Putting the Bam! in Bamberg

Kay and I are on a river cruise in Bamberg in Bavaria. Last night, Kay had planned a pub crawl through the old city. We didn’t quite make it to every pub; they serve their beer in half-liter mugs, and if you keep drinking them, you’ll end up crawling, yes sirree. I know the stereotype is that the Germans love their beer, but take it from me, they really love their beer. We started at a famous Brauerei and sampled their pilsner and helles brews, then moved on to an even more famous Brauerei that serves rauchbier, the pride of Bamberg. Rauchbier is smoked beer, and like most famous styles, it has a backstory. I won’t go into a long digression about how beer is brewed, but here are the basics. Beer is made from barley for the most part. Just like rice, barley does not have much fermentable sugar. But if you get it wet and let it sprout, sugars develop to nourish the barley plant; please don’t ask me how. At a certain point, you stop the process with some heat, and then you grind up the sprouted barley. This is mixed with warm water and held at a critical temperature for a specified period. The grain is strained out, and the resulting liquid, called wort (for some reason), is mixed with yeast and hops and fermented, and hey presto, beer.

A long time ago, the sprouted malt was dried over fires, so smokey beer was the norm. Sometime in the 18th century, brewers started using kilns to dry the sprouted barley, and according to Wikipedia, this was almost universal by the mid-19th century. Wikipedia says that some Bamberg brewers continued smoking the malted barley out of tradition, but I have my doubts; I think some inexperienced apprentice may just have screwed up and accidentally smoked a batch. At some point in Bamberg, it got a little smoky. I imagine the conversation between the brewmaster and his bumbling apprentice went something like this:

„Hans, du Idiot, die ganze Ladung ist ruiniert; es schmeckt, als wäre es mit Speck gewürzt. Was zum Teufel soll ich damit machen?“

„Tut mir leid, Chef, aber es ist viel davon; lass es uns brauen. Vielleicht können wir die Leute überzeugen, es zu trinken.“

(Der Brauer sieht nachdenklich aus.) Hmm … vielleicht können wir mit ein bisschen Marketing die Leute dazu bringen, es für etwas Besonderes zu halten.“

For those of you who aren’t fluent in German:

“Hans, you idiot, this whole batch is ruined; it tastes like it’s flavored with bacon. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Sorry boss, but there’s a lot of it; let’s brew it up. Maybe we can convince people to drink it.”

(The brewer looks thoughtful.) “Hmm…maybe with a little marketing, we can get people to think it’s special.”

This was doubtless followed by a spitballing session fueled by numerous steins of the new concoction.

“You love smoked pork; you’re gonna love our smoked beer! No, that doesn’t do it.”

“That smoky taste you love—now it’s in beer! No, it still doesn’t pop.”

“Wait, I’ve got it! ‘Smoked beer puts the Bam in Bamberg!”

Anyway, the beer caught on. Kay and I tried it. It’s different but not at all bad. They say around Bamberg that the first one is a little strange, but by the second one, it starts to grow on you. I find that after my first alcoholic beverage, the second one always goes down easier. The Chinese have an applicable saying: The first drink, the man takes the drink; the second one, the drink takes the drink; and by the third, the drink takes the man. In our case, we had more brewpubs to visit, so we were pacing ourselves and didn’t try a second round.

All of the places we stopped had their own excellent beers of a style we’d call pilsner. They have substyles of this, Helles and Marzen, but since I’m no expert, they all seemed like excellent pilsners. We finally had dinner at one of our stops. It appears to me that these folks eat nothing but pork, either as wurst, roasted, or pounded, breaded, and fried, accompanied by gravy and either potatoes or potato dumplings that are like matzah balls, only heavier. Good, but not what you’d call light or delicate. It reminds me of what my friend Tim Speidal said about New York pizza by the slice. He called it the thinking man’s health food because it was cheap, and “after you eat it, you aren’t hungry anymore.”

Today, we did more touring of the old city. At first, I had a sense that I had seen a similar place recently but couldn’t recall where it was. Then I remembered. On the flight over, I had watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Part of the movie takes place in Laketown, a collection of buildings built on stilts in the middle of a lake, and parts of Bamberg have the same feel.

A little later, we are taking the train to Rotenberg for more sightseeing and beer, with the emphasis on the latter. Stay tuned.