Gimmicks sell. Sriracha, for example, is now barrel-aged; everything is now barrel-aged. It seemed a similar gimmick was afoot when a buddy handed us a dark pint and asked “Wanna bite of my ham sandwich?” We bit. It tasted like a campfire smells, plus some of the aforementioned ham, finished off with a mellow malty sweetness. This was a Rauchbier, literally a “smoked beer”, and it was one hell of a delicious oddity.
The strange flavor combination is not actually a parlor trick. Though relatively rare today, smoked beer has actually been around for about as long as beer has, some early brewers having dried their malt over an open flame and thus imparted smoky flavors. Ruddy-faced Germans kept the tradition alive even after modern technology removed the necessity of smoking malt, and the modern explosion of craft beers has breathed new life into the old flame and its pungent exhaust, too. Because their flavor profiles range from hearty to downright bacon-filled savoriness, Rauchbiers — especially smoked porters — are also the perfect winter beer, sipped alone or paired with charred meats. Crack one of these five in your living room in front of a roaring fire; if you don’t have a fireplace, it won’t be hard to imagine one.
Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock
Need a smoked beer with some history? Over 600 years of brewing ought to do the trick. Bamberg, Germany is the birthplace of the modern Rauchbier, and Aecht Schlenkerla is one of two foundational breweries in the town. They make an urbock, a märzen and weizen; we like the urbock, the darkest of the three. On the nose the lager is acrid, like the cold embers of a just-doused campfire (they smoke their malts with beechwood logs, by the way). Its taste is full of candied sugar and caramel malts, and after several sips the smokiness blends in to create a deep profile. It’s like a highly carbonated smoked ham. Pair it with spicy foods like Chinese or Thai takeout, or just drink it by itself and know you’re drinking one of the smoked beers.
