To Drive the Shadows Back — On Smoke and Beer
Fire is the primal element that wraps the cloak of warmth around us and transforms raw ingredients into a palatable foodstuff. It is an elemental force and, if we are to believe a French philosopher in the 1930s, was responsible for philosophy itself. Gaston Bachelard argued that long hours staring at a fire brought on a state of speculation; given the attraction of looking into the flames of a log fire in a cosy pub, he might just have had a point.
There is also no smoke without fire, that wispy, winsome trail of ethereal gases and soot that rises up from the flames and can choke and flavour in equal measures. Smoke is an autumn bonfire, its tang on the breeze evoking childhood; it is the melancholic scent that drifts on the evening air of wintery streets; it is also the extra element of taste in—what for me is one of the most fascinating styles of beer ever since I first drank it back in the 1990s—rauchbier, or smoked beer.
On rereading the mouth-watering chapter on fire and smoke in Michael Pollen’s magisterial Cooked, I began to wonder if when we drink and enjoy smoked beer perhaps a deep part of us is turning its back on the industrial revolution, and subconsciously giving two fingers up to modern brewing technology. Take a glass of the classic rauchbier, Schlenkerla Märzen. This beautiful beer gets its character from burning beechwood during part of the malting process.
““Using fire was the key technology which set apart early humans from wild animals.””
The brewery doesn’t have to do it but it does [Schlenkerla is a rarity in the modern brewing industry as it continues to malt its own grain for brewing]. For me, this ancient process creates a brutal, earthy and ferociously uncompromising flavour, redolent with the smoke and flame of battle amid the clash of arms. It is the eternal autumn of taste with its sticky smokiness, crisp bite and long, dry smoky finish. If Game of Thrones did beer this would be it.
“Using fire was the key technology which set apart early humans from wild animals,” Schlenkerla’s managing director Matthias Trum tells me by email. “Cultivation of grain later was the next big step in that evolution, and so was the planned preparation of food from grain (both bread and beer). Brewing beer was for the old Sumerians, something the Gods gave humanity in order to make them civilised, and set them apart from wild animals.”
“So—historically—there is even a certain religious aspect to brewing. Rauchbier brings all these major steps of our evolution together. By continuing the old form of malting and brewing Rauchbier, Schlenkerla can honour and preserve where we all have come from.”
Illustrations by James Albon
Back in spring 2018, I visited Bamberg and Schlenkerla’s home Brauerei Heller. Echoing Trum’s comments about the metaphysical nature of Schlenkerla’s brewing process, the brewery visit had the air of a pilgrimage. Inside the yard and the brewery, the aroma of smoke hung in the air like a company of ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings, while a tasting of the beers with a brewer took me on a journey through the various rich levels of smoked beer. Every beer it produces has its own character, with the 8% Double Bock, Eiche, being particularly luscious in its smokiness, coming from the use of oak in malting as opposed to beechwood.
Later at the Schlenkerla tavern, amongst the vaulted arches and the time-scrawled, brown wooden panelling, amidst a soundtrack of chatty, beery, slurping, masticating people and the warm fog of roast meat, I finally felt I had reached the heart of smoked beer.
Brauerei Spezial is the other Rauchbier producer in brewery-rich Bamberg, whose own take I have found too subtle for my palate, though others might delight in its delicacy. There is a definite smokiness in its full-bodied lagerbier, but for me it is lighter, allowing the citrus and floral notes of noble hops to shine through. During my trip, these variances between the two Bamberg smoke superstars (and other Rauchbier producers throughout Franconia such as Göller and Hummel) only increased the appetite and thirst to explore further the nature of smoke in beer.
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Back in the UK, while I might think about the two fingers to modern beer that rauchbier supposedly gives, I would hardly class Derbyshire’s Torrside and London’s Anspach & Hobday—both who have a penchant for smoke—as traditionalists. Their takes are very much part of the modern beer landscape, especially Torrside who, until the pandemic began, held an annual Smokefest.
““Smoke gives you an extra dimension.” ”
“Smoke gives you an extra dimension,” Torrside co-founder Chris Clough tells me. “All beer has a basic balance of malt sweetness and hop bitterness, and adding smoke brings in a distinctly different savoury element. You can get such a range of tastes, from the deep richness and umami in something like Schlenkerla's Urbock, the easy-going smoked ham/cheese flavour and aroma in a classic Rauchbier Märzen, to crisp super-dryness in a light pale like a Grodziskie and a phenolic hit to the back of the throat from something well-peated.”
Yet, with Clough’s delicious evocation of the nature of smoked beer and the range of beers to which it adds something, there is still a desire for smoke-free zones when it comes to beer. I have led tastings that have included Schlenkerla and received thumbs down for its assertive smokiness, even though some doubters admitted they liked kippers. Maybe in the UK, unlike the rural communities of Bavaria where the smoking of meats and cheeses is a natural part of the area’s gastronomy, people don’t have a reference apart from smoky bacon crisps and supermarket smoked fish.
“People are very comfortable with smoke when it comes to food,” Anspach & Hobday co-founder Paul Anspach says, “so why not drink? I think it can be a surprise to people, as outside of whisky, there just aren’t many instances where you come across a smoky drink. That surprise then leads people to make damaging associations to things such as ash-trays, and once your mind is on that path there is no coming back!”
“When you are drinking a smoked beer you really do feel like you are drinking a beer from the past. I may be sitting in my modern flat in Surrey Quays in 2021, but if I’m drinking a Rauchbier I’m transported back, and connected to the history of beer and brewing,” he adds.
Paul is right. With each smoky sip of a Rauchbier, I feel linked with the dawn of time and maybe even those nameless people staring into the flames trying to work out the meaning of life. Prometheus certainly knew what he was doing when he stole the art of fire from the gods and set humanity on a path that would eventually see me take a pilgrimage to Bamberg.
