#13 – Where in the beer world?

Where in the beer world?

Geez, could I make it harder? Is it really fair to ask you where in the beer world this photo was taken? I am anyway.

Quite honestly, it won’t be a slam dunk when I post a second picture with the answer.

But stick with me on this. There’s a lesson, or maybe two, to be learned.

Rather than offering a clue this week, I’ll suggest a second question you might find it easier to comment on. What’s going on here?

Posted Oct. 18

Where in the beer world?

That’s a helles fermentation at the top in one of these ultra-modern looking fermenters at Private Landbrauerei Schönram in the German village of Schönram near the Austrian border.

Yes, Schönram uses open fermentation for all its beers, which account for almost 95 percent of production (46,000 HL). The unique fermenters allow for open fermentation and make it easy to skim the yeast daily (brewmaster Eric Toft believes this makes for smoother beer). What makes them different is that they can be closed and cleaned easily, eliminating the excuse many larger breweries use when they modernize and install closed fermentation vessels.

Ron Pattinson hit on why I posted this photo (see his comment below) — that’s a bottom fermenting yeast at work (and no even at high krausen). As he noted, open fermentation remains common in Bavaria, and not just for weiss beers. Common, but no universal.

There’s a lot more different about Schönram, but that’s a story that’s going elsewhere.

The weekly reminder about this feature.

 

Zoigl bier in London

Just because you might have missed the announcements . . .

Schafferhof Zoigl, the variety we liked best (as I wrote at the time, that’s really an aside) last week in Neuhaus, will be among the beers on offer today through Sunday (or when it runs out) in London for an event at Zeitgeist (49-51 Black Prince Road, SE11 6AB).

Details at Stonch’s Beer Blog and Bier Mania. Lots of outstanding beers, including one from a brewery where we slept last week. They also have guest rooms — none of this passing out on top of tanks stuff.

 

Session #20 wrapped up; #21: Name your favorite

The SessionRay and Mel at the Bathtub Brewery have the roundup for The Session #20: Beer Memories. Lots of, no surprise, memories (old and new).

Meanwhile, Matt has laid down a challenge for The Session #21 on Nov. 7. He wants you to pick your favorite beer, and expects more than just a name. He wants a solid review.

Before you say I don’t have a favorite beer or how do I pick just one. I say BS everyone has a favorite. There will always be a beer that you would grab above all others, your go to beer per say. The one beer you will almost always choose over the others. When I get asked that question I almost always say I don’t have one but then when I came up with this topic I realized I did and I know you do too.

I’m not sure I do. Do you?

Remember, participating is easy. Create a post on Nov. 7 and send Matt a link.

 

The Session #20: German tradition lives

This is my contribution to The Session #20, Beer and Memories, hosted by the Bathtub Brewery. Head there for a complete recap.

Zoigl brewery, NeuhausSchafferhof-Zoigl.

I drank it twice today, and I may never have it again. But if I do taste it I will be instantly back in Neuhaus, located in a bit of northern Bavaria known as the Oberfplaz. “Nobody in Germany comes here,” a Munich resident told us at the Teicher, run by the Otto Punzmann family, where we had another Zoigl beer. We were drinking, he explained, in an area lost to many Germans, between the north and Bavaria, between Prague and and the more prosperous west.

A good place to be on German Reunification Day, a national holiday and the only day of the year all the Zoigl breweries of Neuhaus (plus a few others – seven different in town, more if you wanted to drive a few miles) pour their beers. What the blank is Zoigl? Not a style, thank goodness. But beer from a community brewery that’s located in Neuhaus a short walk from the house breweries where the beer ferments, is lagered and served.

During the rest of the year each house brewery takes its own turn serving beer one weekend a month, usually Friday through Monday. In 2007 the breweries began what could turn into something wonderful. They all open on a single day.

Apparently the first round was a success, because sometime before 6 o’clock in the morning in New York (noon here) we pulled into the village of Neuhaus and saw cars lined up to the edge of town. The first brewery serving Zoigl was right ahead, the community brewhouse around the corner.

Each house brewery makes a beer to is own recipe. Schafferhof was the first we had, and our favorite, as if that matters. By chance it was our first, by design our last &#151 where we enjoyed it with a feast that cost us €11.60 (including beer) and would have been at least three times that on Munich.

The 20-kilometer drive back to our pension was as spectacular as the trip up from southwest of Regensburg on Thursday. As was the journey to Neuhaus in the morning. I should have stopped when we left Neuhaus, and might have were it not for a Mercedes looming in the rear view mirror, to take a picture. The hills were laid out below us in layers, two different villages with churches at their center surrounded by bright green fields and dark green trees.

Fall has arrived, but gently. Yellow and red leaves blend with a lot of green, and the red flowers in planters on the second and third stories of white washed houses perfectly complement red tile roofs.

That’s what I’ll remember should I come across a beer that reminds me of Schafferhof Zoigl.

But back to that conversation at the Teicher. The Munich resident made it clear why some Germans embrace Zoigl when I asked him why he decided to come to Neuhaus — he and 10 friends made the journey via train. He looked around the room, beer and and conversation brimming everywhere.

“This is tradition,” he said.