Fernseh-Pils-a-thon 2013

Exactly.

And who does brew better pilsners? Traditional places like Keesmann, Kneitinger, and Schmitt/Singen.

The ultra-hoppy ones made by German brewers will always find worshipers among the beer nerd scene, but that demographic seems more interested in extremes than tradition.

I'm totally fine with them continuing to produce the former. But let's take our inspiration for the latter from those with 100s of years of experience -- and success.

 

So, we just give in to the ignorance and let the head-bangers win? I mean, isn't the whole cause of beer advocacy to enlighten and educate (embrace) on all beer? Not just what's "in" at the moment?

 

Firstly, I want to thank @felsenpils for his very thoughtful post.

The statement of “Unfortunately, every little decrease in the OG has a deleterious effect on the body and complexity of the resulting beer and the IBU´s (bitterness) must be dropped to compensate for this as well”. Is very poignant.

There are brewery’s in Germany who ‘recognize’ this unfortunate trend in dumbing down German Pilsners and taking steps to making quality Pilsners like German breweries used to make only a few decades ago: for example Private Landbraueri Schönram.

Below is something I have posted previously:

I just finished reading the book For the Love of Hops by Stan Hieronymus (an EXCELLENT book!). There was a nice write-up towards the end of the book on Private Landbraueri Schönram which I thought would be of interest to others; the head brewer is Eric Toft:

“Toft, a Wyoming native …Since he has taken over as brewmaster at Private Landbraueri Schönram in 1998 he has gradually made the recipes his own, increasing hopping rates 10 to 15 percent on average, going against a trend in Germany. Brewery sales have more than doubled, again bucking a national trend.

Schönramer Pils, brewed with lower alpha aroma hops throughput, won medals at the European Beer Star competition in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and the World Beer Cup in 2012.

Cheers to Eric Toft and Private Landbraueri Schönram for their success!

 

And there are 100s of breweries in areas such as Franconia and the Oberpfalz that recognize the dumbing down of macro German pilsners and can point to their own continued, traditional brewing practices (and steady sales and strong local support) as proof that they are doing many things right -- and have been for centuries.

As for these international beer competitions, based on many of the "winners" I have tried over the years, I put little to no stock in such awards.

 

If you ask me, most Germans believe that their soapy, inexpensive pilsner is good beer. Must be if it's brewed according to RHG [sarcasm].

Enlightening others to embrace all beer is not easy, I realize lots of BAs do this, but in the States people are now open to the craft scene and very deep selection of international beers. Of course it's sometimes pretentious, but that seems to be the nature of the beast. The way the German beer landscape is set up (pay to play in off-premise, 95% of restaurants being contractually bound to one single brewery in the on-premise, and general lack of selection), I wonder if "brewing a perceived better pilsner" will be like carrying coals to Newcastle. I believe there are better ways to get into the limelight.

 

You've never been to Franconia or Oberpfalz and consumed those pilsners at the source. They are indeed cheap, but they are anything but "soapy" or "dumbed down."

The limelight is overrated.

 

I'm not talking about them, but rather about a large portion of pilsners being produced elsewhere in the Bierfabriken.

As mentioned before, I don't believe that 98% of Germans either know about the beer coming from Bamberg/Frankenland, nor have they tried it.

 

Right. All the more reason to hold them up as models of the benefits of maintaining tradition and what doing so could mean for German brewing as a whole. The same way CAMRA held up cask as a model and in doing so created the renaissance that ultimately led to the initial wave of "craft" brewing in the U.S....

 

The beer industry's downward spiral has been going on for quite a while. If it hasn't happened by now, then when? Also, with the current market barriers I still believe that a "big player" will have to shake up the scene with something "trendy" and interesting, and the rest will follow suit.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the tradition of Franken or the beers they produce, but for beer to become more than a inexpensive consumer good, something outside of Franconia-Shangri-La has to happen too.

 

It IS happening now. In addition to all the IPAs and whisky stouts being brewed in Germany, everywhere I look I see Franconian brewers putting out "new" traditional recipes; new breweries opening; and beers like Mahr's U and other specialties being sold in places like Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. There's Meinel and Drei Kronen that are women-led; Rittmayer with its specialties; and even places like Greifenklau experimenting with one-off, single-hopped beers. Moreover, Munich brewers are opening retaurant/brewpubs all over Germany -- and the world. Ever seen the Bavaria Alm places in cities like Moenchengladbach? The trend is obvious. If you are simply going by overall beer sales and consumption, you could draw the exact same conclusions about American brewing: that production and consumption are both on a long, steady decline and have been for some time. I really think you need to make a trip back over and finally go to Franconia and the Oberpfalz (places you said you avoided -- ironically enough -- because you thought American hype was behind their perceived popularity )

 

Scott, though your comment that there are some beers being sold in Berlin from Franken, and whatnot, what @einhorn says is 100% correct. Yes, as you mentioned, there are one or two examples, lone straws in the gale of Einheitsplörre of Fernsehbiere, but it's a complicated thing. The problem for most really good Franken beers is they don't travel well and don't take well to the shipping and storage process necessary to widen their market due to their short best by dates. That means outside of a few pinpricks here and there around Germany, they're totally unknown outside their local market by almost all Germans save a few who like me are fanatical about great beer. Sad but true, so a new initiative would be great to resurrect quality beer in the local areas, yes a CAMRA, and they've already got one, called Kampagne für Gutes Bier, which can be found here. Unfortunately, it's completely not gone beyond the beer-nerd stage of acceptance, if at all. I've looked at their site a few times and wasn't impressed. Nonetheless, what it will take is many more places like Braustil in FFM, a place that's micro, really small producing only 500 L batches every 3 or 4 weeks, that makes beer the quality way, but mostly catering at first to the traditional side of the German palate, and then slowly becoming more adventurous as they learn more about beer styles and then educate their consumer base.

Like it was said above, Germans think this Einheitsplörre of Fernsehbiere is the ne' plus ultra of beer, the best beer in the world, mainly because they've been brainwashed by the beer industry marketing bullshit. So, I think it will be a combo of both a Braustil, a Pax Bräu, and a Braukunstkeller, as well as more smaller outfits seeing Schönramer's success and imitating it. A hugely better Pils, no matter how good it is, will not break through the haze of the average consumer's brainwashing; rather, it must be something outside the normal for how beer is perceived in Germany to get their attention, just like what happened in the USA. Like Einhorn said I've said before, Franken is beer Shangri-La in Germany, and like the Shangri-La in stories, its existence is shrouded from the average person's knowledge. I love the beers from that region, but only now via internet portals that they are accessible to me without visiting. Anyway, I hope all of the well made craft beers in Germany are successful, and I include the great Franken beers in that category.

 

Speaking of Einheitsplörre andFernsehbiere, I was at a large local festival in my girlfriend's hometown near Dortmund, and all they had was Krombacher.

It sure looked pretty, but the flavor was pretty lousy. I drank it, and it was better than drinking water, but still, if all there was to drink was this, I felt sad. Yet I was in a minority of 1 here, by the looks of how quickly the beer was being sold.

 

I am from Unterfranken and when I was a young man, my father and I would travel around to all the little towns and grab a local beer and something to eat. There were breweries in every town, sometimes multiple breweries in little towns like Forchheim. Well take a look at this:

http://www.braufranken.de/html/brauschluss.html

This is a list of closed Franconian breweries just since the year 2000. As I read the names of the closed breweries, I can see the faces of the brewer´s apprentices who went to technical school with me years ago. Take for example Klosterbrauerei Münnerstadt which was closed in 2010 after 629 years of brewing or the one right above it on the list from my home town of Reichenberg, Brauerei Wolf closed in 2009 after 270 years of existance. The apprentice sitting behind me at technical school worked at Münnerstadt and I cannot tell you how many times we drank Wolf Pils at our local Schützenverein (gun club). The situation is very serious and the little brewers even in Franken are closing in droves. All because of the Fernsehpils which convinced young people to avoid grandpa´s local brew and drink the trendy stuff portrayed on TV. Yes, there are small spots of hope on the horizon, like Neumarkter Lammsbräu, but for the most part, the German beer landscape is being systematicallly decimated by the big brewers. All in the name of maximizing profits by reducing quality, aggressively marketing and squeezing out the little guys by price warfare. Nothing can replace Klosterbrauerei Münnerstadt, no new brewpub or exotic beer Manufaktur, nothing. So what we are really talking about here is a grand loss of culture and tradition which can never be replaced. And the German youth do not even realize that it is happening. That is the saddest part.

 

Totally agree, Felsenpils. Only thing that will stop -- and hopefully reverse -- the damage is a set of protections for these traditions...in the form of public, social activism/advocacy and legislation that dismantles these disastrous EU regulations.

 

I am not sure of what type of protections or "disastrous EU regulations" you are mentioning that should have already happened (if they are ever going to happen), but don't blame the EU for problems Made in Germany by the absolutely and completely free markets. The issues are obvious and well documented, and if anything is really going to help, it's increased regulations in regards to selling under cost, tied-house laws and pay-to-play mentality. The reasons why this won't happen is that it's the status quo, totally ingrained in the mindset and simply "business as usual" in the German brewing industry.

 

Need some proof? Here's a deal going on in Köln, pünktlich to World Cup


2 crates for 16.66 minus the free 6-pack = netto 13.67 (which INCLUDES 19% MWST!) for 2 crates. In this case, the retailer is selling under cost (illegal in the US and should be in Germany) simply to drive traffic. This is the reality of "how to sell A LOT more beer than the other guy this week".

Not trying to beat a dead horse, but this has been going on for 20 years and the consumer has now grown accustomed to it. It's killing them all and there are no winners.

 

Protections and regulations such as the ones you mention. As for the EU laws, I am referring to the requirement that older breweries modernize when changing hands/being passed down to a family member, as well as the tax structure for German beers that Felsenpils referred to and have led to the "dumbing down" and, indirectly, the drop in price. I agree with you that the Oettinger effect is in full force pretty much throughout Germany. However, the Franken are very protective of their traditions and will hopefully help lead any preservationist activities that may come. The film "Hopfen und Malz Verloren" seemed to awaken something here. More needs to be done to build on that momentum. I am no longer there, but I am willing to help with this in any way possible as I, too, refuse to accept a new U.S.-style brewpub as a "replacement" for a vanished brewery with a 600+-year history and tradition.

So, when does the real revolution begin?

 

I'm not sure how big of an impact it makes, but I like what Mahr's has done by making traditional beers "cool."
You have a beer like Mastodon, which is named after a US metal band. Rather than creating some kind of whiskey-barrel brett beer it's actually a Franconian Lagerbier perfectly in-line with their other beers.
You have ETA Hoffman, which is a north Bavarian Dunkel.
Jubelfestbier seems to be an Eastern Schwarzbier.
Even their Saphir is a pretty traditional weissbier that's simply using a new local hop variety.
Never had it, but their Ginger Bock is their craziest offering and at least seems clever.
I think they have the right approach to making traditionally great beers appealing.

 

Actually, Herr Burgess, you are quite right. The EU has not been kind to German brewers. A few examples: first das Reinheitsgebot gets struck down by the EU on 12 Mar 1987 allowing for impure beer to be sold in Germany. We fought long and hard against it, but the court in Luxembourg felt differently. Then the EU did away with the German Braumeister starting on 01 Jan 2004. Up to that point, you had to have a master brewer to run a brewery in Germany, but the EU felt that that was unfair to other countries which had no specific brewer/brewmaster training programs. So now any journeyman brewer can open a brewery in Germany or in the rest of the EU. EU directive 178/2002 called for exact tracking of all foodstuffs including beer to "protect the consumer". This has led to the introduction of RFID tags (radio frequency identification) on beer kegs and crates. Imagine the cost of that to a little family brewery trying to survive. Yes, Herr Einhorn, you are correct, too, a lot of the problems are homegrown. It is really a combination of what the EU spits out and what the big German brewers do which is causing the demise of the small family breweries and larger ones as well. Raise your hand if you know the answer to the following questions: how many breweries are left in the great brewing city of Dortmund? And how many in that Franconian beer mecca Kulmbach? Can this be stopped? Yes, it can, but it will take what the Americans call a grassroots movement. Who has ideas about how to do this because I want to help!