Top Ten Virginia Beers - 2024

Ah the final few days of July...

Back from the annual beach week in Florida, just a couple of weeks until the kids go back to school (how are they in the second grade already?), and Mrs V heads back to work soon too. All this means a couple of things, autumn is finally on its way, I have already seen plenty of Oktoberfest branded beers in the shops, and it is time to do my annual list of the top ten Virginian beers I have had in the past 12 months.

I say this every year, though I fear repetition has dulled people's ears, but this is a purely subjective list, and certainly not exhaustive. I don't get round to every brewery in Virginia each and every 12 months, and neither would I want to given the price of gas and pints these days. Being a subjective list, it is naturally heavy on bottom fermented beers, for the obvious reason that they are just the kind of beers I like to drink. Anyway, with all of that said, let's dive into the list...

1. Selvedge Brewing: Coat Czech - I will be completely open and transparent here, but I actually hemmed and hawed about making this beer my number one choice because I was worried about there being a very case of recency bias. Coat Czech has been my go to beer for the last couple of months while it has been available at Selvedge, whose new venue is also one of my favourite places to have a drink despite being the other side of Charlottesville. Coat Czech is a 12° světlý ležák, aka pale lager, that my first impression was that it reminded me on the magnificent 12° from Únětický pivovar back in Czechia. When I mentioned that to Josh, he let me know that the Únětický beer was indeed the inspiration, and boy did Selvedge nail it. Poured from the Lukr taps, with the pile of wet foam that entails, Coat Czech is absolutely redolent with Saaz hops, that lemony spicey bitterness is there, a beautiful meadowy hay character too, all backed up with the honeyed biscuits of decocted pilsner malt. I loved this beer and will be at a loss as to what to drink when I next head to Selvedge (actually that's hyperbole because I know what is being released on Wednesday and I am excited for it big time!), oh and one other reason this get's top spot for 2024? Mrs V loved it too and said it reminded her of drinking back in Prague, when she likes a beer, you know it is damned good beer.
2. SuperFly Brewing: Midnight Train - SuperFly Brewing in Charlottesville are a relatively new brewery, but one that is kicking it out of the park. Midnight Train is a London Porter that snuck into the final three for Fuggled Dark Beer of the Year back in December on the strength of a coupl eof pints just a few days before the post went live. It has become one of my go-to choices when I swing by, the taproom is conveniently located right opposite the homebrew store I use, as it hits every high note you would expect of a traditional London style porter, inky black, masses of coffee, unsweetened cocoa, and a biscuity base that makes it painfully moreish. It really was no surprise to me that it won the porter category at this year's Virginia Craft Brewers Cup, and also came in third in the best in show. Cracking beer.
3. Selvedge Brewing: Loden Vienna Lager - Before there was Coat Czech in my affections, there was Loden, which if I remember rightly was Selvedge's first beer brewed on their new system at the new location, and also the first double decocted lager they produced. Loden is a classic Vienna lager, and by classic I mean in the vein of the beers brewed by Anton Dreher in around 1840, using English malting technology to get a paler malt than had previously been regulalry available. Being brewed with 100% Vienna malt and hopped exclusively with Saaz, Loden was a stunning burnished copper, topped with several inches of firm white foam - another thing I love about Selvedge is their commitment to serving beer with plenty of foam, none of your all the way to the top of the glass, vaguest schmeer of scummy foam here thank you very much. Crusty toast and a delightfully spicy hop flavor mingled and merged to make this a beer I drank inordinate amounts of, and look forward to doing so again when it returns.
4. Tabol Brewing/Selvedge Brewing: Tabolcloth - the Franconian style vollbier that walked away with the overall Fuggled Beer of the Year for 2023, and a beer I drank a lot of when it was available late last summer and autumn. This was the first beer I had ever drunk, that I am aware of, that used the old Franconian yeast strain with the oh so sexy moniker, TUM-35. The beer itself was a lovely amber hue, with a distinctly rustic aroma and graininess that I could happily imagine drinking by the maß outside a country Gasthof, watching the world go by.
5. Wheatland Spring Brewing: Found Artifacts - Every January I take the month off the booze, however January 2024 was a little different as I was in the process at the time of researching and writing my upcoming book, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History". One weekend, my photographer collaborator and I were doing the rounds in Loudoun County in northern Virginia and looking at the map I realised that we would be a mile from Wheatland Spring by the time we finished visiting cideries. I knew at that moment that I would be taking an evening hiatus from Dry January to finally visit a brewery whose beers I have been enjoying for a few years now. Their Found Artifacts Pilsner was on tap and I while I had a couple of intermission pints and other beers, it was this that I kept coming back to, it is such a wonderful pale lager. What John and the folks at Wheatland Spring as a farm brewery is fantastic, and all their beers are excellent, but for me this is the best find of the lot.
6. Tabol Brewing: Kelheim - Another trip with Mark for the book, this time to Richmond, and being in the neighbourhood of a brewery I have a lot of time for. It was their collaboration with Selvedge called Tabolcloth, mentioned above, that really put Tabol brewing more on my radar, I'd had a couple of bits and pieces of theirs previously though. When we got to the tasting room, where pints were $3.50 at the time, I instinctively picked up a four pack of Kelheim, their lovely, malt forward märzen to take home and enjoy over the Yuletide holidays. As I described it in an Instagram post, it is simply an "on the button" strong pale lager that has no right to be that easy to drink
7. Devils Backbone Brewing: Morana Tmavé - It's been about 14 years now since I designed the recipe for Morana, back when the hair splitters who love to advocate for the rating of beer wouldn't even accept that Czech style dark lager is a seperate tradition from either Bavarian dunkel or schwarzbier. Given the veritable tsunami of Czech dark lagers in US craft brewing since Jason and I brewed the first batch of Morana, I like to think we won that particular argument. From my own research, Morana was the first authentic Czech dark lager brewed definitely in Virginia, and most likely in the United States at all. You're welcome. Since that first batch, Devils Backbone have been able to invest in open fermentation and horizontal lagering tanks that have taken this 14° beer, styled on Kout na Šumavě's of the same strength, to ever greater heights. Whenever it gets brewed I make sure to stock up and savour every single drop.
8. Caboose Brewing: Slam Dunkel - I work from home, and have done since before the Pandemic. However, every few months I head up to Northern Virginia for some in-person planning meetings with my team, and when I am up there I try to get to a decent brewery or two. Caboose Brewing's Tavern in Vienna is one of my preferred places to go after a day of product planning and schedule horse trading. The chill vibe, excellent beer, and good food just hit the spot for me. At one of my recentish trips up there, they had Slam Dunk, a Munich Dunkel on tap and I think it was the only beer I drank that night. Rich, toasty, and with a delicate chocolate note in the background, it was lovely. I'll be back up in NOVa soon, and while I don't expect it to be on, I do hope their Oktoberfest lives up to Slam Dunk's standard.
9. Iron Tree Brewing: Pepper Street Porter - From the first cider research trip with Mark, we stopped in at Iron Tree en route from the far south west of Virginia to Lexington, as Mark is friends with one of the owners. Now, I love a good dark beer, and that's exactly what Iron Tree have with this American style porter. It is richly malty, with lots of nutty, coffee, and choclately notes - sure that's what you expect with a dark beer, but the layers of flavour here work really nicely together so it actually almost tastes like you have used chocolate milk for your morning coffee, and if you have never done that, give it a whirl. Hopefully promotional events for the book will take us back down to that part of Virginia, and you can guarantee we'll be stopping in for more.
10. Black Narrows Brewing: How Bout It - This was the beer that opened my eyes to the use of corn, in this case malted heirloom Bloody Butcher corn. If you've been following Fuggled for a while, you'll know that I wrote about Black Narrows for Pellicle last year, and then a post earlier this year about Josh taking the decision to close his brewery on Chincoteague Island. Thankfully Josh has a new beer project on the go, Upweller Beer Company, and he posted the other day that he was brewing a fresh batch of the beer once known as How Bout It. This corn lager is a delight, with a wonderful nuttiness, kind of like the very centre of an almond, and completely lacking the slick oiliness I associate with pretty much every other lager made with corn.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Between Orange and Brown

BOAB is such a catchy little moniker isn't it? I almost changed it for ORB - orange, red, and brown - but having laid down a marker with BOAB, thus is shall remain. Let's look at the beers for this category though shall we?

Virginia

• Tabolcloth Vollbier - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville & Tabol Brewing, Richmond
• Franconian Kellerbier - Port City Brewing, Alexandria
• Alt Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford

Honorable mentions: O'Fest - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford; 80/- - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville; CU Later - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Dunkel - Caboose Brewing, Vienna.

Back in the dog days of summer and early days of autumn, I raced across Charlottesville to drop the twins off with Mrs V at her school so I could make to a taproom for a stichfaß of a new lager from a brewery I have come to love. The lager in question was inspired by the brewer's love of all things Franconian, and was a collaboration beer to boot. Obviously I am talking about Selvedge and Tabol's magnificent Tabolcloth vollbier, a 5% amber lager that simply reeked of Franconian rusticity, and I drank literally litres of it, both at Selvedge and at Tabol's taproom in Richmond. Beautiful to look at and a delight to drink.

Rest of the US

• Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Oktoberfest - Sierra Nevada, Chico, CA
• Augustin - Schilling Beer Co., Littleton, NH

Having one of your favourite beers validated as an outstanding example of a style by someone you respect deeply is incredibly satisfying. So when Evan Rail posted to his Instagram account that he thought Olde Mecklenburg Copper was better than many altbiers from Düsseldorf I may have smiled broadly. The fact that it is a core part of the Olde Meck lineup means that I am able to stock up every time I pass through Charlotte to or from South Carolina. One of the things I appreciate most about Copper is that unlike many other US brewed altbiers, it doesn't use crystal malt, and thus isn't a brown syrupy mess of a beer. Proper ingredients and methods are so important.

Rest of the World

• Polotmavé - Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Prague, CZ
• Arctic Pale Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, Akureyri, IS
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE

This one might come as a shock to some, but in a surprising turn of events, a top fermented beer beats out a pair of bottom fermented. Mrs V and I took the boys to Iceland this summer for 10 days and passing through the airport we took the advice to buy beer there on the way out rather than paying full price in a regular store. I picked up a 12 pack of Arctic Pale Ale mainly because I already knew it is good and a beer I will always happily drink. When we got to our accommodation and I broke out the cans to put into the fridge, I noticed the packaged on date was the week before we arrived in Iceland - seriously fresh beer. Wow, the hops in fresh Arctic Pale Ale absolutely pop and it took all my will power not to cane the 12 pack in a couple of sessions.

Three stellar beers from four breweries that never cease to impress me, each of them has earnt that special place in my world where I will try their more outlandish beers simply because I know they do the classics so damned well. As it is, I can only choose one beer to be the Fuggled BOAB of 2023, and that title goes to the Tabolcloth Vollbier collaboration brew from Selvedge Brewing and Tabol Brewing. Good beer in my world is the kind of brew that a single pint or half litre is simply not enough, and Tabolcloth was moreish beyond words. I hope that it becomes a regular feature at both breweries as it is a simply wonderful beer.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

Ah...the first day of two weeks of Yuletide holiday. Time to make mince pies, plan menus for the various festive days, and to wonder if I even bother buying beer given the amount of cider in the alcohol fridges. It is also time for the annual review of the year, which thanks to having managed to get out of the country a couple of times will include both a drinking den and a brewery of the year. As ever though, we start with pale beers, those that are yellow or golden, without veering too much into orange.

Each year I pick the top 3, plus any honorable mentions, in each category, from Virginia, the rest of the United States, and the rest of the world, culminating in an overall beer of the year for a given category. That said, let's crack on:

Virginia

• Kelheim Märzen - Tabol Brewing, Richmond
• Yourn Czech Lager - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford
• Batiste - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Found Artifacts - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford; Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; How Bout It - Black Narrows Brewing, Chincoteague.; Downright Pilsner - Port City Brewing, Alexandria.

This is always the hardest category to choose from as Virginia brewed pale beers, ok let's be honest, pale lagers, are my go to and so I drink far more of them than anything else. The winner though, and to be frank, choosing from among those three beers is a real challenge as I would happily only drink those beers all year if need be, is the beer that I having driven about 40 miles more than once for. Maybe it is his CEE heritage, maybe it is the well water that is basically an analogue for Plzeň, maybe it is decoction mashing, open fermentation, and extended horizontal lagering. Whatever it is, Jason Oliver at Devils Backbone simply knows how to knock it out of the park when making Czech style pale lagers, and Yourn, a 10° lager, was glorious. Simple as.

Rest of the USA

• Keller Pils - TRVE Brewing, Denver, CO
• Gold - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX
• Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC

Honorable mentions: Überholt - Jack's Abby Craft Lagers, Framingham, MA; Purge Under Pilsner - Savage Craft Brewing, West Columbia, SC; Helles - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Jakobus - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH.

I was sat in the winning brewery's tap room, escaping from the heat - being a child of the north Atlantic, I don't do great with hot weather, especially when there is the option of an air-conditioned tap room. I ordered the winning beer, sat at a long trestle style table, and watched as a single tremulous bubble wandered its merry way up the side of the Willibecher glass. I tweeted at the time something along the lines of "proper lager isn't fizzy", and this was a proper, proper lager. I fully expected to crush on Live Oak Pilz when I visited their beer garden and taproom out near Austin airport, but their German style pilsner, Gold, stole my heart, it was everything you could want from a Bavaria style pilsner, and a banger in every sense of the word.

Rest of the World

• Nr. 1 Bríó - Borg Brugghús, Reykjavik, IS
• Fabián 10° - Pivovar Hostomice, Hostomice, CZ
• Únětické Pivo 10° - Únětický Pivovar, Únětice, CZ

Honorable mentions: Tannenzäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, Grafenhausen-Rothaus, DE; Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, Akureyri, IS.

Damn this is hard. While I was in Prague in November, Evan told me that for the first time in well over a century, 12° has overtaken 10° as the most regularly drunk strength of pale lager. My best friend Chris, who I met in Prague many, many years ago, and I though are devotees of the desítka and thus I guess old school. And it is old school that is the only way I can think to separate the pair of desítky, and even then it is decision between an old school village beer hall and an old school urban pivnice. It all comes down to intangibles I guess, and in my mind Hostomice's 10° has a certain rusticity that really appeals to me - I wish there was a better way to explain that, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Three absolutely world beating beers make the final three for the Fuggled Pale Beer of the Year, and I guess it will come as a surprise to precisely nobody as to which beer walks away with the plaudits and absence of monetary prize. Pivovar Hostomice make, in my as ever unhumble opinion, the best beers that I have ever had in Czechia. If I ever decided to upsticks again and move my family back to Czechia, having a local boozer that sold their beer would be a major plus in deciding where to live. Unfussy, uncomplicated (please don't confuse complicated with complex), and so moreish that day drinking could happily lead into all night drinking, Fabián 10° is beer at its best, not just Czech pale lager at its best.

Märzen/Festbier Review

So far this year I have drunk at least 53 examples of lager made wiith Oktoberfest in mind. I say "at least" because there are a couple that I didn't subject to my rigorous scoring system, rather just got merrily blattered with friends and I didn't want to be rude.

I still have 13 examples of märzen and festbier in my various beer fridges, including a slew of Texans sent up by Ruvani, aka Amethyst Heels, so I hope to get round to drinking those and probably posting about them at some point later this month.

Rather than present a massive list of breweries, beers, and scores, I figured I'd use the general format of my annual "review" posts, where I highlight the top three beers in the following categories:

• Virginia
• Rest of USA
• Rest of the World (let's be honest it's just Germany in this case)

Out of those beers I will then select a winner in each category and eventually an overall "Fuggled Oktoberfest of the Year" award that has no monetary value, and probably a miniscule amount of shock value.

Let's get started here in Virginia then:

• Devils Backbone Brewing - 1872 Steinlifter
• Ballad Brewing - Oktoberfest
• Port City - Oktoberfest

It's probably not wildly surprising that Devils Backbone and Port City make it into this three given that I think they are two of the best lager brewers in Virginia, Ballad though was something of a surprise. I have enjoyed a few of Ballad's beers in recent year, most notably their Fast Mail mild ale - one of the few milds in Virginia that is a core beer, but I couldn't recall having a lager from them, it was a very pleasant surprise. Although I wasn't shocked by Devils Backbone making the finalists, the fact that it was their 1872 Steinlifter rather than O'Fest was interesting. Steinlifter is an old school 19th century style märzen where O'Fest is a modern, paler, festbier, and you won't find Steinlifter in any stores as it was a brewpub only beer. Port City's Oktoberfest is, in common with most of their beers, an excellent example of style and technique. It is not as heavily malty as some märzens that get made over here, but it is delightfully complex and moreish at the same time. However, the beer going forward to represent Virginia in the final three is Devils Backbone 1872 Steinlifter.

On then to the rest of the US, here we have:

• Von Trapp Brewing (VT) - Oktoberfest
• Bierstadt (CO) - Oktoberfest
• Jack's Abby (MA) - Copper Legend

The most  telling thing with these three is actually the names of some of the breweries that missed the cut, the likes of Olde Mecklenburg, Harpoon, Bell's, and TRVE Brewing were all up there in the running. Both Von Trapp and Jack's Abby are readily available in this part of Virginia, and when it comes to Vermont's finest I am always happy when I see the flash of blue that denotes their märzen. In the absence of Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest Amber Märzen, Von Trapp picked up the slack and became my go to beer for the season. I had the Bierstadt Oktoberfest when I was over in Denver last month, and in common with the other lagers I tried from them, whilst geeking out on the glorious brewing system, it was excellent, and thankfully not overwhelmingly malty. Jack's Abby have only recent bee available in Virginia, and so I am slowly making my way through their range, and again it was an excellent example of the older märzezn style, and eminently drinkable. However, Von Trapp takes the plaudits as the Best of the USA. mving on to the final three.

Germany...

• Rothaus - Eiszäpfle
• Ayinger - Oktober Fest Märzen
• Weihenstephaner Festbier

Yeah, yeah, I know, there is not a single official Oktoberfest beer in my list, but there is a reason for that, they are all too syrupy for my taste. Even though Eiszäpfle is a year round beer in Germany, it only makes its way to the US in the autumn, which you could argue is just plain cynical marketing, but when a beer is this tasty, who really cares? Ayinger, which is the current Fuggled Oktoberfest champion, is the single most hunted out beer at this time of year for me. Last year I managed to only get a single 4 pack, so I took no chances this year, buying and stashing a couple of 4 packs a week while it lasted. Decidedly old school in its thick, chewy maltiness, it is wonder beer regardless of which autumnal or winter month it is. Weihenstephaner Festbier is unrepentantly modern, pale, noticeably hoppy - got to love those noble hop grassy, lemony, and subtle spice notes - and it looks grand in a maß. For fear of being labelled boring, the Ayinger takes the plaudits here, and was actually the highest scoring beer of the 53 examples I had.

The three finalists all scored over 34 out of 40 in my ranking system, with Ayinger scoring 35, Devils Backbone 34, and Von Trapp also 34. Rather than just declare Ayinger the winner though, I wanted to think a little about the drinking experience a bit more. In terms of volume drunk, Von Trapp has been the most regular visitor to my fridge, followed by Ayinger, and then Devils Backbone - don't forget though that Steinlifter was a brewpub special, and thus I had that on draft there and a couple of crowlers that I brought home. Ultimately I think is comes down to which beer did I enjoy the most, and the winner therefore is Devils Backbone 1872 Steinlifter. It has all the malt complexity of the Ayinger, but was more drinkable, perhaps by virtue of being fresh from the serving tanks at the brewpub, but either way it was an absolute delight.

Dreich Delights

Dreich is perhaps my favourite Scots word, I can think of few words that more perfectly fit what it describes. Dreich means "bleak" or "dreary", and is most commonly used to refer to the weather, those grey days, awash with a dispiriting drizzle, where the clock seems to slow to a crawl, as the tick and the tock ring louder in your head. A dreich day is one where the clouds are a uniform mirk, without even the occasional white patch to give you a merest glimmer of hope that the rain will end. Although I grew up primarily in the Western Isles on Scotland's west coast, my folk are actually from the other coast, from the Fraserburgh area. When I think of dreich, I am reminded of a miserable stroll in Aberdeen as a teenager, the rain settling on my jacket and staying put, the clouds so heavy with moisture that even the city's famous granite took on an enhanced, lustreless, grey.

Saturday in central Virginia was dreich, gey dreich, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian drifted up the Shenandoah Valley. It was a day for comfort clothes, pots of tea, and whatever mindless shite the kids wanted to watch on the idiot box - I am starting to worry about their love of screens, but that's not the point of my post. I pondered lighting the first fire of the season, but the wind was whipping along at 20mph and I have an in built fear of a chimney fire. Into this revelry of gloom came a text message from Jason at Devils Backbone...

Alt Bier was on tap and wouldn't last the weekend, also on tap was Ein Kölsch, O'Fest, and a bevvy of other Germanic delights that Jason knows I am fan of. I hadn't known that the Alt Bier was on because the Devils Backbone website didn't have it on the beer list, I had seen nothing from them on Instagram or Twitter, and I don't do Untappd. Barely 15 minutes later Mrs V and I had bundled the twins into the car and were headed off on the near 50 mile drive to the original Devils Backbone brewpub, Basecamp, in Nelson County. The rain was incessant, the clouds pressing down, but the thought of an afternoon at Basecamp was lifting our spirits, well mine at least, Mrs V lost her voice last week so god knows what she actually thought. The kids also love a trip to Devils Backbone, when we told them we needed to get ready to go, the oldest one, Fin, ran to fridge, grabbed a bottle of O'Fest and proclaimed "we can drink this at Devils Backbone"...well, daddy can, soon enough Fin, soon enough.

Thankfully my theory about dreich weather and it's impact on the touring classes of American life held up and Basecamp wasn't wildly busy...sat in a booth, there could be only one beer to begin with.

Altbier is something of a rarity in the US, at least in this part of Virginia, an altbier that is made without the "benefit" of crystal malt even rarer - I have said this many times in various contexts, but crystal malt sweetness in Germanic style beer just tastes wrong. Assuming that Jason brewed this batch in the same way as the most recent handful, there are even fewer US altbiers being brewed with open fermentation and extended lagering in horizontal tanks. It is a beer that I love and would usually have stuck to for the duration of our stay, but it is the time of year for all things German, or at least Germanish, and I wanted to have O'Fest on tap - very, very nice it was too.

The Germanic theme was carried over on to the menu, wurst and schnitzel galore, including a dish called "Elk Jägerschnitzel" that sounded marvellous, so I ordered it, eschewing a potato based side and sticking with the cucumber salad as accompaniment. The schnitzel was topped with roasted mushrooms in a brown gravy like sauce, and if you have never eaten elk then hunt it out. It was as the schnitzel was being devoured that I looked around the brewpub that Mrs V and I have been frequenting since 2009 and it dawned on me just how much I love the place. It is irrelevant to me that the business is owned by Anheuser-Busch, Basecamp is pretty much as it has been all along, nothing much has changed. Sure it is bigger, and has more facilities, but sat in the booth it was evident that the heart and soul of Devils Backbone still beats there.

Feeling vaguely nostalgic, as much as one can do for a place that still exists and has barely changed, I had a half litre of an Oktoberfest themed beer that you won't see in the shops, 1872 Steinlifter. 1872 is touted as an old school märzen as opposed to the modern pale festbier that you would be served in Munich. O'Fest on the other hand is a modern Festbier, and in my opinion a damned excellent one. As we were leaving, I picked up a crowler of both the O'Fest and 1872 to do a side by side tasting, with a slightly heretical notion pottering around my head as I drove home listening to the gemütlichkeit that is Versengold's "Funkenflug" album...

 

Yes, that is a hurdy-gurdy. The world needs more hurdy-gurdy.

Come Sunday afternoon I had abandoned plans to taste the modern and ancient Oktoberfest lagers side by side, the dreich of Ian's remnants lingering on. I wanted to test my heretical theory that had been on my mind. 1872 reminded me distinctly of my favourite beer at this time of the year...Ayinger Oktober Fest-Märzen, and with a fair old stash in the fridge what better opportunity to compare them.

Having poured half a crowler's worth into my Chodovar mug, it was clear to me that the colour of 1872 was very much in the same ball park as Ayinger. The malt complexity likewise reminded me of Ayinger, with lots of crusty bread, crackers, and honey all layered on top of each other, finishing with a slightly spicy hop finish, think nutmeg and cinnamon. Where the two beers really parted way though was that Ayinger is heavier in the finish, with a wallopingly dense mouthfeel that 1872 doesn't have to such a degree. Here is my heresy then, 1872 is more drinkable, more maß-able you might say.

1872 is only available, to the best of my knowledge, at the Basecamp brewpub, so if you are in the area make a beeline for it, though keep in mind there is a music festival down there this weekend, so you'll need to get there before Friday or after Monday. If you are going to Hoopla and you see it on tap, have at it, there are few darker style märzens available in the US right now that are this good.

Come to the Schwarz Side

One of the reasons I had all the necessary dark lagers to do the dunkel-tmavé-schwarzbier triumvirate tasting in a previous post was because I have been stashing schwarzbiers since the end of October to do a distinctly schwarzbier tasting. My planned set of examples was complete when Mrs V and I headed back from South Carolina after Thanksgiving, picking up a couple of six packs of Olde Mecklenburg's Solar Eclipse that her cousin had put aside for me after one of his trips to Charlotte.

My collection of German style black lagers then was:

• Köstritzer Schwarzbier
• Schilling Brewing Feldberg
• Port City Brewing Schwarzbier
• Olde Mecklenburg Solar Eclipse
• Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier

For those of you playing along at home, you may recall that I did a small schwarzbier tasting with three of these beers back in May, Devils Backbone, Köstritzer, and Schilling, but given examples from another couple of my go-to breweries, a do over seemed appropriate. Let's dive on in...

Köstritzer Schwarzbier

• Sight - pitch black, dark brown edges, firm ivory foam, nice lacing
• Smell - roasty, caramelised sugar, dark toast, some spicy hops
• Taste - cold espresso, light cocoa, clean hop bite
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5

There is a reason this is a classic, perhaps even the ur-typ of the style. It is freaking delicious, smooth, balanced, really easy to drink, and just reliable in the way that all the best archetypes are. It is perhaps a tad thin in the finish, but I quibble.

Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier

• Sight - black, garnet highlights, solid ivory head
• Smell - rich coffee, toasty, generally roasty
• Taste - French roast coffee, sachertorte, clean hop bitterness
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 3/5

This beer has won multiple awards and for good reason. Sure it is a touch heavier than the Köstritzer, but it is just as smooth and drinkable. I have to admit that I go through times when this is a very regular part of my drinking, it just hits every note on the nail. Fun fact, my notes on this one are very close to when I took notes in May. Also, it makes an excellent řezané with Devils Backbone Gold Leaf.

Schilling Feldberg

• Sight - black, red highlights, tall ivory foam
• Smell - molasses, subtle coconut, toasty
• Taste - medium roast coffee, light molasses, dates
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 2.5/5

Another smooth bodied, tasty black lager. Schilling really have become something of a go-to brewery for this lager boy, when their beers actually make it to the central Virginia area. If there was one downer with Feldberg, and this may be a product of age, the finish felt slightly muddled, lacking a crisp snap that I usually associate with lager.

Port City Schwarzbier

• Sight - inky black, dark brown edges, thinnish off white foam
• Smell - well toasted bread, not burnt but well toasted, coffee hints, some treacle
• Taste - espresso, light molasses, spicy hops
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5

Port City make some of my favourite lagers, and their schwarzbier is definitely a good example of the style, if just a tad bit astringent in the finish. Speaking from pretty recent experience, it does make a fine beer round the firepit of an evening.

Olde Mecklenburg Solar Eclipse

• Sight - dark brown, garnet at edges, thin off white head
• Smell - light coffee, dark toast, spicy hops
• Taste - toasty, think märzen but with extra deep sweetness and toast, lots of Munich malt?
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5

I have to be honest, this one confused me from the get go as is poured so much paler than the others, I am not sure I would call it schwarz in any meaningful sense of the word. So confused was I that I checked out the BJCP style guidelines, which read:

Medium to very dark brown in color, often with deep ruby to garnet highlights, yet almost never truly black. Very clear. Large, persistent, tan-colored head.

Seemingly the colour is fine then, though every black lager I have had up until that point had been distinctly schwarz, as the GABF guidelines would expect, "dark brown to black". Even so, another cracking beer from the folks in Charlotte.

There we have it then, 5 excellent examples of one of Germany's most ancient beer styles. While I wasn't intending this tasting to rank the beers, there were two that stood out, Köstritzer and Devils Backbone. The others were all very good beers, but those two just had a little something more that appealed to me, and thankfully both are regularly available in this neck of the woods.

If I see more breweries making this style I will likely repeat this tasting and see if anything can match up to the original and the local hero.

Top Ten Virginian Beers - 2021

The end is nigh.

The end of July that is, which means several things. Schools will soon be back in session, already there are sightings of pumpkin ales in the aisles of the supermarket, and it is time for the annual list of beers that constitutes my top 10 Virginian beers of the last 12 months.

Not wanted ado further, let's leap into the list.

1. Devils Backbone - Czech Pale Lager (5.5%). The beer formerly known as Trukker Ur-Pils was relabeled as Czech Pale Lager. This batch also featured a couple of other changes from previous versions as the brewpub now has an open fermentor and horizontal lagering tanks. Jason also swapped out the usual Augustiner yeast for Weihenstephaner, and it made a difference, being softer, less crackery, but just as delightful a beer. Here was a beer that in my world would more than stand up to the very best pale lagers being brewed in Czechia, including Pivovar Hostomice and Únětický Pivovar, yes it really was that good.
2. Port City - Franconion Kellerbier (5.0%). Last year's top beer has been just as good this year and would have retained top dog status had Devils Backbone not brough out Czech Pale Lager. This year's version is wonderfully balanced, drinkable, and the perfect accompliment to sitting at the kitchen table working through the garden harvest, shelling peas and drinking Kellerbier makes for a very zen hour or so.
3. Port City - Helles (5.2%). Every summer I look forward to the release of Port City's superb Helles. This year I actually managed to find it on tap before seeing it on bottles in the shop. I sat at Kardinal Hall on a sunny afternoon and every mouthful was sheer bliss. As you would expect from a Port City beer, the Helles is excellently executed, the sweetness of the malt and the bitterness of the hops working in a delicate balance that makes it so damned drinkable. If I were to have a gripe it's that it doesn't comes in half litre cans and thus on a recent tubing trip we took a different brewery's helles...
4. Devils Backbone - Alt Bier (5.8%). For a few glorious weeks in early spring, this was my go to beer during several trips down to the original Devils Backbone brewpub. Again this is a beer that has gone up a level since the introduction of open fermentation and horizontal lagering at Devils Backbone. There is a deeper richness to the malt, a fuller mouthfeel as a result of less stressed yeast in the open fermentor, and the clean snappy finish just makes it a beer that needs only 4 or 5 mouthfuls before another is in order. I realise my beer tastes are in the minority, but goodness me I wish this were either a regular part of the lineup, or at least a seasonal that could be reliably on every spring.
5. Port City - German Pilsner (4.6%). Admit it, you're shocked it took this long to get a German style pilsner on the list. This is as close to a classic German style pilsner being brewed in Virginia as you can get, though only in August when it comes out as part of Port City's frankly superb Lager Series program. This particular pilsner is unfiltered and carbonately naturally so is a bit softer than some other versions, which I really enjoy, especially as the heat of Virginia's summer finally starts to break and the back deck becomes vaguely habitable again.
6. New Realm - Bavarian Prince Oktoberfest (6.3%). A new brewery on the list. New Realm are the brain child of legendary master of all things IPA, Mitch Steele. In Bavarian Prince they also boast the winner of last year's Fuggled Oktoberfest Champions League, which will likely make a return in a few weeks as the shelves fill up with festbier and märzen for the season. Bavarian Prince, while stronger than most beers I drink, is made with all German ingredients (always a good sign as caramel malts in German beer styles just taste wrong) and insanely easy to pour litre after litre down my throat. I am sure it will take quite some beer to knock it off it's perch this year.
7. Alewerks Brewing Company - Tavern Brown Ale (5.7%). There are a few weeks in this part of Virginia, usually around the September Equinox when it is overcast, the temperatures are dropping to a pleasant autumnal range, and it rains pretty often. Those few weeks, as reliably as Pavlov's dogs on hearing the ringing of a bell, are when I get the urge to drink brown ale, at cellar temperature, in my Sam Smith's pint glasses. When when urge comes, into the shopping trolley goes Alewerk's outstanding brown ale. If there is a break in the rain, I might even don the old tweed cap and sit outside and just watch the back yard get ever greener. Sweet toffee and subtle bitter chocolate notes, married to a distinct nuttiness, just seem to work perfectly on such days, this is brown ale as it should be in my world.
8. Devils Backbone - Schwartz Bier (5.1%). I love a good schwarzbier, and there are few on the planet, never mind just in Virginia, that can top the glories of Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier. There are very very good reasons this has won a gold medal at the World Beer Cup, it is a spanking combination of fresh toast with nutella and beautifully floral noble hops, finishing clean, clean, clean. It is simply a delight.
9. New Realm - Euphonia Pilsner (5.0%). Firstly, I have a confession to make. I was surprised to see this win the Virginia Beer Cup in 2019, and I wasn't wildly impressed when I first tried it, but I came back to it, and liked it more. So I came back to it and liked it even more. Now I like it quite a bit to be honest as it showcases the fact that you don't need to use the latest, greatest trendy New World hops to have a beer loaded with wonderful hop flavour and aroma.
10. Port City - Rauch Märzen (5.5%). Ah rauchbier, a beer style I love, though preferably when we are talking walloping great doses of rauch rather than weedy "hints of bacon". When I first poured Port City's autumnal offering in my glass I was reminded of the gorgeous Märzen at Spezial in Bamberg, and what a lovely drop of beer it is too. The smoke is very much the heart and soul of the beer, but this is no fire pit. Clean, medium bodied, and with a lingering dryness in the finish that makes me want more, I am sure it will take up plenty of fridge space again this year.

For the first time this year I have decided to hand out a few honorable mentions too:

• Basic City Brewing - Our Daily Pils (4.7%)
• Alewerks Brewing Company - Protocol Porter (5.6%)
• Champion Brewing - Gordonsville Lager (3.8%)

I say this every year, and there is no need to change, this is an entirely subjective list based on my own drinking since the beginning of August 2020, which explains why is it so bottom fermented heavy, I am a lager drinker more than anything else. If you have a Virginia brewed beer that you think is so existentially magnificent I should hunt it out, let me know in the comments.

Feel the Schwarz

I love doing a comparative tasting. I find that taking a selection of beers from a range of breweries really helps me calibrate my expectations of a given style. Given that part of the aim of a comparative tasting for me is to educate, or often re-educate, my palate on a given a style, I often make sure to have an archetype of the style being tasted in the mix.

A style that I have been keen to do such a tasting for is that Thuringian speciality, bratwurst, no wait sorry, I meant schwarzbier...though schwarzbier and bratwurst could easily be a weekend lunch or dinner.

The archetypal schwarzbier is of course from Köstritzer, and while I have regularly seen it on tap in my local area, only recently has it started turning up in packs of four half litre cans. At the same time, my Schilling Beer Company kick shows no sign of abating, and their Feldberg happened to be on the shelves of Beer Run when I popped in on Friday afternoon. No schwarzbier tasting would be complete without two time World Beer Cup medalist (one gold, one bronze) Schwartz Bier from Devils Backbone.

Having considered doing the tasting blind and ranking the three beers in order of preference, I opted just to drink them sequentially, starting in Germany...

Köstritzer Schwarzbier

• Sight: dark brown, garnet edged, half inch tan head with decent retention
• Smell: roasty, mostly well toasted bread, some dark caramel, slightly woody, earthy hops
• Taste: again toast, not quite burnt toast, but not far off, some coffee, unsweetened cocoa
• Sweet: 2/5
• Bitter: 3/5

A good start to the tasting. While it is clearly a "big brewery" product, Köstritzer being part of the Bitburger empire, it is a big German brewery, which usually means the beer will at least be clean, technically proficient, and well made. It might be just a little thin and marginally one-dimensional, but would I drink it happily every day? Why, yes, yes I would.

Schilling Beer Co. Feldberg

• Sight: dark mahogany, brown highlights, ivory head, good retention
• Smell: earthy/oaky upfront, milk chocolate, grassy and floral hop aroma
• Taste: rich chocolate, earthy, petrichor, traces of coffee
• Sweet: 3/5
• Taste: 3/5

The Schilling love in continues! This is one nicely balanced beer, rich without being overwhelming, there is something of a coconut character floating about that made me think of Bounty bars. The fuller mouthfeel and more medium body help to make this a more complex, and satisfying, beer.

Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier

• Sight: near black, garnet edges, half inch light brown head, good retention
• Smell: deeply bready, some cola, chocolate cake, floral hops
• Taste: very well toasted bread, espresso, light cocoa
• Sweet: 2.5/5
• Bitter: 3/5

There is a reason this beer has a gold medal from the World Beer Cup for the schwarzbier style, it is a damned fantastic beer. Supremely balanced, the body is somewhere between Köstritzer and Schilling, and the finish is long and clean. Beautiful, simply beautiful.

As I said , the aim of this tasting was not to pick out a winner, but rather to calibrate my palate as well as take the opportunity to see where Schilling would stand in relation to the archetype and one of the world's best iterations of the style. Very handily is the answer to that particular question. However, at $7 for a couple of litres of good beer, it is difficult to look past Köstritzer, though it is great to finally have options when it comes to beer to drink with bratwurst...

In Praise of the Brewery Steve Built

I learnt this morning through social media that Devils Backbone founder Steve Crandall had died. Now, I didn't know Steve particularly well, having only met him a couple of times, but if you have been a regular on Fuggled for any length of time you will know just how much the brewery he founded means to me. I do count several Devils Backbone folks as friends, and knowing the strong family ethos that permeates the company, I know they are hurting right now.

If memory serves, the genesis of Devils Backbone was Steve, and his wife Heidi, wanting to create something akin to an alpine gasthaus in a part of Virginia that at the time was better known for its wine than its beer. The first time Mrs V and I went down to Roseland I remember the joy of seeing such a beautiful brewpub in some of the finest surroundings I have ever seen. The original building, which is still the beating heart of a much increased venue - they have a distillery, campgrounds, outdoor bar, and probably more stuff since I was last there - was built largely from reclaimed materials. My personal favourite "feature", for want of a better word, is the solid wooden flooring, it is just beautiful.

Over the years that followed, Devils Backbone became something of a regular haunt, indeed at one point I remarked to Mrs V that it was the only local brewery that we had taken all of our visitors too. A fact that is still true, whenever friends come to visit us for the first time, the hour long drive to Devils Backbone for beer and a feed is de rigeur.

I don't believe it would be an understatement that the Virginia beer scene would be infinitely poorer without the work of Steve Crandall and Devils Backbone. They were instrumental in the founding of organisations like the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild, as well as the Virginia Craft Beer Cup, which they hosted for the first few years, and won 3 years in a row.

In the 12 years I have lived in Virginia, Devils Backbone have been a staple of my drinking life, and the brewery about which I have posted most on Fuggled. As such, I am incredibly grateful that Steve followed his vision to create a place to drink world class beer in one of the most beautiful parts of Virginia. With that in mind, I will be raising a glass or two of Vienna Lager in his memory.

Old Friends: Devils Backbone Gold Leaf

I spent last weekend camping at the Westmoreland State Park, on the banks of the River Potomac, with my family and our good friends. Whenever we go camping, having a cooler full of beer is a pre-requisite as once all our children are in bed, we stoke the campfire, and enjoy a good drink.

As I was working, it was up to Mrs V to get to the shops for supplies, including at least part of the beer for the weekend. Not wanting to burden her with multiple trips to various shops with the twins in tow, I was more than happy for her to just get a 15 can pack of something, and the first beer that popped into my mind was Devils Backbone Gold Leaf.

Gold Leaf is kind of difficult at times to pin down in terms of style. Sure it is as pale as a German pilsner, but only weighs in at 4.5% abv and is relatively unbitter with 21 IBUs. Sure you could call it a helles, though you would be more in the ballpark of Andechs Vollbier Helles than say Spaten's.

Having had the 15 pack on ice for the best part of the day, it finally came time to have a beer. The kids were suitably knackered from running around and relatively quietly eating their dinner, so pssst went a can and without taking notes or bothering with a glass (the picture is from an old post) we tucked in...

It is quite often that you see people talking about how the context of a beer is important, usually when drinking some mega-swill from a frosted glass on the beach in Greece, but Gold Leaf hit the spot perfectly. Yes, it is a somewhat subtle beer, but those 21 IBUs include judicious amounts of Saaz and Tettnang, giving the beer a lovely floral taste that always makes me think of alpine meadows, replete with all singing all dancing Teutonic maidens in dirndls. 

There is enough heft in the malt side of things to keep it from being watery, and that just aids the refreshment. It took about 3 mouthfuls to polish off the can, and without thinking pssst went another one, and so on, and so on until the 15 were gone, the embers of the campfire were beyond smooring, and sleep beckoned.

An inspired choice then, so huzzah for old friends like Gold Leaf!

Visiting the Devil to Worship a Goddess

Mrs V and I went to the pub on Saturday.

Those words seem so unremarkable in the normal flow of things, but with life the way it is at the moment, it is quite staggering how poignant they are. I was inordinately excited to do something so banal as going for a feed and a drink with my wife.

Said pub was the Devils Backbone Basecamp brewpub about an hour's drive from where we live, and there was an ulterior motive, Morana was on finally on tap. According to the brewmaster, it was the best batch of the 5 we have done. It was also the first batch that included open fermentation and horizontal lagering as part of the process.

A while back, I wrote about what it would take to get me back to the pub and my thinking then was that would have to be a vaccine or reliable treatment. Thinking a little bit deeper, I had made the assumption that going back to the pub was within the context of business as normal where you pick a venue, rock on up when you feel like it, and deal with whatever is going on at the time. I had failed to consider the possibility of reduced capacity opening.

Here in Virginia we have just entered "phase 2" of the re-opening plan, which for pubs means 50% capacity, no more than 10 people at a table, and tables at least 6 feet apart, and no sitting at the bar itself, as well as various best practices and recommendations. One thing that Devils Backbone are doing which gave me the confidence to arrange a visit is that they are operating on a reservation only basis, and they have posted a full list of their practices on their website, including mandatory masks when not sat at the table.

With our bespoke, Mrs V made, masks on faces, we arrived at Devils Backbone and it was obvious from the get go that here was a process that had been thoroughly thought through and was functioning well. The major benefit of of reservations only is that there are no groups of people loitering while hoping for a table to to open up. Once we were seated we were told that there was a 90 minute limit to our reservation and that menus were available through a QR code on the table (which meant I had to download a reader app as my phone is a bit old).

Both Mrs V and I were seriously impressed with our trip to the Basecamp, and I think the reservations thing is going to be the deciding factor for any future trips to pubs. Pretty much everything was done in such a way as to minimise physical contact between patrons and staff, all food and drink was served in one time use containers, and staff wore masks all the time. If there was one thing that wasn't quite working it was the single occupancy status of the toilets, with nobody overseeing that, groups of people ignored the signs on the doors and went in together.

Anyway, the beer, that is after all why we were there...

Jason was on the money in telling me that it is the best batch yet. Goodness me it is a delicious brew, sure I am biased, but I honestly think Morana would stand up to and tmavé being brewed in Czechia. Reviewing notes on previous batches, this one has a silkier mouthfeel and a slightly fuller body. All the lovely deep malty sweetness of Munich malt is there, and the unsweetened cocoa of the Carafa too, in amongst it all is the spicy character of Saaz, not the star for sure, but not a wallflower either.

Admittedly the beer doesn't look its best in a single use plastic pot, so here it is as Perun intended, in a tuplák glass...

Fantastic beer, superb, safe setup for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, while still being able to enjoy a pint of one of my favourite beers in the world, and all at a place that Mrs V and I have loved ever since we came to this part of Virginia.

I know there are some people out there who still hold a grudge against Devils Backbone for being part of the AB-InBev universe, but at the end of the day that is their problem. I said it when the deal was first announced that as long as the beer remained good, the people running the show still ran the show, and the overall ethos of Devils Backbone didn't change, then I wasn't going to be a dummy spitter. I still haven't spat my dummy, see no reason on the horizon to do so, and with their superb handling of opening up in a safe manner, I can only say I love them more than ever.

So, if you are in the area, get yourself a reservation, another benefit was how easy that process was on their website, and go enjoy some beers in the sun.

Because We Can

Saturday was one of my favourite kind of days, a brewday with one of my local breweries.

In this case I was down at the Devils Backbone Basecamp once more. The plan, to brew Morana for the fifth time. Morana is, as a quick recap, a 14° tmavé speciální, or for the non-Czech speakers a 14° dark special lager, modeled on the sadly now departed Kout na Šumavě dark lager of the same strength.

From the very first time we brewed Morana, back in 2010, it has been double decocted as a nod to the traditional brewing practices of central Europe. It has also always undergone a long period of lagering, about 45 days. It has always used floor malted Bohemian pilsner malt, as well as CaraBohemian, Dark Munich, and de-bittered Carafa II, and it has always been hopped exclusively with Saaz hops. For this most recent brew none of these things have changed. At the end of the slightly longer than many a brewday, decoction does that, we had an on the nail wort that is going to make a simply fantastic beer.

From here on in though, Morana is in uncharted territory. You see, Devils Backbone have recently invested in some fun brewing equipment that we hope will bring Morana, a beer described in Jeff Alworth's Beer Bible as "the best New World effort to make an Old World beer", closer to her Old World antecedents.

Where in years past Morana would have undergone fermentation in a cylindrical conical tank, this time she is being fermented in Devils Backbone's new open fermenter, indeed she is the first lager to do so. As ever when Jason Oliver and I get together I learn shit tons of fun stuff about brewing, and naturally I asked what difference, if any, an open fermenter would make. Apparently the difference is less in the open nature of the vessel than it is in the geometry of it, being broader and shallower than a CCT. If I understand what Jason told me correctly, the CO2 generated by the yeast has a larger area in which to bubble to the surface, raising the yeast as it goes. This results is a fermentation with less circulation in the vessel, resulting in a more leisurely process, and thus the yeast is less stressed than it would be in the CCT. Again, assuming I understood correctly, this will impact the body and mouthfeel of the beer, making it even more luxuriant than previous iterations.

Having fermented for the requisite length of time, and once it is with about 1.5° Plato of target gravity, it will be moved over to a CCT to finish the fermentation with the CO2 valve firmly shut. With the natural carbonation achieved, it will be pumped over to another new toy that Jason gets to play with, one of the horizontal lagering tanks. There she will sit for 45 days at near freezing, and when the time comes to keg her up and drink, she will not be filtered.

During the brewday, Jason treated me to a couple of samples of German style beers sitting in the horizontal tanks. Currently lagering and soon to be on tap at Basecamp are Ein Kölsch and Alt Bier, no prizes for guessing the styles based on the names. Whenever they have been on tap in the past, Mrs V and I have made a point of getting to the brewpub for a few jars and to fill several growlers, based on the samples taken from the zwickel, we'll definitely be heading down in the not too distant future.

I remember once Jason being asked for an article in some brewing magazine about why he does decoction mashes for his lagers, to which he responded "because I can". What better reason to decoct, open ferment, and lager horizontally a Czech style tmavé for authenticity than simply that, because we can?

Fuggled Review of the Year - Dark

On third day of Christmas, we move on to the undeniably dark beers of the world, porter, stout, dunkel, tmavé, et al, including some brown ales simply because you can only see though them by holding them up to the light, ah the delights of capricious whimsy. Here are the runners and riders for today.

Virginia

• Porter - Port City Brewing
• No Veto Brown - Three Notch'd Brewing
• Schwartzbier - Devils Backbone

Honorable mentions:

Britchin' Brown - Stable Craft Brewing;

USA

• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, VT
• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Narwahl 2018 - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC

Honorable mentions:

Dunkel - Hofbräuhaus Cleveland, OH; Porter - Sierra Nevada, CA/NC; Trösten - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Rest of World

• Altbairisch Dunkel - Brauerei Ayinger, DE
• Märzen - Schlenkerla, DE
• Fabián 14° tmavé - Pivovar Hostomice

Honorable mentions:

Oatmeal Stout - Samuel Smiths, England; Black - Belhaven Brewery, Scotland; Urbock - Schlenkerla, DE

Some absolutely glorious beers there, and that is just with the honorable mentions, several of which came very close to breaking into the top three in each regional category. As a devotee of the dark beer arts, I could happily drink just the honorable mentions and be a happy camper, imagine then the ecstasy of only being able to drink the top three. Cutting 9 down to an ultimate three then was insanely difficult as there have been plenty of occasions where I have preferred, for example, Devils Backbone Schwartzbier over Port City Porter, it's so often a question of context.

• Virginia - Porter, Port City Brewing
• USA - Dunkel, Von Trapp Brewing
• Rest of World - Märzen, Schlenkerla

Carrying on the theme of context, it is that factor that decided the winner of the Fuggled Dark Beer of 2019. Drinking a legendary beer in a legendary brewpub in a legendary beer town just cannot be beaten, and so obviously the winner is Schelnkerla Märzen. As I mentioned in my post about drinking in Bamberg, I have loved rauchbier since I first have bottled Schlenkerla in Prague, and I drink a couple of litres of it every month still to this day, so having it on tap was a nigh on religious moment. I didn't expect though for the divine itself to be even more divine, but it was, and I savoured every drop of that holy communion.

Fuggled Review of the Year - Amber, Red, and Brown

On this Boxing Day, or St Stephen's Day if you insist, we move up in the colour charts to the rather broad notion of amber, red, and brown beers, which here I am defining as anything that you can actually see through without being held up to the light. With no further ados being necessary, let's jump straight on in.

Virginia

• Vienna Lager - Devils Backbone Brewing
• Satan's Pony - South Street Brewery
• Hydraulion Irish Red Ale - Three Notch'd Brewing

Honorable mentions:

Fast Mild - Ballad Brewing; Oktoberfest - Port City Brewing

USA

• Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Oktoberfest - Von Trapp Brewing, VT
• Bigfoot 2019 - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC

Honorable mentions:

Bauern Bock - Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, NC; Troeganator - Tröegs Brewing, PA

Rest of World

• David's Not So Bitter - Spey Valley Brewery, Scotland
• Lager - Brauerei Spezial, DE
• I.P.A. - Isle of Skye Brewing, Scotland

Honorable mentions:

O'Hara's Red - Carlow Brewing, IE; Oktoberfest-Märzen - Brauerei Ayinger, DE

Bringing the list of amber, red, and brown beers down to just three was actually pretty simple as in each regional category there was a standout beer across the year, so kind gentlefolk I give you the final three...

• Virginia - Satan's Pony, South Street Brewery
• USA - Copper, Olde Mecklenburg Brewing
• Rest of World - Lager, Brauerei Spezial

Picking just one though is much harder, however there is one that achieved something special this year. I am a big fan of rauchbier, Schenkerla in particular, and so when I was sat in a side room at the Brauerei Spezial in Bamberg on my second, or possibly third, half litre of Spezial Lager it dawned on my that this would be my local and my tipple if I lived there. Such a lovely beer, and I am sure the location helps, but it was complex enough to be interesting, moreish enough to sit and enjoy several of, and so damned well made that I could find no fault in it. As such, it is worthy to be declared the Fuggled Amber, Red, and Brown Beer of 2019.

The Golden Leaves of Vienna

Sadly this is not an Evan Railesque travelogue of drinking eponymous lager in the capital of modern Austria. Though when the boys are a bit more grown up a tour of the drinking cultures of central Europe sounds like a grand plan, after all them turning 18 and me 60 coincide quite nicely, and in winter as well so a tour of the Christmas markets could be fun. Anyway, I digress.

As you well know, dear regular reader, I am a big fan of Devils Backbone Brewing just down the road from us here in central Virginia. They were one of the first breweries we visited after moving here from the Czech Republic (sorry, but bollocks to Czechia) and have been a constant, and consistent source of lager beers to keep the lagerboys (and girls) amongst us happy. Of course I should also mention that Jason at Devils Backbone has been kind/crazy enough to brew a couple of my beer recipes at the brewpub.

Unlike many a craft brewery, Devils Backbone's flagship beers are lagers, the trailblazing Vienna Lager and the one time bestseller at the brewpub Gold Leaf. Between them they have picked up 13 gongs at various competitions, including the World Beer Cup. For a long time though if you wanted some Gold Leaf you had to go to the brewpub, which is no great travail, but the days of an hour's drive for a couple of pints are gone for the time being, twins eh? Those days though are over for a reason other than parenthood, Devils Backbone now package Gold Leaf.

Gold Leaf, described on the can as a "Golden Lager", is very much in the tradition of central European every day beer, which given Gold Leaf's nicely modest 4.5% abv makes it a grand session beer. I imagine the starting gravity is around 11° Plato - I can't remember who told me this but if you take the ABV and times it by 2.5 then you have an approximation of the starting gravity. Made with 4 different malts, and 3 hop varieties, including 2 of my favourites (Tettnang and Saaz), to give you 21 IBUs, it is a very easy beer to drink, and that my friend is it's charm.

No doubt I sound like something of a scratched record on this, but I have no time for the vast majority of silly shit beers, you know the kind of thing, porter with peanut butter, IPA with breakfast cereal, gose with fruit, anything you care to mention with vanilla. Gold Leaf is the kind of beer I love to drink, simple, classic, flavourful without being challenging, refreshing, and ideal for sitting on the front porch on a Sunday afternoon. Best of all right now, it is available in our local Wegmans as a 15 pack of cans for $15, you really can't beat that.

Unless of course you want something a little stronger, then get a 15 can pack of Vienna Lager for the same price and pour three into your 1 litre maß....