Understanding the Beer Bracket, Part II

This is a continuation of the post where we describe the major German beer regions and brewers by comparing them with their counterparts in NCAA basketball.  It's now time to look at the northern breweries and their NCAA basketball counterparts.

Nordrhein-Westphalia & Rheinland-Palitinate = The Big East

Nordrhein-Westphalia is the state in germany with the greatest population (18 of Germany’s 80 million) and the center of “liberal” politics in the country – think Northeast corridor in the U.S..  The breweries here, like Big East schools, often are located outside the large cities.  The brewing towns may be small, but the production is immense.  Despite having only about 10% of the 1200 breweries in Germany, they crank out 2.7 billion liters of beer each year (25% of German production volume).  Here’s who were talking about:

Warsteiner and Krombacher = Connecticut and Syracuse

These two brewers are located in the region north of Frankfurt (the NYC of Germany) and are the #2 and #1 volume leaders in Germany respectively. Each makes 450 million liters annually, with Warsteiner exporting 80 million of that.  Marketing is the priority here and it is executed to perfection – these brands are always on television with expensive commercials, sponsoring sports teams and events, and reminding everyone how good they are.  Their pilsners are good, though are missing the feeling of tradition and cultural integration like that found in Bavaria.  But it’s consumed and enjoyed in volume by locals and foreigners alike.

Bitburger = Pittsburgh

 

The town of Bitburg is in Rheinland-Palatinate, a state often overshadowed by it’s larger and richer neighbor Nordrhein Westphallen.  (Hello, Pennsylvania.)  The culture here is distinctly more blue collar, and the beer reflects that.  It’s the brew that factory workers grab after their shift.  Bitburger has a stronger presence of hops giving a, well, more bitter taste, and many northerners claim it is the real thing – not like the glossy offerings of Warsteiner and Krombacher.

Veltins = Villanova

Veltins is the seventh largest brewer in Germany and is strongly associated with the soccer team FC Schalke 04 which has a broad base of fans.  Why the match with Villanova?  Both Schalke and Villanova have blue colors. Like Villanova, Schalke is known for an open (rather than defensive) style of play.  Finally, Villanova is a catholic university… and Pope John Paul II became an honorary member of Schalke's Fussball Club after celebrating a mass in the stadium.  God, football and beer. 

Best of all, Schalke plays in the Veltins Arena, which seats 61,000 people, has a slide-out field, a Teflon-coated retractable roof, and was the first stadium with the four screens above the pitch (the new Cowboys stadium super-sized this concept).  More importantly, it has a 5km long beer pipeline, direct from the brewery to the stadium, which pumps 52,000 liters of beer to the concession stands during each home game!  Despite the fact that it’s yet another large sports-oriented beer, I have never actually tried one – but am looking forward to the tasting in our tournament.
 

 

Cologne and Düsseldorf

A final note on Nordrhein-Westphalia:  Are you familiar with the Rheinheitsgebot from 1517?  It defined “what is beer” and anything that did not conform to its definition was not recognized as beer.  Well, Cologne and Düsseldorf are not interested in obeying orders.  They’re like many teams in the Big East that will try any approach to basketball.  Stick to a zone defense (‘Cuse), go with a 4 guard lineup (‘Nova), run & gun (Louisville), or just cut and paste a football offensive line as your starting five (Pittsburgh)?  No problem.  Likewise, Cologne has “kölsch” and Düsseldorf “altbier”, neither of which conform to the RHG, and that’s just how the locals want it.  The are served in special kinds of glasses too, to make sure everyone knows this is not your grandfather’s lager.  In fact, these are not even clearly an ale or a lager, as they use mixed production techniques.

One more metaphor is quite useful for the Schnitzelbahn Beer Tournament: 

Franconia = Midwest/Grain Belt Basketball

              

Franconia is a region, not a state, comprising parts of Baden-Wüttemburg, southern Thuringia, and northern Bavaria.  Small towns, lots of local flavor, purist mentality – I think of kids shooting hoops in the driveway, no showboating or hard fouls, just great passing and accurate jump shots.  The city of Bamberg is the spiritual center of beer here (not sure if I would make this Indiana or Kansas…) and coincidentally has one of the best professional basketball teams in the German league!

Frau A and I have actually heard both Bavarians and northern Germans admit that they think Franconia has truly the best beer in Germany – and one colleague at work actually takes beer tours through the region!  Locals claim that it’s the pure water that makes the difference (water is the main ingredient in beer, after all), and everyone seems to take advantage:  there are more breweries concentrated here than anywhere else in Germany, though typically smaller (often a brewery/bar combo) and with limited or no distribution outside the region.  This is truly the heartland of beer, and Frau A & I are looking forward to a beer tour here – we will post when we do.

Understanding the Beer Bracket, Part I

Obviously, the Schnitzelbahn Bier Tournament was modeled on the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  (Yes, we know the field is now 68 teams.  We’re sticking with tradition.)  But let’s take that further, especially for those that are not familiar with Germany or major German beer brands.  In the spirit of the Sports Guy, let’s match some German beer regions with a athletic conferences, and specific breweries with corresponding basketball teams.  Of course we need to start with…

Bavaria = The ACC

 

Perhaps Bavaria did not invent beer (just like basketball was invented in Massachusetts), but they’ve taken over now.  And within Bavaria, think of Munich as the Research Triangle.   Munich’s breweries created the biergarten tradition, include the most famous beer hall in the world, and are the backbone of largest fair in the world where 6.9 million liters of beer are consumed in just two weeks.  (And yes, tickets to Oktoberfest can be very hard to get.)  Even more, the “barbeque” of choice is pork in both regions, not beef.  Carolina has its pork roasts, and Bavaria loves its pork cracklins too, in the form of schweinehaxe...  Yum.

The major players in Munich:

Augustiner = North Carolina

 

When you ask a Bavarian what the best beer is, Augustiner often is the answer.  It’s in the blood – many Muncheners will only go to Augustiner restaurants and beer gardens, as if no other beer exists.  Plus, check out the flag of Bavaria: Carolina Blue and white.  This brewer has all the tools as well:  fantastic food and desserts to go with the brew.  And yes, despite the we-do-it-better-than-anyone arrogance, when you get a cold one at an Augustiner summer beer garden… yeah, it’s that good.

Hofbräu = Duke

Just as Cameron Indoor Stadium is usually listed as one of the sports venues to see before you die, so too is the Hofbräuhaus on the short list of destinations for beer drinkers.  And like Duke, the entire Hofbräu experience/aura evokes a strong response: you either love-em-or-hate-em.

           

The Hofbrauhaus and Cameron Indoor Stadium 

Ironically, Duke doesn’t really feed the NBA like Carolina – likewise, Hofbräu is a quality beer but never discussed as the “best”.  Maybe both get too much backlash because they sell so many damn sweatshirts and steins to tourists.  But in the end it doesn’t matter, because Hofbräu is a major player year in and year out.

Löwenbräu = North Carolina State

 

Tell a non-fan you attend N.C. State and they say “isn’t that where Michael Jordan played?”.  Again and again you grit your teeth and explain no, that’s UNC, not State.  Same thing here:  Americans think of this, which was a Miller licensed product that uses a completely different recipe, including corn.  The real Löwenbräu biergartens and restaurants in Munich are nice, but between the name confusion and general bullying by the big boys, only locals really go here.  Beer is good, atmosphere nice, and schnitzel excellent, but just doesn’t have the magic of UNC or Duke.

Significant players outside of Munich:

Andechs = Wake Forest

Both were founded to do God’s work, but have grown well past their original roots, although Andechs is still run by the monks, not the Demon Deacons.  Andechs is now a producer of premium beer, schnapps, and dairy products sold throughout Bavaria.  Although the monastary is a 45-minute train ride from Munich and an additional hour hike from the station, its restaurant (in the Cloister) is routinely packed because the food is outstanding.  If it makes the finals, everyone will be rooting for them because it just feels like they deserve it.

Tegernseer = University of Virginia

It’s all about the campus – Tegernsee is gorgeous in summer and winter.  Maybe it’s not a World Heritage Site like UVA, but Thomas Jefferson would approve.  Beer is very good too, just smaller and not located in the triangle of basketball mecca.  Might not win the big event, but behind mostly-empty bottles of their Helles are smug smiles of people who know they’ve got it good.  It’s already in the Sweet 16 in our tournament! 

In the next installment, we’ll look at the northern German brewers and their NCAA counterparts.

Beer Types, Part I

In the Schnitzelbahn Bier Tournament, the structure and “competitors” were not really planned in advance.  The competitors emerged as we discovered simply what was available in two local supermarkets.  The structure evolved as we assessed the beers we had collected and started learning about formal “types” of beer – then we grouped the beers we had on hand in a way that made sense.  This is the result:

We knew that it would be Munich-biased, and so it is:  Helles (“light”), Weiss (“wheat”), and Dunkel (“dark”) are more traditionally Bavarian beers.  Although Pilsner has Czech and northern German roots, it is the most consumed in Germany (and the world) so also has a strong presence in Bavaria too (and forms the basis for most export beer).  More regional German beer types like Alt (“old”) and Kölsch (from Köln / Cologne) did not make the cut, and will be addressed in another tournament.

We also recognized that at the core, a “winner” between two beers is really a matter of personal taste.  Therefore, we decided to determine our favorite beer of each type first, before pitting different beer types against each other.  You really can’t claim a Dunkel is “better” or “worse” than a Helles, because they are fundamentally different.  When it comes to the “final four”, our champion will be just our favorite beer, regardless of type.  We’re not even tasting the beers in the “correct” type of glass (see pic below, with credits to Augustiner Helles maß, Hofbräu Weissbier glass, some random Dunkles glass, and Pilsner glass types from Warsteiner, Krombacher, and Bitburger).

But this process begs the question:  What are the formal types of beer?  What are we really comparing in the tournament?  Should we really be using different kinds of glasses???

You can spend hours reading Internet sources on the topic of beer types (also addressed as categories, sub-categories, styles, sub-styles, etc.)  Online sources range from individual web pages to the Beer Judging Certification Program, with its 1.4MB / 51 page manual! And that is before reading books by the grandfather of beer typology, Michael Jackson.

                                       

But we learned something from just the first readings on this topic.  Beer traditionally has only four components:  water, a sugar source (usually a grain), yeast, and hops (by the old laws, German beers had only 3, but the yeast was naturally ocurring, thus not considered an ingredient). 

Almost every brewer begins with the same high-level distinction:  Beer can be an Ale or a Lager.  This distinction addresses the differences in the yeast used and how it affects the brewing process.

Note:  Lambic is a third type commonly found, but how to address this type and other/mixed types is inconsistent. 

The name "Lager" actually comes from the German verb "lager" (to store), denoting that this type of beer was stored longer than Ale, and produced a clearer beer.

Below this first level of distinction between Ale and Lager, beer categorization methodologies start to fragment almost immediately.  A Google search bring up a “family tree of beer styles”, a “periodic table of beer styles”, and other amateur and commercial mappings.

                

Some sources try to get pretty scientific about measuring beer types, using color, sweetness, bitterness, and even specific gravity scales!  I also found a "flavor wheel" similar to what some wine tastings use -- basically to help the drinker put descriptors to the experience, put prose to chemistry.

                                              

              

Beer Evaluation sources:  Color, Bitterness vs Specific Gravity, Bitterness vs Sweetness, and "Flavor Wheel"

But the main point of interest for us is that about three-fourths of the beers in our tournament are Lagers (Helles, Pilsner, and Dunkel) and only a handful are ales (Weissbier or Weizen).  I think Frau A will want more ales in the next tournament, because she really likes Weissbier!

We’re doing further reading on beer categories, and overall, I find the current ways of describing beer unsatisfying for the average beer drinker.  They’re either too microscopic (who really can tell the difference between an regular ale and a “premium” ale?) or just don’t make sense (why are some beers categorized by ingredient like wheat, and others are grouped by geography like Scottish Ale and “Vienna-style”???)  This needs to change!  Look for this topic in another post soon.

German Beer Wars - Weissbier

Our next first round tasting was with four typical Munich Weissbiers.  König Ludwig and Erdinger both are well known for their Weissbiers (Erdinger makes only Weissbiers, though has a wide variety of types), and Augustiner is one of the best local beers.  Löwenbräu...well, while I love their biergarten, I never remember the beer as being good. But I may be biased by the Löwenbräu they sell in the US...

This time we reversed the pairing question and asked "What German beer works with Indian food?" While I often have Kingfisher at Indian restaurants, I decided to be daring and see if the sweetness of the Weissbier worked well with the spiciness.  It did. We paired it with tandoori chicken and chana masala.

The first surprise was our discovery that Weissbier, not Miller High Life, is the true champagne of beers. With its effervescence, it's a party in your mouth!

The biggest shocker, however, was from the underdog, Löwenweise. 

Against Erdinger Weissbier, it was not much of a contest. The Löwenweise was crisp and had a slightly sweet finish. The Erdinger was similar in appearance, but had a touch of bitterness (more hops) and was flatter. It did go very well with Indian food, though.

Both the König Ludwig and the Augustiner were good, though quite different in their appearance. The Augustiner had noticeably more head and was a stronger flavored  beer. The König Ludwig was lighter and sweeter, but overall was a more complex beer.  So we gave it the win based on complexity and good balance.

For the Sweet Sixteen berth, however, it was an OT game. König Ludwig and Löwenbräu were both great beers, but the win went to Löwenbräu. It had the perfect blend of flavors and effervescence, and the weissbier sweetness came only at the end of the sip.

Lots of surprises in the first Weissbier round and looking forward to some more beer exploration. Not a bad beer in the bunch yet!

German Beer Wars - Round 1

It turns out that choosing the beers was the easy part…pairing beer and food takes a bit more thought.  Not as easy as wine and food…

For our first round, we went with pairs of Schwarzbier and Dunkelbier.  Both are dark and much more malty than hoppy, and my first thought was cheese.  A dark beer need some cream and fat to stand up to it and bring out the flavors.

So, inspired by The German Beer Institute and the discovery of the beautiful cheese selection at my local Manufactum (English / German), I went with a Schwarzbier Cheese Fondue, garlic shrimp tapas, brie, and prosciutto.  For dipping, we used toasted french bread and ham-wrapped toast.

  

And the surprising winner was Paulaner Original Münchener Dunkel.  Surprising, because we expected one of the smaller breweries to have a superior beer.  But Paulaner pulled through to the Sweet Sixteen with a very balanced and tasty Dunkelbier. The Flensburger was nice, but had a strong, single flavor. The Paulaner had a much more complex, but perfectly balanced, blend of various flavors.  It's extremely drinkable!

Both Schwarzbiers were good, with the Mönchshof having a slightly more aggressive taste.  Schwarzbier overall was a good discovery - I plan on cooking with it in the future and enjoying the extra! 

        

Recipes:

Schwarzbier Fondue Recipe:

12 oz. / 355 mL Schwarzbier

12 oz. (4 cups) / 450g mix of shredded cheese (recommend Gruyere and Emmenthaler)

2 Tbsp / 12-15g flour (substitute cornstarch for gluten free)

A pinch each of ground nutmeg, black pepper, and cloves

1 Tbsp Kirsch or Vodka (optional)

Heat beer in pot. Coat shredded cheese in flour (using a large Ziploc bag is easiest). Gradually add floured cheese to the beer, stirring constantly until cheese just melts. (Don’t let it get too hot, or the cheese will ball up.) Stir in spices and (optional) Kirsch. Transfer to fondue pot for warming and serving. 

Make sure not to let the mixture cool too much before serving or the cheese may become stringy.

Serve with toasted bread cubes, crackers, breadsticks, or Ham-Wrapped Toast. 

Ham-Wrapped Toast: (Herr J’s invention)

Good quality bread (french, seven grain, and ciabatta work well)

Dry-cured ham, such as proscuitto or serrano

Manchego cheese (optional)

Cut bread into bite-sized rectangles and lightly toast in oven (top with thin slices of manchego before toasting, if using).  Take out and wrap each toast piece across the middle with a strip of ham. Return to oven and toast until ham is warmed and bread edges are crisp.

The German Beer Wars

This blog is about food, travel, and fun – with a healthy dose of Germany thrown in. What better way to start off than with beer? 

Most restaurants and beer gardens here serve only one brand of beer, so the choice usually is limited “what type of beer do I want tonight?” That being said, it’s really hard to get a bad beer in Germany!

But we were curious and wanted to investigate the controversial question of Best German Beer.

Our completely non-scientific study began with many trips to my two closest grocery stores (I have to carry it home on my back, hence the “closest” and the “many trips”). After buying one of every German beer, excluding light, alcohol free, diabetic, and Beck’s Lime*, I ended up with the magical total of 64 beers. Just the right number to fit on an NCAA bracket. Though there were a few outliers, the Selection Committee decided upon 4 “regions” of Helles, Pils, Weissbier, and various Dunkel Bier.  

Let the games begin!

* While Beck’s Lime is incredibly tasty, it has an extra ingredient and does not conform to the Reinheitsgebot. Plus, it would have put us at 65 beers…)