Is German beer really THAT good?

There is currently a new trend of German breweries on the rise which do make foreign beer styles if that is the variety that you are looking for. There are German breweries that are making IPA’s, Imperial Stouts & Sours at this moment as well as hoppy variations of traditional styles. The situation is different there than in USA & beer is perceived very different.

A lot of German breweries do make quite uninspiring beer or even bad beers but they are also brewing for a different audience. Plus Germany is very regional when it comes to beer, taking the whole of Germany as one beer scene is just ridiculous. Some parts of Germany are a wasteland for beer whilst others host some of the best breweries in the world. One needs to take into consideration that making a helles etc. is harder than making a super-hoppy DIPA so you are bound to come across a lot more bad examples.

Having said that, I would also pick USA or London over Germany with the exception of maybe Bamberg.

 

Thank you for such a fantastic post, filled with insight about both ours and their scenes. Best of luck with your endeavors over there!

 

I will echo TongoRad's sentiments--very insightful. So with this as a background, will you let us in on your guys approach/marketing in Germany? Are you going to continue with your full hop assault as in the US? Attempt some more subtle variations or German styles? Is the younger generation a bit more adventuresome?

 

It depends on the individual. I know people who love German beers more than anything and find most IPAs and APAs repulsive. Some people mainly have a thing for Belgian beer. Some can't enough of them all.

And as someone else has mentioned, it might depend on one's expectations. If you're someone who's constantly looking for huge, complex 15% whales all the time, or at least frequently, most German beer might not be as appealing or very flavorful because of its relative simplicity and mellow taste.

 

I may be reading into what he said, but I think he may have meant something other than a physical location currently being a home to many distinct communities that co-exist and communicate, but something more historical, perhaps along the lines of a diversity situation illustrated/personified by the (perhaps extreme but not uncommon) case of the person described in the first part of this article focused on blending of cultural traditions rather than housing them all under the same roof.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/nyregion/mixing-colors-blending-cultures.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

Whether such experiments in self-expression will remain and persist or pass into history remains to be seen, but the potential remains for something new which is similar to but not quite the same as what went before.

Now, while many uncharitably characterize experimentation by American brewers as resulting from simply throwing new ingredients into the brew kettle in some random, unguided fashion just to see what will happen and to express a simple desire for novelty (which is of course contradictory to the view expressed by others that American brewers are simply engaged in slavish attempts to emulate what others have done before), I would suggest that such experimentation is much more often a guided exploration from the known into the unknown (at least for the individual brewer) potentials and possibilities where the brewer suspects but does not know the end result for sure until it actually gets put to the test. Some such experiments stick and others fail. But there is not really a single or small set of formulaic templates which all brewers must fit or wind up passing into obscurity. For whatever reason it does seem that the US (population size, cultural blending, etc.,etc.) is home right now to much higher levels of guided experimentation than I've observed either directly or indirectly in Germany and Belgium.

 

Luckily while I was in Berlin that stuff is EVERYWHERE....


Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus AG - Rothaus Pils TannenZäpfle by imbibehour, on Flickr

Actually I should take that back... the pils is everywhere, I never even saw the Marzen except when I went to a specialty shop to ask for it (and it was early Oct).

 

Regarding Radler : Maybe not a strong indication of who is making or drinking radler, but when you type it into the search on BA, only 4 of the first 20 listed are from Germany. I personally wouldn't take to heart something that someone from Henninger Brau has to say. They produce 4 beers, all of which have terrible ratings. On a more relevant note, only one person on all of BA rated their radler (2.88 for what that one rating might be worth). They mix lemon soda with "yummy" pilsner. One would hope a man didn't use yummy to describe a beer, and a beer with less than impressive reviews at that. I believe a good portion of the American general public enjoy our version Shandy anyway.

Regarding German Beer : Sure there is the commercial crap but every country has that. We in the US are the worst offenders of producing and consuming commercial crap beer. Beer mixed drinks are allegedly 6% percent of Germany's beer market? In the US, craft beer is less than 10% of the beer market, including the borderline ones? Just a thought, but that's ass backwards. Germany is about half the size of Texas and has long standing breweries thriving for hundreds of years, of course with the likes of the oldest brewery in the world (Weihenstephan) and the oldest Monastery brewery in the world to boot (Weltenburg). Beer purity obviously has it's place, and while many American craft brewers do hold to it as well, we also add more outside ingredients to a good number of our craft beers than anyone. Chilis, chocolate, flowers, bananas, spices, herbs, roots, agave to name a few.

Sorry for the long winded response. In conclusion, I think QUALITY German Beer and QUALITY American Beer are both awesome! For anyone who is a true beer lover, both worlds should give you a beer boner. Let's all enjoy and appreciate what each country and specific regions of such have to offer.

 

A lot of those nationalities are European nationalities, though. The world is a big place. Only about a third of the population of New York are whites of European descent, compared to 80% for Berlin or 60% for London. And just straight up nationalities, you still have about 40% of New York City that's foreign-born. Not saying that Berlin and London aren't diverse (obviously London has a South Asian population on a scale New York can't match), but New York is a pretty high standard for diversity. Off the top of my head I can only think of Toronto as being solidly ahead of it.

 

Interestingly enough, I was just reading this post by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/10/famous-to-the-family.html. He talks about 'micro-targeting' and pushing companies to find what he refers to as a 'tribe' of customers. Never to be all things to all people, but rather to be the single best provider of a truly unique service to a select number of people who 'get it' and thus become hard core loyalists. Many small, traditional breweries in Bavaria retain their 'tribe' of loyalists quite successfully -- and have done so for centuries.

And while the U.S.-driven 'craft' movement may be doing exceedingly well right now -- and a rising tide may float all boats (including literally 100s of wholly mediocre places) -- individual 'craft' breweries would do well to take a page out of the books of these 'traditional' places (which, by the way, not only continue to exist in places like Franconia, the Oberpfalz, and the rest of Bayern -- but also in Koeln, Duesseldorf, and other small pockets throughout the country...a country only the size of NC, SC, and southern VA combined) and court their own tribe of brand loyalists if they are to survive the inevitable shakeout that is coming.

And if anyone thinks that shakeout isn't coming, then they are as idealistic (if not more so) than those of us who look to tradition to reverse the downward trend in German brewing.

 

Your 17th Anniverary Gotterdammerung ipa was undoubtedly a nod to your German presence. Was there any German feedback for that one? I felt it was one of the best beers you have ever done. Phenomenal blend of American ingenuity and European ingredients. Any twists like that planned for the German market and do you see experimentation over there making it back to the US?

 

I think it takes more skill as a brewer to make an excellent product with limited ingredients than it does being able to do whatever you want. Like a chef who can take a less desirable cut of meat and turn it in to something fabulous. Plus, I've tasted many beers with odd ingredients that were good but felt like the chocolate/coffee/peppers/spices/flower petals/whatever were covering up a beer that would be mediocre at best without said added items.

And no American rauchbier even comes close to the Aecht Schlenkerla brews

 

But those beers have those added items and it's silly to judge the beer without them, particularly when they make the beer tasty.

And that same chef could probably do something even better with a better slice of meat.

 

Amen!!

Cheers!

 

No. #simpleanswer

 

German beers are definitely that good. However, I do prefer American made beer if I had to choose.

 

FTFY

 

Had a Celebrator last night, a great topper after a couple ok American Marzens. Yup,the beer with the little white goat was really gut.

 

I hear what you are saying about the beer. The chef thing on the other hand, I dunno, give me that griscle filled shank cooked with love over tenderloin any day of the week

 

Of course I recognize the vibrant international component of large European cities. My greater point was that American culture was "begun" by a mix of European and Native American peoples- the plight of the Native Americans representing a low point- and that successive waves of immigrants over time infused the emerging greater culture with traditions of religion, food, drink, recreation, etc. that persist. America started late with people from everywhere. Much of the peopling of Europe took place before historical record and the cultures are more "mature" and to my mind more homogeneous.

 

I'm blown away by how much solidarity I'm feeling in this thread compared to the usual ones mentioning German beer. Cheers, @evilcatfish