LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICA

The Return of the Germans

A funny thing happened in early January in Toronto, where I live: a local brewery released a Bock.

A Bock. In Canada. In January.

It has been accepted wisdom in North American beer circles for at least a couple of decades that people don’t drink Bocks, and that is wisdom born mostly of facts. Even brewers who participate in Cincinnati’s annual Bockfest report that while the locals go crazy for Bockbiers during the weeklong springtime event, interest falls off almost completely once it has passed.

In Ontario, there was years ago a strong traditions of spring Bocks, upheld by the major breweries as well as the early microbrewery entrants. But while it lasted well into the 1990s, it all but vanished in the new century. Which is why the arrival of Henderson Brewing’s urBock, part of their The Myth of Permanence series, plus word of several others either already released or entering conditioning across the province, was such an eyebrow-raising occurrence.

And if this were but an isolated case of Teutonic influence, that is all it would remain, a somewhat surprising development that came and went. But across Ontario, across Canada, and to a certain degree all across North America, after being out of fashion for the better part of two to three decades, German beer styles are returning to brewery and beer store shelves with surprising regularity.

And I think I know why.

Before going down that road, however, a few thoughts about the sort of beers we are talking about here. Because while fashion certainly has supplanted traditional beer styles in terms of importance in the modern brewing world, I like to think that the latter still counts to at least some degree.

So, German beer styles. Lagers, mostly, of course, except for those which are ales designed to emulate lagers, like Kölsch and Altbier. (There is, in fact, an argument made that it is cold-conditioning rather than fermentation which makes a lager, in which case traditional Altbier and Kölsch are also lagers.) Plus wheat beers, from Berliner Weiss to Hefeweizen, which are also pitched with ale yeast and often, though not always, open-fermented.

On the pure lager side, Helles and Pilsner, naturally, plus Munich Dunkel, Schwarzbier and Märzen. And all of the Bock family, including Doppelbock and Eisbock, and numerous variants that maybe should or perhaps should not be considered styles unto themselves, such as the unfiltered Zwickelbier and the now rarely if at all brewed, rye-influenced Roggenbier.

Despite their sometimes extreme differences, the disparity between, for instance, a pale Berliner Weisse and a dark Doppelbock, I think that most of these styles bear a family resemblance that goes well beyond that of Britain’s family of ales or Belgium’s mix of profoundly individualistic beers.

Unlike a dry-hopped IPA, for example, with its satisfying hit of bitterness balanced by malty sweetness and pulled forward via the retro-olfactory effect of hop aroma, most German beer styles, even the high-strength ones, are exercises in subtle and quiet complexity. They don’t enter the palate screaming for attention, but rather softly caress the senses, providing, as required, refreshment, satisfaction, or contentment, or sometimes all three.

It is this collection of family traits that I believe has led to the rise, or rather, re-rise of German beer styles in North America. For a long time, some might say too long, we have had our beer market dominated by the intensity of American style IPAs, including the tongue-shredding IBU wars of the earlier part of this century, when the dominant philosophy seemed to be ‘Hops good. More hops better.’

However, with many new beer drinkers either uninterested in or unwilling to accept massive bitterness as the price of entry to the ‘cool kids’ craft beer market, something had to shift. At first, and still today, that ‘something’ was and remains Hazy or Juicy or New England style IPA, highly dependent or aromatics and generally moderate or low in bitterness.

Which was fine for some, but left others, yours truly included, begging for something different. Not that all of the hazies proved unpalatable – many have been quite good – or that the Old School IPAs and Pale Ale vanished entirely – they did not. But for those of us unwilling to accept the hegemony of the IPA culture, something else was needed.

Enter German beer styles.

So far, at least, it appears that while the new wave of lagers and wheats might have been brewed mainly for us oldsters, the younger generation is also finding solace in German-inspired brews. If we can just keep wellmeaning but over-enthusiastic brewers from dry-hopping the hell out of them, we should have finally arrived at a place where we can all get along.

Stephen Beaumont