Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Having meandered through the shades of ochre that makes up the spectrum from orange to brown, we move into the properly dark beer category. Let us then descend into the darkness...

Virginia

• Sláinte - Three Notch'd Brewing, Charlottesville
• Spire City - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford
• London Porter - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Break Out Your Wellies - Selvedge Brewing Company; Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing, Roseland; Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria.

If you lingered around Fuggled for any reasonable length of time, you will no doubt have seen me comment about how Guinness was my first legal beer, on my 1th birthday at the Dark Island Hotel back home on Benbecula. Irish style dry stouts have long been one of my favourite styles, especially when watching the rugby - which this year included the World Cup, in which Scotland got the group from hell (seriously, Ireland AND South Africa in our group). Anyway, Derek, one of the owners of Three Notch'd is from Ireland, and a fellow rugby fan, all round good bloke, and randomly meeting him in a pub back in 2012 still counts as one of my favourite things since living in Charlottesville. So when we met at Three Notch'd to watch Scotland lose heroically to an excellent Ireland side in a magnificent game of running rugby, I was thrilled to see a 4.2% dry stout on tap, and once I had let it warm up to the proper temperature it was magnificent, I might even dare to say on a par with O'Hara's...

Rest of the US

• Schwarz - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT
• Karlův 13° - Schilling Beer Co., Littleton, NH
• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT

An example of each of the major dark lager styles makes up the final three from the US in the dark beer category, dunkel, tmavé, schwarzbier. But the winner is, in my mind at least, clear. Von Trapp are one of my go-to breweries in general, and when they brought out a schwarzbier as a special release way back in February I was a happy camper. I have long been a fan of the style in general, I prefer the roastiness and dry finish of a schwarzbier to the sweeter finish of a dunkel or the more classic iterations of tmavé. Von Trapp's Schwarz is a little stronger than the Köstritzer, the extra body being very welcome. I hope they release it again soon.

Rest of the World

• 14° Tmavý - Pivovar Hostomice, Hostomice, CZ
• Antidepressant Autumn Dark Lager - Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Prague, CZ
• Svijanská Kněžna - Pivovar Svijany, Svijany, CZ

A clean sweep for Czech breweries and each of these beers was had with my best friends whilst wandering around Prague in November on an extended birthday shindig. The winner though is the one that I was most excited to see on tap, even though it wasn't listed on the menu when we arrived, is Strahov's lovely Autumn Dark Lager, one of the inspirations for the tmavě I designed for Devils Backbone back in 2010, called Morana. Lots of toasty bread, a subtle bitter cocoa note, and a nice sharp hoppy bite to snap everything back to attention makes this a far too easy to drink beer, and had we not had plans to meet up with friends later that day, I would happily have sat in the brewpub at Strahov and drunk it all afternoon and evening.

Friends and dark beers seems to have been a theme this year, indeed just yesterday I met up with a couple of friends here in Central Virginia, went to watch the Liverpool vs Arsenal match, and had the London Porter from Superfly Brewing mentioned above. The winner also ties in with a sporting event, in this case watching Ireland beat Scotland in the rugby world cup back in the autumn, Three Notch'd Brewing's Sláinte Irish style stout. A fantastic version of one of my go-to styles, and one that I wish were a regular part of the Three Notch'd lineup, especially if there is rugby to watch at the same time.

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 Beer of the Year

So....a quick recap of the three finalists for the Fuggled Beer of the Year, a prize that comes with little to no monetary value, and probably not much more in the way of reputational enhancement. However, as the kids these days say....whatevs.

• Pale - Malý 8°, Schilling Beer Co, Littleton, NH
• Between Orange and Brown - Copper Altbier, Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Dark - Dark Starr Stout, Starr Hill Brewing, Crozet, VA

Schilling's pale lagers are something of a staple in my drinking life, as much as their distributor in central Virginia actually getting them to the Charlottesville area allows that is. It would have been no surprise had Alexandr or Palmovka taken the plaudits as the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2022, but for the trip that I referenced in the pale beer review. While many use Spring Break as an opportunity to flee for warmer climes, Mrs V and I went up to Rhode Island to see friends. As we were in the general area, we looked at the weather forecast and decided to take a day trip on the one day it was going to piss down in Rhode Island but be beautifully sunny in Littleton, New Hampshire, a four hour drive away. Obviously the main purpose of the trip was to go to the Schilling brewpub and tap room, but to our delight Littleton is a  charming little town, nestled in the White Mountains, and we were both instantly entranced. Had we not gone to the tap room in the afternoon, having had lunch in the brewpub earlier in the day, I don't thing I would have had the Malý, an 8° Czech style pale lager that took my breath away it was so perfect. Osmička, as an 8° beer is known colloquially in Czech, is a rare beast even in Czechia. This 3.1 abv beer really highlighted for me why decoction mashing is something to be treasured, as a single infusion equivalent would have lacked the Maillard reactions of decoction to give it a subtle butterscotch character as well as a fuller body. I don't recall how many half litres were poured from the Lukr tap, but each one was savoured, and a case came back to Virginia with us. Both Mrs V and I enjoyed cans most weekends thereafter until it was all gone, and then we were sad...

Another tale of driving. Whenever Mrs V and I head down to South Carolina to visit in-laws we make a point of breaking the journey at the Olde Mecklenburg Brewing biergarten, just off I-77 in Charlotte. It has become an oasis as we stop for an hour or so to have a jar, usually of Captain Jack Pilsner admittedly, a feed, and the boys can stretch their limbs in the climbing area. While Captain Jack is the beer I drink when we are there, it is Olde Meck's altbier, Copper, that is my favourite from Charlotte's finest brewery. Unlike many an altbier made in the US, Olde Mecklenburg use the correct ingredients, especially when it comes to malts. An altbier made with US or UK style crystal malts just tastes plain wrong. Copper reminds me so much Schumacher Alt from Düsseldorf that when I do eventually get over to Germany again, I want to take a few cans of it with me to compare with the originals. Of the many things I love about Olde Meck is their German style growler program, whereby you buy a initial litre bottle of beer and then swap the empty for a full one, I have 5 such growlers. Whether we are driving to or from Columbia, I try to get at least 3 of the 5 with Copper in them - a couple of half litres is the perfect end to the drive.

This year I became an American citizen, and there is a pleasing circularity in the fact that the brewery which was my first ever job in the US brought back a beer that for the duration of my employment at Starr Hill was by far and away my favourite. If you've followed Fuggled for a while, you've likely read how my first legal beer was a pint of Guinness at the Dark Island Hotel back home in the Outer Hebrides. Dark Starr Stout is, however, probably the best dry style stout I have ever had, and I was heartbroken when it was originally discontinued. You can imagine then my glee at it making a return earlier this year, and once I had let it get up to a reasonable temperature, drinking it was like having an Anton Ego moment. When I worked at the original Starr Hill tasting room in Crozet, when it just a bar next to the canning line, we did a set 6 sample flight, and I always left the Dark Starr to last,, pouring it out at the same time as the 4th sample so it could warm up a bit. It became a very common occurrence for people who started out saying they didn't like stout once they tried Dark Starr at the proper temperature to discover its delights.

So there we have it, three fantastic beers from styles that are always likely to feature in my drinking life, and when I eventually decide to take the plunge with decoction mashing, in my homebrewing as well. I have a very distinct preferential option for classic styles, usually session beers, that have been well made. I am not a big fan of the weird and wonderful world of breakfast cereal and pickle juice in beer. 

Trying to separate these beers and choose a single winner is insanely difficult, they are all excellent examples of underappreciated styles, they all have happy memories and good stories attached to them, and they are all something I am always happy to drink. However, pick one I must, and for pure sentimentality the Fuggled Beer of 2022 is Starr Hill Dark Starr Stout, a beer that I would love to see restored to the brewery's permanent lineup, especially if it became more widely available on tap than it was even before they discontinued it, cans are great and all, but a pint of stout at the bar is still one of my favourite ways to drink.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Ah...you have to love a clear cut category. We move on beyond the vague orange/red/brownish world in to proper brown and black beers, the kind of brew you take a single look at and know you are drinking a dark beer. Dunkel, tmavé, schwarzbier, porter, mild, stout, those kind of things. Onward, into darkness we go...

Virginia

• Dark Starr Stout - Starr Hill Brewing, Crozet
• Inexorable Stout - Reason Brewing, Charlottesville
• Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria

Honorable mentions: Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing; Tweed Dunkel - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville.

There is a large dose of romantic sentimentality here. Many years ago I worked in the Starr Hill Brewing tasting room in Crozet, and each flight ended with Dark Starr Stout, still, even after several years of not being part of the core range, the most award winning dry Irish stout in America. When it was originally discontinued, I have to admit I had a chat with the brewers at Starr Hill and heavily based my homebrew stout on Dark Starr. Earlier this year they did a special run of Dark Starr, for reasons which escape me right now, but I knew I needed to get some. With it on tap in the new tap room in the centre of Charlottesville, I spent a very happy afternoon ordering a beer, letting it get to the right temperature and have near religious moments with what is, in my world, basically the perfect stout.

Rest of the USA

• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT
• Karlův 13° Černė - Schilling Beer Co, Littleton, NH
• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC

Honorable mentions: Rennsteig - Schilling Beer Co, Littleton, NH.

Another beer that made the trip from New England to Virginia in the spring, and if you know me at all it should come as no surprise that it was Schilling's superlative 13° tmavé, Karlův. Some may wish to quibble about me calling a beer a tmavé which the brewery labels a černé, but in reality there is no difference in Czechia other than the capricious whimsy of the marketing department. Karlův hits every high note of a Czech dark lager perfectly, marrying the rich maltiness with a clean finish that sits somewhere between a Munich Dunkel and Thuringian Schwarzbier. Eminently drinkable, and a beer that would more than hold its own in Czechia, it is another example of Schilling just getting things absolutely right.

Rest of the World

• Hirter Morchl - Privatbrauerei Hirt, AT
• O'Hara's Irish Stout - Carlow Brewing, IE
• London Porter - Fullers, UK

It was on the strength of their lovely, lovely, pilsner, that the next time I saw beers from Privatbrauerei Hirt in my local bottle shop, I picked up a four pack of Morchl, an Austrian iteration on the Munich Dunkel style. While there wasn't the noticeable difference between the Austrian and the German that I saw with the pilsner, Morchl was a superb example of the dunkel style of lager. Hefty malt character that makes me think the grist is redolent with Munich and Vienna malts, married with a a clean noble hop bitterness and what you have here is the kind of beer that cries out for a biergarten in autumn, as golden leaves start to fall and you want something a touch richer to drink. As with the Hirter Privat Pils, this is a social beer than demands to be drunk in beautiful surroundings with great company.

There is something deeply alluring about dark beers, whether they be top or bottom fermented. Perhaps though it is the fact that my first legal beer was a famous Irish stout that colours my choice of Fuggled Dark Beer of 2022. However, the fact remains that Starr Hill Dark Starr Stout is a beer that I have loved for many years, and it's return this year was so incredibly welcome. That it was still the beer I raved on about to so many patrons at the Starr Hill tasting room in Crozet made me so happy, and I know that whenever it is on tap I will be making my way over to get myself a pint or three of the best session stout I have ever had.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

As a fortnight of time off from the day jobs hoves into view, replete with weekday, and day time, drinking, it is time to look back at the best of the beers I have drunk in 2022. As in years past I plan to write a post each based on the capricious whimsy of colour, and then a final "best of' post to declare the Fuggled Beer of 2022.

My capricious whimsy of colour breaks down as follows:

• Pale - basically anything yellow or gold
• Darker than Pale, Lighter than Dark Brown - orange, red, brown, but able to be seen through
• Dark - very dark brown, or black

As usual I will offer up the highlights from Virginia, the rest of the USA, and the rest of the World, 3 finalists each, and honorable mentions where called for, culminating in a category winner, to go forward for the beer of the year post.

Let's get started with the pales then.

Virginia

• Krypto Pilsner - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville
• Found Artifacts Pilsner - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford
• Grill Method Grodziskie - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing Company, Gordonsville; Downright Pilsner - Port City Brewing, Alexandria; Weekland Lager - Alewerks Brewing, Williamsburg.

Despite the fact that I am a terrible beer tourist, as I have openly admitted elsewhere, this year has actually been one with lots of new to me breweries, in most cases as a result of trading beers with fellow local beer fans. It was such a trade that brought Wheatland Spring into my beery orbit, a trade which included Found Artifacts, an unfiltered pilsner that rocked my socks off and I wished there had been more than a single can of in the trade, Even though that one can is the sum total of my Found Artifacts drinking in 2022, it was enough to be seared into my memory as the Virginian Pale Beer of the Year.

Rest of the USA

• Malý 8° - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH
• Herald 12° - Cohesion Brewing, Denver, CO
• Kellerpils - TRVE Brewing, Denver, CO

Honorable mentions: Helles - Bierstadt Brewing, Denver, CO; Alexandr - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH; Paulus - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH; Bavarian Pilsner - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Helles - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe VT; Pilz - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX; Pull - Columbia Craft Brewing, Columbia, SC; Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC.

2022 picked up and ran with where 2021 left off in terms of being a stellar year for pale lagers from the rest of the US. The list of honorable mentions alone has several of my favourite beers missing, as well as several beers from breweries that make up a regularish part of my drinking. Imagine then just how difficult it is to separate the three finalists. Each of the beers in the top three I enjoyed on tap in their respective tap rooms, and even on that front it would be near impossible to choose a taproom I for singular praise, they were all wonderful places. Choose though I must, and so the Fuggled USA Pale Beer of 2022 is Schilling's magnificent Malý 8°, an 8° Plato pale lager with more flavour, complexity, nuance, and sheer delight in drinking than the vast majority of stronger beers on the market today, There is a reason I traipsed 2 cases worth home to Virginia.

Rest of the World

• Tannenzäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, DE
• Zwickel Pilsner - Radeberger Exportbierbrauerei, DE
• Hirter Privat Pils - Brauerei Hirt, AT

Honorable mentions: Organic Lager - Samuel Smiths Brewery, UK; Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, IS

With such a wealth of US made pale lagers on the shop shelves these days, it is almost a wonder that international beers even get a look in. Having said that, we get Rothaus Tannenzäpfle on tap fairly often, and the Radeberger Zwickel Pilsner I picked up recently was unexpectedly lovely. However, Austria's Brauerei Hirt showed up at Beer Run not too long ago. Intrigued, I picked up a 4 pack as it seems that Austrian made pilsners hit my sweet spot, combining the bitterness of a southern German pilsner with the fuller malt body of a Bohemian. Hirter Privat Pils is thus a worth winner of the International Pale Beer of 2022.

Three simply magnificent beers, each of which would grace the tap list of the greatest beer bars of the world, but in the words of the Highlander, there can be only one. That winner then, whilst not being the reason I persuaded Mrs V and my best mate that a 4 hour drive to another state for a day trip to the town the brewery is in, it was definitely the highlight of the day. Huzzah then for Schilling Beer Co. and their majestic Malý, the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2022.

Central European Tap Dance

Look at this glorious glass of beer...

If you've been keeping abreast of my mini-series about Schilling Beer Company in New Hampshire, you will hopefully recall that this is their magnificent Malý 8° lager, had on tap at the brewery's tasting room in Littleton. What I didn't mention in that particular post was the method of dispense, and fairly obviously, this particular beer was poured using a Lukr tap, also known as a side pour tap, sometimes also known as a slow pour tap. Whatever you want to call it, this was poured from a tap that is currently all the rage amongst the lager brewing and drinking community in the craft beer world, and is often touted as being the "traditional" method in Czechia.

I still remember the first time I saw a Lukr tap in the wild back in Czechia. It was around 2009 and Mrs V and I had gone to Purkmistr, a brewery and hotel on the outskirts of Plzeň, for a long weekend. Said tap was, for whatever reason, in the room that the hotel used for serving breakfast. I don't recall if they were in use in the restaurant or bar, but I noted them because they were so different from the taps I had seen in pretty much every pub I went to at the time. Almost every pub I frequented had standard taps like those at Pivovarský klub or U Slovanské lipy...

From what folks back in Czechia have told me, the Lukr tap really took off when the concept of the tankovna pub blew up as well, around 2008. The whole concept of it being "traditional" never really sat that well with me, purely based on personal experience, and then I came across a picture in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer on the Austrian National Library website.

Look at those taps in this illustration. Ok, minus the more modern look, they are most distinctly "side pour" taps. Being side pour rather than the modern standard format, they would have relied on a ball valve to control the flow of beer from the tap to the drinking vessel. Then I came across this illustration, again from Der Böhmische Bierbrauer:

A tap system that bore an uncanny similarity to the one I had seen in Purkmistr, clearly there was something here...oh I didn't mention these illustrations yet:

Each of these illustrations came from an edition of Der Böhmische Bierbrauer which contained an article about the new innovation for pouring beer, attaching a CO2 tank to the barrel that would push the beer to the tap. The article had the glorious title of "The Practical Use of Carbonic Acid for Serving Beer" and appeared in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer in 1894. Before the use of CO2, it was traditional for beer to be poured either via gravity or pulled through the line by a hand pump.

Intrigued, I dug further, finding images of such historic side pour taps in use in Germany in the 1930s - sorry folks I am not paying $20 a piece for a stock images of beer being poured in Mannheim at a radish festival, so have a link instead. Eventually I came across the Historische Bierzapf-Säulen website and learnt that the idea for using CO2 to dispense beer from a tap was patented in 1877 by a high school teacher and chemist Wilhelm Carl Raydt, originally from Lingen in modern day Lower Saxony. The new method of pouring beer apparently took off in northern Germany and the industrial cities, but met resistance in traditional Bavaria, which for many decades stuck with the anstich method of tapping beer.

The Historische Bierzapf-Säulen site is a beer history nerd's wet dream. The oldest illustration on the site that shows a side pour tap in use is from the 1880s, and purports to show the Berlin pub "In der Katschemme". There is even a Pilsner Urquell pub in Hamburg in one of the pictures from 1900. The guy behind the website, who clearly has a love of historical beer taps, and the beautifully decorative towers that were once part and parcel of taprooms in central Europe is also the owner of Storchenbräu in Pfaffenhausen, about 100km/62 miles west of Munich.

From what I can ascertain, side pour taps were in use in Germany until the 1960s, and if film evidence from the former Czechoslovakia is correct, there also, being replaced by the more modern flow control taps we are used to seeing in central European pubs today. Though they did seem to still be in use in at least one Zoigl pub in around 2012, and judging by the design of the tap, it is not a Lukr made tap.

Central Europe, broadly modern day Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary, is full of stories like this, where there are parallel foods, drinks, and ways of doing things that each group of people claim as "traditional". Of course, until the First World War, most of the region lay within either the German Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so such commonality is to be expected. To give a small example, recently Mrs V and I went to dinner with some friends. The husband is Serbian, the wife is German - weird fun fact, they met in Lavka in Prague, and lived there for a period that overlapped with Mrs V and I, though we only met them here in Virginia. Dinner that night was a traditional Serbian meal called "podvarak", basically pork shoulder slow cooked in the oven on a bed of sauerkraut. The Czech national dish is "vepřo-knedlo-zelo", slow roasted pork shoulder, dumplings, and cabbage. In Germany there is "sauerkraut und Schwein", erm....slow cooked pork with sauerkraut, often served with potato dumplings. Where modern borders create breaks and barriers, reality is a continuity of shared history and experience.

To come back then to the side pour tap, what we are seeing is a revival of a central European way of doing things that was lost in the rush to modernity that was the 1960s. The uniqueness of the Lukr tap is in an innovation within the tap itself, which I can find no evidence for in the old texts, a filter screen that in layman's terms, turns the tap into a shower head, much like the sparkler does on a beer engine, thus creating the voluminous wet foam that the tap is rightly renowned for.

The Full Schilling - Der dritte Teil

I have owned this fact many a time on Fuggled, I am a Germanophile, especially when it comes to beer. One of the main reasons I go to Kardinal Hall as much as I do is that they are a reliable source of German beers, whether Rothaus, Köstritzer Schwarzbier, or something from Weihenstephan, as well as the near ubiquitous Bitburger (though I much prefer their stable mate König Pilsener). The fact that Schilling also produce a wide range of German styles, in addition to their Czech style stuff, is just another reason that I wanted to visit the brewery when we were up in New England a couple of weeks ago.

The other beers in the stash that made the trip back to central Virginia were:

• Paulus - Munich style helles
• Rennsteig - schwarzbier
• Nordertor - northern German style pilsner

With those styles, this is basically a quick three beer tour of Germany from Bavaria in the south, to Flensburg in the north, with a quick stop in Thuringia in the middle.

Without further ado, then on to New Hampshire's interpretation of Munich. Fun side fact, not too far from Littleton is a place called Franconia...

Paulus

• Sight - clear yellow, quarter inch white foam, wonderful clarity
• Smell - doughy, lightly yeasty, floral hops, subtle citrus note (Tettnang perhaps?)
• Taste - bready with a nice schmeer of honey, clean floral hops
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 2/5

Helles is one of those styles of beer that I think is best on tap, but this particular batch was canned just 11 days ago, so when I had it on Sunday it had been in the can a mere 9 days. Freshness matters, and this was as fresh as you will likely ever get in central Virginia. Full disclosure, I asked Beer Run to get me a case, and it was from that case that I drank, rather than one of the 4 packs that came back from NH with me, which was canned in mid-March. Anyway, the beer itself, gorgeous in a word, as good a helles as I have ever had. As I sat in my kitchen drinking it, looking out over my backyard, I realised I need to plant some more trees to convert a patch of the yard into my own little biergarten, just to enjoy Paulus in.

Rennsteig

• Sight - deep mahogany, dark red edges, ivory foam
• Smell - medium-dark roast coffee, crusty toast, subtle grassy/hay notes, hints of chocolate cake
• Taste - cold espresso, singed toast, some floral character, bitter chocolate
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 3/5

Named, apparently, for the Rennsteig ridge walk in Thuringia and just a lovely schwarzbier. The balance is beautiful, making it insanely easy to drink while hitting all the right flavour notes. I think I am going to have to rehash my schwarzbier blind tasting of last year with this in the mix.

Nordertor

• Sight - pale yellow, large white head, beautifully clear
• Smell - crackers, hay, some herbal notes
• Taste - more crackers, noticeable lemony zing, maybe some cantaloupe in the background
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter 2.5/5

When it comes to German style pilsners, I find myself preferring those more in the northern, drier, more pronounced bitterness camp. Nordertor, named for the eponymous gate in Flensberg on the Danish border and depicted on the label, sits very much in that camp, and I love it. The finish is cracker dry and lingers, begging to be followed up by another mouthful, and who am I to deny it?

As I mentioned in the first part of this little Schilling trilogy, I made a point to try all the German inspired beers on tap at the brewpub when we were there, but I wasn't taking notes or pictures - seriously, who does that when you are hanging with mates? Safe to say though that all of them were top class, especially the Seidla kellerbier, and whenever they make it down this way, I will continue to buy them, safe in the knowledge that Schilling know what they are doing, and they do it so damned well.

The Full Schilling - druhý díl

A quick recap...this happened:

Those 2 cases/trays of Schilling beer in 16oz cans consisted of:

• Malý 8° - Czech style session pale lager
• Nordertor - Northern German style pilsner
• Paulus - Munich style helles
• Rennsteig - schwarzbier

Schilling beers already in my fridge when I got home were:

• Palmovka 12° - Czech style pale lager
• Augustin 13° - Czech style amber lager
• Karlův 13° - Czech style dark lager

To round out the selection nicely, I popped into Beer Run and picked up a four pack of Alexandr as it is most reliably available Schilling beer in this neck of the woods. For this here second installment of The Full Schilling, I made sure all the Czech styles were suitably refrigerated...

Having made sure that suitable glassware was clean and ready for use, I didn't buy a Schilling glass while I was up there as the style I wanted was not available, I set about going from left to right...starting with Malý 8°.

Malý 8°

• Sight - crystal clear golden, inch of beautiful white foam, great retention
• Smell - spicy hops, lemongrass, crusty bread and crackers, second son Bertie thought it smelt "peppery and juicy"
• Taste - crusty bread, lemony zing, clean hop bite to finish
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2.5/5

Simply magnificent beer. Medium-light body, not watery or thin in the finish, this is a drinker's session beer, the kind of thing that you can sit on your deck in the sun and guzzle all afternoon and evening without ever getting bored, the voice of experience may be speaking. The finish is clean, dry, and just pulls you back for more, and more, and more. I almost wish I had bought 2 cases...

Alexandr

• Sight - dark straw, white foam, beautiful clarity and excellent head retention
• Smell - citrus, lemon and key lime, hay, water biscuits
• Taste - dollops of citrus bittering, bordering on pithy, more crackers and some floral notes in the background, like a summer meadow
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 3/5

Again a beautifully balanced beer, the bitterness is very much front and centre, but it doesn't overwhelm the malt character. Has the snap that I expect of well made lagers that brings everything into sharp focus and then demands you have another mouthful. I just love this beer, it is right up there with anything I drank in Czechia.

Palmovka 12°

• Sight - rich golden, white foam that lingers well, again beautiful clarity
• Smell - toasted crusty bread, spicy hops, freshly mown hay
• Taste - juicy sweet decocted malt, crusty bread, specifically like the crusty end of a loaf, grassy hop with a clean hop bitterness
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 3/5

This is not hyperbole, but there is something about Palmovka that reminds me of Pilsner Urquell, though a little stronger. That crusty bread character coupled with a very light butterscotch note just feels so much like Prazdroj that I fear if I had to try both side by side and blind I would struggle to guess which was which - there may be a blog post in the making right there. The bitterness, again, is firm, clean, and finishes off the beer delightfully.

Augustin 13°

• Sight - light red, ruby highlights, off white foam that stays the course
• Smell - brioche, subtle hay, floral hops
• Taste - ovocní knedlík, stone fruit, breadiness in the background
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5

This is quite a complex beer, with lots of malt flavours floating around. I realise that ovocní knedlík, fruit dumpling in English, is not particularly helpful if you've never had them, but imagine a plum wrapped inside a yeast dough, enriched with egg and milk, simmered and then served with a touch of sugar and cinnamon, and you kind of get what I am saying. It's complex, but clean in the finish and maybe a little thin for a 13° lager, but that's me quibbling, it's still a grand beer.

Karlův 13°

• Sight - very dark brown, mahogany edges, solid inch of tan foam
• Smell - bitter chocolate, toasted brioche, subtle floral hop notes
• Taste - dark chocolate, nutty, imagine bitter chocolate Nutella, sachertorte, some grassy hop notes
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 2/5

A wonderful way to nightcap my little Schilling Czech tasting. Not stodgy in the slightest but with plenty of sweet malt flavours. The finish is somewhere between the soft sweetness of a dunkel and the dry crispness of schwarzbier. Again a very moreish beer that is an excellent interpretation of the Czech tmavé/černé "style".

I seriously considered trying to rank this set of beers by preference, but it would be a fool's errand to bother. They are all excellent examples of the kind of beers I love to drink, and this is what makes Schilling such an exciting brewery for me, they do everything so damned well that it is almost irrelevant what is in your glass, it will be superb.

The Full Schilling - Part 1

Let's go for a drive...

It's raining in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where the VelkyAl family was staying with my best mate Dave and his brood. It was a Wednesday morning, and backing out of their drive way, I was excited at the thought of the 240 mile drive north ahead. According to my weather app on my phone, our destination was going to be warm and sunny. Our destination, mostly up I-93 north, going through Boston  to New Hampshire, through the simply majestic White Mountains, including past a still frozen lake, was the little town of Littleton.

Apparently a little over 6000 souls call Littleton, New Hampshire, home and they live in possibly one of the most scenic places I have visited in the US so far. Pulling into the town, crossing the Ammonoosuc River, eventually parking up next to the river, we had just a few hundred feet, and a kids bashing of public gongs session for the boys, to our destination, the Schilling Beer Company.

If you follow any of my social media then you will know that I am a dedicated fan of Schilling Beer Co. We don't get many of their beers down here in central Virginia, but whenever one of them shows up on tap at either Beer Run or Kardinal Hall then I know what I will be drinking when I am there. My first ever Schilling beer was indeed the Alexandr, on tap at Kardinal Hall, back in September 2020, and with a pleasing coincidence it was with Dave back when he and his family lived in this neck of the woods. Again if you are a follower of Fuggled/VelkyAl world, then you will also know that I am an abysmal "beer tourist". I don't plan holidays around breweries I would be interested in visiting, let's be honest here, once you have seen a couple of brewing setups there really isn't much to see that would make a difference. Being a 4 hour drive from Schilling though simply demanded a day trip, yes that's right, we drove 4 hours to Littleton, stayed for a few hours, and then drove back to Rhode Island. Admittedly we didn't spend all those hours safely ensconced in the beery bosom of Schilling, we also discovered that Littleton is a delightful town that is pretty much perfect for the kind of folks that constitute the VelkyAl family, did I mention the gorgeous river yet, on go on then, have another picture of it.

Schilling itself consists of both a brewpub and a taproom in separate buildings, it being lunchtime and with 3 toddlers of 4 years old in tow, we parked on the screened in deck of the brewpub and ordered beer and pizza. Choosing the pizzas was simplicity in itself, my boys can be picky eaters, so Margherita minus tomato sauce was in order. Choosing my first beer was torture, just look at this menu:

A brace of Czech style pilsners that would more than stand up in Czechia, a keller pils, a kellerbier, a Helles, a schwarzbier, an Altbier, a tmavé, a polotmavé, a landbier....how does a lagerboy make a decision when finally presented with a beer menu that doesn't make him groan? Obviously you get the Alexandr, drink it in four mouthfuls and forget to take a picture, but make sure you follow it up with a Palmovka 12° that you do remember to take a picture.

Just look at that thing of beauty, that walloping great cap of foam that would not look out of place in any of my old haunts in Prague, that near total lack of fizz - there is a difference between condition and fizziness, and by god every beer I had hit the nail squarely on the head. Being with family and friends, I didn't bother with many more photos, but I tried every pale lager they had on tap, as well as the Rennsteig schwarzbier and Kaiserpfalz altbier. Each beer was excellent, not just good, not even plain old very good, but excellent, and in the Seidla kellerbier, downright fucking fantastic. Fed and watered we wandered off on to Main Street to do some shopping, knowing that the tap room was still to come, I had a date with a beer that I knew was there...

As well as being an abysmal beer tourist I am not much of one for traipsing around shops, but I had the happy glow of a satisfied lager drinker on, and Littleton's book shop that doubles as a toy shop was a veritable Aladdin's cave of delights. Better yet, at least for this greedy guts, was the White Mountains Canning Company, that stocks all manner of locally made jams jellies, pickles, and perhaps the best, bar none, American cheddar cheese I have ever had, Harman's Really Aged Cheddar. Our good lady wives had another shop they wanted to get to, so Dave and I corralled our boys and headed to the Schilling taproom, across the way from the brewpub, straight into the embrace of an osmička...

Going by the name Malý 8°, what you have here is a 3.1% abv, double decocted (if I remember rightly), Czech style pale lager that has more flavour, more presence, and exhibits a far higher level of technical brewing skill than basically any other lager being brewed in the US today. Bold claims I know, but if ever there was a gravity that shows the difference decoction makes it is 8°. There are some out there that claim decoction is not necessary because malts are more modified these days, well sorry, they are simply wrong. A decoction mash is not just about getting the right amount of sugar out of the grain, decoction adds flavour, mouthfeel, and character that a simple infusion mash will never give you. Think of it this way, at least for pale lagers, decoction is a 3D beer to infusion's 2D, it adds depth. Malý 8° might be small, but goodness me it is a mighty, mighty fine beer. So I bought a case of cans to bring  home to Virginia with me, and a selection of other beers to make up another case.

Is it evident yet that I love Schilling Beer Company? More than that, I want to go back to Littleton and spend more time there, I want to spend an evening drinking great beer overlooking that covered bridge over the river, and bimble back to a tent or hotel with a happily distended belly full of great lager. I am sure that Littleton will be visited again in the future, and hopefully not too far into that future.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Here at the dark end of the spectrum, life can sometimes feel a little more tricky. For all the pale lager I drink, and I do drink a fair old whack of the stuff, it is the darker beers that I spend more time thinking about. There is something comforting about dark beers, especially in the depths of winter, which is also my favourite time of year, I just love dark nights and cold air.

Virginia

• Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing
• Schwarzbier - Port City Brewing
• Protocol Porter - Alewerks Brewing

So far this year I have done a couple of tastings of schwarzbiers, a style that I seem to have found more of this year than in the previous 11 in the US. I am hoping this is the beginning of a lasting trend as I am big fan of dark lagers in general. In both of the tastings, Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier was my favourite example of the style. It is a beer that I drink pretty regularly and in my opinion is one of DB's best regularly available brews. As part of their Lager Series, Port City have a regular rotation of lager styles, and for some reason I missed the Schwarzbier last year. This year I made sure to rectify that fact and I was very glad that I did, it is pretty much nailed on. Talking about mass tastings of dark beer, earlier in the year I had planned to do such a tasting with porters available in Virginia. It never materialised, other than one combination of Protocol Porter from Williamsburg's Alewerks, a gloriously luxuriant, rich, sipper that makes for wonderful drinking, especially at cellar temperature. Of the three, Protocol Porter is my Virginia Dark Beer of 2021 - I know you are shocked that a top fermented beer beat out a couple of dark lagers, but heck who am I to be predictable?

Rest of the USA

• Loonar Eclipse - Utepils Brewing, MN
• Modernism - Schilling Beer Company, NH
• Trösten - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Honorable mentions: Landbier Dunkel - Schilling Beer Company, NH; Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, VT; Steinbier - Bierkeller Columbia, SC.

Oooo....shock, horror, bottom fermented beers walk it for the best dark beers in the rest of the USA. It is perhaps truly shocking that two of the three are Czech style dark lagers (sorry I can't do the whole pluraling of tmavé by just adding an "s"), shocking in the sense that finally the American craft beer world is waking up to the reality that tmavé is distinct from dunkel and schwarzbier. Both Loonar Eclipse and Modernism are excellent examples of the category - style is not really an accurate term to describe the tmavé family. If either of those were served in Czechia, they would be very, very well regarded. Trösten is something of a rarity when it comes to rauchbiers in the US, it is actually nicely smoky rather than just having a "hint" of smoke, "hints of smoke" rauchbiers just do nothing for me. On draft, this offering from Von Trapp Brewing in Vermont is a delight, again especially when you let it warm a little to unlock all the complexity of the beer. The winner of the best Dark Beer in the Rest of the USA for 2021 is one of my favourite types of beer, from a brewery that is new to me, and everything I have had from them has been fantastic...Utepils Loonar Eclipse it is!

Rest of the World

• O'Hara's Irish Stout - Carlow Brewing, IE
• Foreign Extra Stout - Guinness, IE
• London Porter - Fullers, UK

Honorable mentions: Köstritzer Schwarzbier - Köstritzer, DE; Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock - Brauerei Heller-Trum, DE.

A final three entirely devoid of lager? Whom am I? What have I done to myself? Fullers London Porter is for many the archetype of what a porter should be, and while I don't really drink it often, it is always a delight. There is something alluring about the classic range of porter flavours, you know all that coffee and chocolate stuff, coupled with the signature Fullers yeast marmelade thing, it just works. Both the O'Hara's and Guinness are tied to one of my favourite drinking sessions of the year. Back in October I went up to Rhode Island for my best mate's birthday weekend. On the Sunday morning we were sat in an Irish pub for brunch, and they had O'Hara's on tap. The pints were going down very well, when I noticed the pub had bottles of FES...such a classic beer that makes me wish that regular Guinness was available without the abomination of nitro. The winner though is the Fullers London Pride, an old friend that never disappoints.

Two porters and a tmavé to choose from for the 2021 Fuggled Dark Beer of the Year, but in the immortal words of Connor McLeod, there can be only one...and that one is from the dark north of Minnesota. I wish Utepils were available in Virginia in general as I would love to try the rest of their selection given how impressed I was with both the Receptional Oktoberfest and Loonar Eclipse. Any beer that reminds me of a beer I loved back in Czechia has to be good, especially when those memories are of the Autumn Dark Special from Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, that should tell you just how good Loonar Eclipse is.

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...