What's the deal with Bocks?

Please do!!

I have been homebrewing for over 20 years. My next batch which I will be brewing later this week is my second batch of a reconstruction of an 1896 Michelob lager beer.

As the Nike slogan goes: Just do it!

Cheers!

 

Awful wide brush you're painting with there newbie.

 

It's cause his fist is angry.

 

don't blame me, i used to be just like you.

 

Taking advantage of the fact that there are some bock cognoscenti here, has any of you had Schumcker Rosé Bock? What are your thoughts about it regarding its style adherence? It's a german beer so I suppose it should be accurate.
I have no problem finding that beer at my local Wallmart, and I like it.

 

Holy crap, really? I'll let the local Hofbrauhaus know that they aren't actually packed every weekend, it just somehow looks like they are. Must be all 0 of their guest taps.

 

Not with that opinion on German style beers.

 

Can you make a list of the Bocks you've been drinking? I'd like to know what to stay away from. The only "Bock" I've ever had that tasted like Soy Sauce was Sam Adams' Triple Bock many years ago... that was a disaster.

 

The vast majority of lager brewers in the US put out seasonal bock beer (it'd probably be easier to list the ones that didn't) - that was true right into the 1950s-1960s and, as noted by other posters above, was still the case for an ever-shrinking number of US brewers. "Bock Beer Day" was announced well in advance and there was "seasonal creep". What once was an "Easter/Spring" release had moved to January during the course of the 20th century - which was also given as a reason often given by the industry for Bock beer's ups and downs - along with "Wartime Prohibition" during WWI and WWII grain and other brewery-related rationing and shortages.

Local brewers' organizations even co-operated on setting and advertising the date, as seen in this ad from the NJ and NYC brewers' groups, featuring most every brewer in the region:

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It is... or maybe was is more appropriate.

I know you live there, but are you in an area where Bocks are popular? On my visits to Germany, Munich, to be specific, Doppelbock was always called Starkbier. Maibock lost a little in translation (pronunciation), but I was able to get my point across and a Maß on my table.

 

It's tough to pin down the popularity of German styles because many of them are seasonal. And craft beer sales lump "seasonal" into one giant category.

- Oktoberfest/Maerzen in the fall
- Doppelbock in the winter
- Maibock/Helles bock in the spring
- Helles/pilsner in the spring/summer
- Hefeweizen in the summer

 

Pity. I loved the Bocky Bier and was pleased to come upon a cache of 'em at a local packy over a year after they'd been brewed. I picked up a couple and if anything they were better than I remembered them fresh. Pretty Things also did Lovely Saint Winefride, which they styled a "brown lager," but so far as I can tell (not far, admittedly) it was a similarly decocted mash. RIP.

I'm pleased to be entering the proper bock season and I hope to see more options by American brewers in the future.

 

Lovely St. Winefride was on my wants list for a while, but never seemed to actually see distribution anywhere near anyplace I was. Sigh.

 

Unfortunate. I think they only brewed it twice (and Bocky Bier but once). It's a shame there isn't a bigger market for that sort of thing.

 

Don't you know? Every tap there is Gose.

 

That and the fact that it was made from dregs.

 

After Pretty Things announced that they were calling it a day, I grabbed some old bottles of their stuff that I always passed on previously - thinking that I no longer had the option to wait for a newer bottle. Worst that can happen is that I would end up dumping the beer - not the end of the world. I was surprised how good some still were. An old favorite, St. Botolph's, was a beer that I really wanted one last time but every bottle in the area was something like two years old. That 5.9% beer clearly showed it's age, but the quality was evident regardless and the damned thing was awesome. You sometimes get rewarded when ignoring the prevailing wisdom.

 

A well-brewed Bock is awesome. It is, unfortunately, not an "extreme" style with very little possibility for making it so (we already have Doppelbocks). It's also not currently what's trending, which accounts for a good chunk of the market in any industry and very noticeably the beer industry.

 

I'd been waiting for this to appear...

 

In the past I have enjoyed Michelob Amber Bock... haven't had it for a couple years. Tastes like liquid milk duds to me. It's probably not a real bock anyway.