While Belgium gets the credit for being the most exciting and enduring destination for American beer nerds, a smaller, quieter subset are insistent on their obsession with Germany’s beers, particularly their Lagers.  Having experienced a decent amount of these harder-to-find and less-hyped beers over the course of the last year, I can definitely say that the next beer trip I make to Europe will not exclude some of the more interesting regions in Germany’s panoply of amazing beer.

Beersel Lager is an interesting study in cross-pollination – Drie Fonteinen’s Armand Debelder admires the Lagers of Germany, claims the label, so he decided to have one contract brewed for him at the world-class De Proef facility, where many excellent brands from Belgium are brewed.  The results are revelatory, combining the refreshing drinkability of a German Lager with the depth of flavor of a Belgian Lambic.  Beersel Lager pours a touch more amber than the typical “yellow Lager” color, with a big fluffy-white Belgian head and tons of carbonation.  The nose has touches of breadiness you would expect from a Lager and a nice hit of tart, “wild” aromas from the Belgian yeast.  Sipping this beer breeds similar interesting combinations of flavor — a bit of lactic sourness, a nice bitter bite of hops, and a smooth, bready body in the middle.  An excellent sipping beer that unfortunately could only be stocked by someone much flusher with cash than I for a regular session beer, it comes closest to Jolly Pumpkin’s beers in pushing boundaries of beer geekdom into the realm of the Lawnmower beer.  Excellent product as usual and a lesson in how taking old ideas and combining them can produce astounding and surprising results.  Killer.

So a few friends arranged a chance going away party for a very close friend who is off to the left coast in his greasecar to occur in the backyard of the bar, and the chilly October day provided the perfect backdrop to the array of mindblowing beers that were to come.  I personally tried 10 or 11 beers for the first time, as a nice sized group of us went several rounds, trying to diversify our selections and share.  Spending the day drinking almost entirely German Lagers is something I’ve never come close to pulling off, and it shows the amazing dedication of the SD people to bring things in that are different, rare, and unique.  Check out their Grocery Store or the bar on an average day and you’ll be shocked. Here’s a rundown of some of the things I drank, remembered, and enjoyed (Note: I took these names from this list – posted by the Bar – http://beeradvocate.com/events/info/20776) :

Weissenohe Klosterbrauerei Monks Dunkel - Coincidentally enough, on the morning of hitting the bar for the festival, Stinky had accompanied me on an errand which involved going to a local brewery.  Getting dropped off around the corner, we remarked at how awesome it was that we could smell the mash for several blocks around the brewery.  I mention this because sniffing, tasting, and sniffing again, this beer reminded everyone at the table who had brewed of the smell of “mashing in.” The fresh, you-know-you’re-making-beer-now smell that happens when you heat up water and add it to malted barley.  This was a very dark, mildly carbonated Lager with an awesomely focused malt taste with the right amount of Lager crispness to make it insanely drinkable and actually interesting.  My first offering from Weissenohe and a stellar endorsement for a brew I might never have again.

Weiherer Rauchbier – One of my favorite styles of German Beer is the Rauchbier, that is a Lager made with a portion of smoked malt, or smokiness acheived by some other means.  This Rauch was an awesome example — another surprisingly subtle take on the style that allowed all kinds of action to shine.  Definitely not the kind of Rauchbier that kicked you in the nose with smoke flavor or reminded you of drinking liquid bacon (hardly a bad thing), the Weiherer Rauchbier (brewed, I believe by Brauerei Gasthof Kundmüller) has a mild hop and malt presence, with a good amount of smoke on the nose and a bready maltiness besides.  A good introductory beer for the style, perhaps, or a great beer to help kick off a session of Lager Drinking.  Would have gone great with the sausages they were selling outside at the SD — I think of Rauchbier as a killer food beer.  Not sure how this one is out of the bottle, it was served here on cask.

Pine-Tar Pitch Lined Wooden Cask of Weissenohe Klosterbrauerei Altfrankish – Definitely the most bizarre beer of the night, and actually in the top 3 most bizarre brews I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming, this Altfrankish, which I believe is a Keller beer, an obscure, unfiltered style of amber German Lager, was served out of an imposing looking pine-tar pitch lined wooden cask, which was hanging out at the end of the bar.  Stinky started out with this beer and our friend Alex, who loves sour and Belgian beers, couldn’t get enough, ordering two consecutive pints.   The Altfrankish poured a cloudy, hazy brown with zero carbonation or head.  Served at slightly colder than room temperature (or maybe it was the cold outside), I’m having a hard time conjuring up the right adjectives to describe this one accurately.  There was a maltiness, both “bready” and “caramelly” whcih was not erradicated but rather supported by a funked out sourness that verged on the “vinegary.”  Kind of sounds like someone’s failed homebrew Lager, but in reality, it tasted ancient and just right — Franconia has the largest number of small breweries on the planet, and at one time more people were drinking beer like this than the Pilseners that dominate today.  A pure glimpse into a historical method of serving a historical beer, I felt very lucky to have tried this beer and major props to SD for going through the trouble of transporting or helping in the transport of such a fragile product.

Mahrs Der Weisse Bock – Stinky admonished me for ordering an “available” beer, but I really didn’t give a shit.  I wanted to drink a familiar style from a familiar producer at the end of my beer “flight,” and this was perfect.  Besides having arguably the label with the drunkest goat of all time, this Weisse Bock, probably my favorite German Ale style, and the only Ale I believe I drank all day, is a perfect capper for a long cold day.  Insane amounts of dried fruit and malt are present in this dark, beautiful beer.  This is widely available in bottles and I feel no shame for finishing the day with it – it was a great counterpoint with its dark richness to the other beers we were drinking, and had the right amount of bright fruit notes to keep me going.  Plus, drinking anything while starting at that goat will just make you feel better.

Two Brothers is a brewery from the Chicago area that has made a splash here in New York City with its wide range of excellent renditions of many styles of beer, Ale and Lager alike.  While this is far from the first of their beers, which range in style from Belgian Farmhouse Ales to this Dortmunder Style Lager, that I’ve tried, it struck me that Two Brothers has really outdone itself with this, arguably the most humble style it has tackled.  Dortmunder style Lagers were amongst the first German Lagers to be consumed en masse in Europe — a German take on the Czech Pilsen beer, the “Export” Lager version of this beer, at a slightly higher ABV than other varieties, caught on and eventually molded all Lagers from that point on.  The Two Brothers version is a crisp and refreshing beer, with all kinds of subtle flavors going on — spicy, sweet, citrusy, and more.  Mostly though, this is one of the most drinkable and tasty beers that I’ve had in a long time in terms of sheer drinkability.  The Dog Days beer is perfect for summer days, where you want your beer to have some real flavor, but you want to drink a lot, and you don’t want to be praying for death the next morning.  This has all of those qualities, and it pours a beautiful, perfectly carbonated golden color with a big white head and all the smells you could hope for in a beer.  An excellent take on an under-investigated style and another winner for Two Brothers.