know that.

Jason:

I can't put the German accent on that. But then they returned to Chicago together and they opened the brewery in 2016. And then they they talk about this being their version of a Bamberg classic dark with reddish tones of off white head and rocky foam, which is what we're seeing here.

And then standing above the rim of the glass as you bring it to your nose, you feel like you're eating a chocolate bar in a smokehouse. OK, so let's let's test that. Well, first of all, all right.

Well, we don't want no bad luck. So you got cheers. All right.

That tracks.

Craig:

Yeah, definitely got this nice, nice aroma. It smells. It's not an overpowering smoke to me.

This is like there was a fire. The fire's been out for a little bit. And as you stand over those logs that might have a plume of smoke here and there, it's got a smell.

But if I didn't get up and close to it, I wouldn't know. This isn't my eyes are watering. The wind is shifted.

I have to move my camp chair because I'm getting smoked out. It is that pleasant just somebody had a fire and not the oh, my God, somebody's having a fire. So you are enjoying a kind of like, you know, this is the wake of the fire.

And you know that, you know, the the flames were were licking those logs. And it just has that nice, subtle, smoky, really nice. And then, yeah, I mean, I was thinking everything you were saying.

That's really good description they had there because it is dark. If you looked at this, you would think as a brown ale is this could even be a porter. When you lift it to the light, that's where you see these ruby and red tones.

So it's definitely like a dark, reddish red and brown. It did have a nice thick head, still has a nice ring on it for me. And it is slightly off-white, not quite brown or anything like that, but kind of just like a off-white, creamy kind of head.

And I'm excited to sit there. So I talk for as long as I talk. I also feel it's at a really good temperature right now.

Cold, but not really cold. You know, nice, cool, you know, foam sticking to the glass nicely, nice, clean glass. But then, you know, a really good head and really good foam sticks very nicely.

So you want both a good glass as well as a good or a well-made beer. And, you know, you drink this. It's not your weekend lager, right?

This is a lager, though. It is not an ale. So this is definitely something that has got quite amount of goings on.

Jason:

So and if you're trying to figure out what Beechwood smoked malt tastes like, that right there. There you go.

Craig:

It's one of those quintessential kind of flavors. You know, it almost the smokiness almost masks the sweetness of the malt. It is still a malt forward beer.

Not much bitterness. The bitterness almost comes across as that like smoky kind of almost it's hard to like put into words. But sometimes when you have like heavily smoked barbecue, there's that like slight, I don't want to say soapy, because like astringent almost like kind of an astringent, very, very drying kind of sense to it.

And what I like about like, you know, the dry bark and the smoke ring on a good barbecue is then you get into this super juicy, moist meat and it's this nice contrast of like a dry, crispy bark into a juicy meat. And this beer has got this like kind of subtle sweetness that is balanced by the smoke, slight bitterness of like the darker malts here. And I think that smokiness just keeps pulling away at and kind of drying the beer out and really balancing any of that residual sweetness and kind of creating a very sip worthy beer because you take a sip, you want another sip, and it's not heavy in any sense, but it's super flavorful.

Jason:

There's a very light hop note to that as well, but nothing that would register on the bitterness scale in my book.

Craig:

Yeah. And this is, you know, a very good beer to pair with food, especially like a main course. If it's something a little bit more intense, like I'm not utilizing this with anything that's got light notes to it on a food standpoint.

This is going to be very good with, you know, any type of charred meats, right? If you're throwing it on a grill, if you're pan searing it, even if you're smoking it. I mean, to me, I don't like to do too much matchy-matchy where it's like, OK, I smoked this brisket for 18 hours and then we're going to drink a smoked beer with it and smoke a cigar while we're eating it and finish it with some bourbon.

Nothing wrong with any of that, but sometimes it's, you know, to each their own. Yeah, we can. I think when you pair food and beverage, you can and you could go a little bit better.

But to me, this is an intense flavor, not in a bad way, but in a, all right, I need something intense to match with it. So if I was going with cheese, this is where I'm getting something super sharp. OK, whether it's super like sharp cheddar that has like a little like, you know, it's like cloth cheddar that then kind of creates like this rind to it without being too, too funky.

I mean, even something that's got like a funky or like an ash washed or, you know, an ash aged where it's got some powerful, like, you know, not so smoky flavors, but it's akin to smoke like that would go well. And then your heavy blue cheeses or your Rochfort's like things that on their own are just powerful. You put this up against it and you're like, OK, now now it's almost like I'm adding crumbly blue cheese to my burger.

That burger's got kind of like a grilled sense to it. The blue cheese goes well with it because, you know, burgers got a lot of flavor and then the blue cheese can stand up to that flavor. This smoky, you know, I think a lot of, you know, smoky blue cheese is like it's I think it's a thing.

I feel like I've been places where like barbecue blue cheese really complement to each other. So I could just see, you know, a powerful cheese. And then what they talked about with like that smoky, like chocolate kind of bar, like trying to think, would this be good with any type of desserts?

And, you know, if you think about some desserts you like to have with espresso or you like to have with brandy or you like to have with a little drink, you know, something like super creamy might go well with this. Like even just like a cheesecake or like even like a flan, something that that creaminess kind of balances with like these multi sweet chocolatey notes. And then that little hint of smoke, you know, I mean, if we think, you know, vanilla, you know, smoked vanilla is is a flavor profile from like bourbon that we like with the charred oak barrels and just other different ways that we would kind of see those two things come together.

So I can see this standing up to something super sweet in like the cheesecake or creme brulee kind of essence again, like creme brulee having that brulee part of it. Now you add this sweet, smoky rauk beer and you've got something that, you know, kind of just takes it to another level or to each his own. If it distracts too much from that creme brulee that you want to be the star or if it distracts too much from something else, this might be something that you want to save to drink on its own.

But I think it would pair nicely with some of those very rich or robust dishes.

Jason:

This is a good one.

Craig:

Definitely a good one to start the smoky sips with. It's you know, this is one of those archetypes where, OK, if you're brewing a rauk beer, really like, you know, if you can get a schlenkerla beer, like that's what you're really putting it up against, too. But, you know, breweries that dedicate themselves to doing things the traditional way.

And so they they make for really good exemplars of a style. And I would say pretty much anything Dovetail comes out with, they're going to have studied it, made sure they like the way it's come out. And it's a good representation of the style because they're not, you know, they're not resting their head on any tricks.

They're they're trying to brew beer the way it was supposed to be. And I think they deliver on a lot of what they have.

Jason:

Nice. Well, it's a really good start to the series here. We're talking we're talking smoky sips and Jason and Craig here with you.

So we're going to we're going to we're going to move forward with this series charge right ahead because, you know, I am I want to smoke. Yeah.

Craig:

Sitting there with an empty glass and nice beer that calls for another beer.

Jason:

All right. Well, until the next episode. Cheers, my friend.

Cheers.