MARCH/APRIL 1999

VOL.4 NO.2

Bamberg, Germany - Part I: Where There's Smoke...

There are two reasons to visit the German city of Bamberg, located in the northern Bavarian district of Franconia, directly north of Nurnberg. The first is its status as a uniquely preserved slice of history, so perfectly unchanged from its 1,000-year-old roots that the entire city has been placed on the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) list of global cultural landmarks.

Walking through Bamberg is akin to strolling back through time. Over here, a fine example of Gothic architecture; there, Renaissance design; across the river, Baroque; all set in context by the imposing spires of the Cathedral, towering above all else in the city. You explore, wander, discover, and then you stop, your nostrils and curiosity piqued by the enticing aroma of brewing and...what else? Smoke?

Indeed it is smoke, and in it lies the key to Bamberg's second glory: the fabulous smells and tastes of the city's trademark beer style, rauchbier.

To those who regularly prowl the fringes of beer styles, rauchbier is a treasured remnant of brewing days gone by, a living testament to the way beer was once made. Like Belgium's famed lambics, it speaks to a much earlier time of brewing when the science of beer was in its infancy and brewers often had to rely as much on instinct and observation as knowledge and experience. In this, it is a monument to the history of beer.

The secret to rauchbier is that all or a portion of the barley malt is smoked over a wood fire prior to brewing, in the same fashion that all brewing malt was once prepared. The resultant beer will be mildly to heavily smoky in aroma and taste, depending on how much of the smoked malt is used. For most people, the specialty beer of Bamberg is a love it or hate it proposition.

(Interestingly, because of the influence that the sense of smell has over that of taste, the smokiness of even the most intense rauchbier can be all but eliminated by simply plugging your nose while tasting it. Of course, that practice not only makes the drinker look rather odd, particularly in a bar setting, it also defeats the whole purpose of drinking a rauchbier in the first place.)

There are three main producers of rauchbier in and around Bamberg: Schlenkerla and Brauerei zum Spezial in the city, and Kaiserdom located on the outskirts of the Bamberg region. Only the smoke beers of Schlenkerla and Spezial are available within Germany, however, as the entirety of Kaiserdom's rauchbier production is destined for export markets. A fourth brewery, Greifenklau, is reputed to use a small percentage of smoked malt in their lager, but its influence on the beer's taste was so subdued that it was virtually undetectable to my palate.

We're very interested in your news, notes, comments and questions, so please feel free to contact SBWoB by clicking on the link below. Or you can add your comments when you sign up for the World of Beer Update, a mid-month e-mail newsletter that brings even more of the world of beer to your computer.

Send Feedback To: beaumont@worldofbeer.com

Stephen Beaumont reserves all rights that pertain to the text of his articles, in any form that it appears.