I’m a fan of most beer styles, though not a whole lot of the unusual ones. One odd type, to today’s casual beer drinkers, that I absolutely adore might be the smoked beer. Smoked beer derives from the method of drying the harvested barley — fail to shield the grains from the smoky fire, be it peat, wood, or whatever, and of course the grain will take on that smoky flavor. It’s a very old style of beer, and aside from the small brewers in the US that make such a beer once a year, it’s a fairly rare style to run across.
Schlenkerla has been brewing smoked beers for over 330 years from Bamberg, the world’s rauchbier capital (though only Schlenkerla and Spezial seem to make it stateside regularly). The Schlenkerla Ur-Bock and Marzen taste very bacony, very meaty; the brewery treads the fine line between that beautiful flavor and the awful medicinal, plasticky phenols that can be the result of using too much rauch malt. A little goes a LONG way.
Then a few years ago, the brewery decided to make a lighter, easier-drinking beer. The Ur-Bock and Marzen are a bit higher in strength than the average beer, and the smoked wheat beer they make, also fantastic, is strongly smoky and a little stronger than average. Why not make a light lager without using any smoked malt? The Helles was born of this idea, “hell” meaning “light”, “helles” the noun form. And at 4.3% alcohol by volume, it qualifies as sessionable — you’ll feel the effects a lot slower than with most selections you could be making at the local beer bar.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the fermenter. Though no smoked malt is in the grain bill, the beer picks up smokiness in the tanks. Quite a lot, in fact, just because it’s brewed on the same equipment as its intentionally smoky brethren. Whether this too was expected and welcomed is a matter of debate, but maybe I’ll just kick back with a bottle on this cold night and enjoy it.
Schlenkerla Helles pours a crystal-clear pale gold, and throws a big, dense white head, lingering most of the way down the dimpled pint glass. The telltale faintly smoky aroma is coupled with a little oiliness, plus some honeyed sweetness. All together, it’s a great-smelling package.
The taste, far from being smoky, is… okay, it’s smoky. It’s less subtly smoky than it smells, and this is coupled with a cleanly bready flavor, like a fresh baguette. The honey comes back to round out the flavors on the palate, and results in a clean, welcoming non-fruity beer. As the beer warms a bit the smokiness drops a bit, and I can taste the noble hop bitterness, a sort of peppery, herbal quality added as flavor, and this continues well through the finish accompanied by the smoky malt flavors, which linger well after swallowing. All around, the Helles Lagerbier is nothing short of phenomenal.
The bad news, if there is any, is that smoked light lagers are very rare in our stores. The good news? This one’s fairly easy to find. I purchased these half-liters at Whole Foods Bowery for $4.99 apiece — they might be a bit cheaper at New Beer around the corner on Chrystie, or Thrifty Beverage in Brooklyn, where I’ve also bought them. It’s also a standard beer at Spuyten Duyvil, and at $8 on the menu, that’s one of the best bar deals you’ll find. It’s harder to find as a draft beer; I can’t remember the last time I had it in that form.
Lots of breweries in the area brew smoked beers at least seasonally, but they tend to be dark, roasty beers like the Captain Lawrence Smoked Porter, Ithaca Gorges Smoked Porter, Victory Scarlet Fire, Weyerbacher Fireside Ale, and many others. Tasty beers, but the Schlenkerla Helles seemingly stands alone available locally. It’s well worth seeking this beer out if you’re interested in a different taste experience.
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