Ben, doubling up on the smokiness

“Are you one of those vegetarians that likes bacon?” I get this question a lot, and no, I am not, and I remind you that those “vegetarians” are not real. However, I do go a bit wobbly in the knees when a slice of smoked gouda is waved beneath my nose. (This does not happen nearly as often as I wish it did.) Smoke is delicious. Fires in the hearth, late summer bonfires, my fiancé’s breath… So it is no surprise that I find rauchbier, or smoke beer, delectable.

Rauchbier is a German style of beer created by drying green malts over an open fire of beech wood, imbuing them with a thick smokiness similar to what you find in smoked meats and cheeses. Beer Advocate reminds us not to confuse this with smoke beer, which uses peat smoked malt. The taste of rauchbier is bold and not for the faint of heart. It’s big and assertive, like you always wished you were. This is an acquired taste that demands commitment to each glass. It tastes like a beer hall with massive, hand-hewn benches. It tastes like the dark chairs and old books of your English professor’s den. And okay, maybe it tastes a little like bacon.

Ben takes the first sip of our Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, Original Schlenkerla Rauchbier. “Whoa. This tastes like a fierce winter night at your parent’s house.” He really says that, and it does. It tastes like that color of light. The warmth of inside when outside’s cold. The Schlenkerla brewery in Bamberg must be a smoky oasis through the German winter. People making their insides warm while their outsides shiver.

My first sip brings back every fall evening I ever spent growing up in Ohio. The smell of burning leaves mixed with the smell of earth from the torn up football field. Outside tonight, the wind is picking up, bringing with it a chill and the sound of dry leaves on the trees. Another sip? Yes, thank you.