You probably know that some of the big names in import beer, like Beck’s and St. Pauli Girl, are actually brewed in America or Canada for the North American market, a fact that they go to great pains to hide. While they are required to list the location of their brewery on the label, they might just bury it in a list several cities.
And that’s okay, if you like the beer. Fact is, you’re getting it fresher than if it sat on a container ship for a week and in a warehouse for months. Here in Chicago, we now have Goose Island beers coming from New Hampshire while Lagunitas is being brewed on the West Side.
Some overseas brewers have chosen to actually talk up their American brewing outposts. Trumer Brauerei, of Salzburg, Austria, decided in 2004 to open a satellite brewery in Berkeley, CA.
Trumer Austria was established c.1601 and is kind of a single-purpose brewery, focusing their production on Trumer Pils. The Pilsener is the most-imitated style of beer in the world, although very few megabrewers using that name come close to its specifics, including soft water, certain hop combinations, etc. And how close the Berkeley brew comes to its forebear is hard to say, because with the U.S. brewery running full tilt, they have no need to import to share shelf space.
So the Trumer folks sent me a six-pack in celebration of the Berkeley brewery’s 10th anniversary, complete with a pair of their special glasses. Called Stange glasses (German for “stick”), these cylindrical glasses hold only 0.3 liters, or 10 ounces. In northern Germany, where they’re used for altbiers, the server will tick off your beers on your coaster each time he brings a new one. And a beer with any visual faults has nowhere to hide.
They are also pretty hard to pour into without getting a huge head of foam and little beer. Current sixpacks come with a little flyer instructing you to pour a little bit straight in, let it settle, then pour down the side of the tilted glass. This time it worked for me.
What you pour will be a very bright golden color, punctuated by streams of tiny bubbles feeding a rocky head. I get a light malt toast smell, with a slight spicy note from Germanic noble hops.
Drinking delivers just the right amount of fizz to make the sharp hops prick at the tongue. Malt finish is quite dry, leaving a warm hop burn. Other Pilseners may tend to flowery hops, or may seem salty as brewers try to match the soft water of the Bohemian town where the style was born. But this version of the style should be more familiar to the American palate.
Using the “authentic” glass, schnozzes like mine can have trouble getting inside to take all the nose in. The size of the glass encourages you to tip it all in at once. Luckily its 4.9% abv lets you, long as you space out your refills.
Slight hoppiness can counter a some of the fatty dark meat birds or sausages, and ease pickled German veggies; but this is a good go-with for any main course.
