German / Imported Märzens

See if you can get into your local chapter of the Deutsche Post Biertrinker
Verein.
.

 

U.S. importers return via the post office? That has to be pricey.

 

Not by the importers, but by sympathetic US beers drinkers on BA (at least, that's what I thought @JHDStein was requesting. Me, I gotta drop out, my local post office takes a late lunch (1pm-2pm) and I always forget that...so frustrating to pull on that locked door.)

Heck, the importers would never give them up, since, as we've all heard, "...those German beers are still fine..."

 

Now that is a great excuse! No, as much as I like a good Märzen Oktoberfest, the shipping costs would be ridiculous. I once talked my Dad into sending a care-package (other beers...), and it was so stupid expensive. If they would just not ship them over in the first place...

 

Perhaps you can educate us about the popularity of American brewed beers in Europe (Germany)?

Is there a lot of demand by German beer drinkers for American craft beer? How much are they willing to pay for these beer? Does the fact they will likely be several months old by the time they can purchase them on beer retailers shelves impact their willingness to buy them? Is the indication that Stone Brewing had to close (sell out) their brewery operations in Berlin have indications here?

Cheers!

@boddhitree

 

But if they were 16.9 oz I would only have to pour two! Not to mention, my wife only seeing two empty beer bottles instead of three on the counter the next morning before they go off to the recycling bin goes a long way, regardless of bottle size.

I am absolutely adopting this strategy, by the way. Should be seeing some of those imports any day now...

 

That seems exactly to be the problenm, but not in the way you'd imagine.

Märzen isen't a delicate style, like an IPA or other aroma- or hop-forward beers. Their flavor profile is built mainly as a malt-forward beer. Flavors aren't as volatile molecularly as aroma, so they could stand being on a shelf for 6 to 12 months without losing too much from its brewed-fresh flavor. The date problem for malt-forward beers lies more on the IPA consumer who has been trained to equate freshness with full flavor. Again, this is true for aroma-foward beers, but this prejudice towards drinking anything that's not super fresh is snobby at best and stupid in the extreme when it comes to style like Märzen or Stouts/Porters/Scottish Wee-Heavies. Now, after 1year, a malt-forward beer will begin to change in flavor, often in a good way, but sometimes for the worst.

How do I know this? I've lagered many of my homebrews for years as experiments, set a few bottles aside from each brew. Bitterness dissipates over time, sometimes by 50% over a year. Pure aroma (anything not cooked into the brew, i.e. dry hopped) dissipates from 50% to up to 100% in 6 months. But malt-foward beers don't derive their flavor from hops, are cooked into the flavor. Malts tend to mellow and age, verging into Port-wine or Brandy directions.

Stone's demise in Berlin was simply the old real estate adage of "location, location, location." Investing a large sum to refurbish an old factory with NO pubic transport on the outskirts of a city where public transport is the main way to get anywhere was fool-hardy and showed no insight into the market Stone was trying to break into. If you don't research your indented consumer and are "an arrogant bastard," especially in literally a foreign market, you're really lowering your chances of successful. I'm absolutely sure if they had set down roots near the center of the city or in one of the hipster quarters, they would be super success at their location. I mentioned this ****ling problem here in BA to Greg Koch and he blew the concern off. Brew pubs or craft beer bars can be wildly successful (See Naïv in Frankfurt... they just opened a 2nd location in FFM in the middle of a pandemic.) in Germany if the location as well as the product is all in order.

 

I can't speak as to big city hipsters, but from my vantage point, there is virtually zero interest in American craft beer in Germany. Zero. I can think of a few reasons for this:

1. Wrong beers Part 1 - The American craft beers that make there way to Germany have little to recommend them. IPA's don't travel well across the ocean. The SN Torpedo I drink when I am back in the States is a whole different beer to the unbalanced, muted version I get here in Germany. You take away the aggressiveness of the hops, and you are left with a load of malt and bitterness and a little bit of dank. Normal Stouts and Porters aren't exactly "new" or "American", and very few Germans in my neck of the woods even drink German dark beers, let alone foreign ones. Regardless, American craft beer in Germany is equated with IPA's, and the American versions we get are not great advertising for that style.

2. Wrong beers Part 2 - Even a good IPA is a weird taste for a German. It's just a bridge too far sometimes. Many of my German friends taste an IPA and they immediately tell me, "that's not beer". They have a set idea of what "beer" is, and they can't move themselves away from that.

3. Price - Even where one of my acquaintances shows an interest in American craft beer, the price is simply too high in comparison to quality German beer. SN Torpedo costs about €8 per Liter. I can get Weihenstephaner for about €2 per Liter. You have to really like a beer to pay 4x as much for it as another. At best, such beers become a "special treat". Mostly, they just get left on the shelves.

At the end of the day, regardless of the consumer, I don't think the American craft beers justify the price point here. Too expensive to justify whatever added value there is. I'm a prime example. I'll pay stupid prices for excellent beer, but I don't buy the American stuff either.

As to Stone in Berlin, I think @boddhitree hit that squarely on the head: bad planning. And not just in the placement of the brewery taproom-restaurant. They were just culturally ignorant. They sold their beer in cans, which for normal Germans is like putting wine in a box. Craft beer nerds like me will buy expensive IPA's in a can, but Stone was trying to sell this in grocery stores to normal people. Madness.

 

Well, the modern "IPA consumers" weren't responsible for the emphasis on freshness, at least, as far as my beer education goes; in the overall US beer culture, brewers of the underhopped AAL beer style taught it to me (back when there was just one US-brewed India Pale Ale):

I'm guessing you don't pasteurized or sterile-filter your homebrew?

 

I wrote the above while drinking my first coffee... please don't laugh too hard at my typos. However, I'm really proud in discovering the indented consumer, rather than the intended.

 

C'mon, in your younger days, you never got up the morning after and felt "indented"?

I always like the guys who read about a new beer in the forum that they just have to get and proclaim, "I am defiantly going to buy this beer!" (when they meant to type "definitely").

I always picture them grabbing a sixpack out of the cooler, marching to the front of the store where they will slam it on the counter and grab the clerk by the collar - "I don't want to hear any objections, YOU are going to sell me this beer!"

 

Yep. And that may make a difference but not so much in how beer aromas/flavors change over time, I think.

You're right. I stay away from anything aroma-forward from the States for the simple reason that aroma doesn't travel well. Also, there are so many great local craft brewers I'd rather support from Germany and across Europe. I have access to Omnipollo, Lervig, Pöhjala from Estonia, occasionally Mikkeller, Brouwereij Kees, Yellowbelly from Ireland, and many many more at one of 3 craft bottle shops in FFM and 3 craft beer bars, and those are fresher, so I'd prefer those to anything shipped from the USA.

For Otto-normaltrinker you're correct, especially in small towns/cities in Germany. If it's not Pils, it's not "beer." But in cosmopolitan cities like FFM, Berlin, etc, that's not the case. Like I said, Naïv in FFM is doing great business. It's always full, in fact it's often impossible to get a seat in winter without waiting more than 30 minutes, but that's due to there being lots of expats from other European countries and the USA in addition to Germans who are customers.

I disagree slightly about the can issue. Yes, Germans today hold a prejudice against canned beer, just like Americans did, equating cans with bad beer, but a few craft brewers are beginning to produce can only product lines, such as Blech.Brut, FrauGruber and Sudden Death, Camba Bavaria, et al, so that's beginning to change, and thus I think that was at most a minor, surmountable issue. It would've been a matter of education. But in smaller markets, @JHDStein you may have a good point. Nonetheless, I think the biggest money loser was the actual location of the brewery/bar/restaurant. Koch, from SoCal, where the car is king and it might even be unimaginable to take a subway anywhere, maybe didn't get the transportation issue in Europe. In big cities, you don't need or want to own a car. I don't own or need one. And the police are super strict about DWIs. I take the subway, tram or bus everywhere in the city. If there isn't easy public transport access, I automatically rule out going to an eatery.

Here for fun are pics of German craft brewers in cans:




As you see, it's beginning to change.

 

I disagree with you here. As @jesskidden discussed above beer freshness is a genuine issue and it predates IPAs by a long shot.

That is an 'apples and oranges' comparison.Your homebrewed beers are bottle conditioned and bottle conditioning greatly aids in extending beer shelf life. How do I know this? I too have 'experimented'. I have homebrewed 456 batches over 25+ years.

Cheers!

 

My 2 favorite Märzens of all time ever, both from Pax Bräu. The first is like a regular Märzen, but in the style of a beer from Franken, meaning it's malt bill had 10 to 12% Rauch/Smoked malt. WOW. The 2nd, the Phantom Schmärzen (Schmärzen means "pain" in German... get the pun?) is a Märzen Hell (less hopped, more Rauch malt), which was almost the same beer but rebranded and with an equally cool-ass label.

 

Those quotes are all relative to the beer they were speaking for though. Every beer is different, so they wouldn't all have the same age lifespan. Depending on ingredients like yeast and malts some could last longer than others. Surely all wild/sour beers don't need to be drunk within 2-3 months right? Or how about those stouts and barleywines that get put in barrels for up to a year or longer before release? Or Belgian beers with best before dates years after bottling? Not every beer has the same rules, it all depends on the style or how it was made.

 

The beer sold at the Oktoberfest is still Märzen. Just Helles Märzen.

The term Märzen refers to strength, not colour. As Schlenkerla's, which is dark, demonstrates.

 

And they were copy/pasted in reply specifically to the post by @boddhitree that suggested that beer freshness concerns are a modern phenomenon driven by the "IPA consumer who has been trained to equate freshness with full flavor".

I was not implying that they (especially the quotes with specific shelf life periods) applied equally to all beers - but I do think the modern "German / Imported Märzens", which are this thread's topic, from large to macro-sized breweries and mostly likely pasteurized or heavily-filtered as is commonly the case for such brewers' beers meant for export, are similar enough to US AAL's to fall into the category of the sorts of beers that are best consumed "fresh".

 

As I understand it, a Märzen must be 13 Plato or stronger. I saw that in a few places, but no reference as to why.

 

These quotes are fairly condescending to most of the people in this thread. No one (or at least the people that post regularly) believes that the same rules apply for all beer styles and we are not poorly trained "IPA consumers". Yes, Belgians and many Imperial beers are fine (or potentially improve based on preferences) with ageing, the vast majority of standard strength ales and lagers do deteriorate. Now, I would claim that a 4 or 5 month old Marzen is still good, but if @JackHorzempa says he sees a deterioration, I believe him. Palates are different. And there is no way in hell that a 12 month Marzen is fine. If you (@boddhitree) thinks it's fine, maybe consider that our palates aren't the problem.