BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: A Schlenkerla interlude before filling growlers of Fastenbier.

A month ago COVID-19 intervened just as I was trying to establish a regular writing routine at the Pints&union beer blog. Much of what I had planned to write was intended to address pub culture and the on-premise beer drinking experience, and these came to an abrupt end.

Fast forward a week, and suddenly we were allowed to sell alcoholic beverages for carryout, previously a coin flip of a privilege scattered randomly through the state of Indiana's impenetrable thicket of regulations.

Flipping one's business model overnight may not sound particularly challenging, but it is, and now more than ever before, something's better than nothing. It was good to start moving product again, if far more slowly than before. Beer is better when consumed, not as a museum piece.

There are two points I'd like to make today.

The first has to do with the way Pints&union specifically, and the restaurant business in general, has adapted on the fly to the challenges of the past six weeks.

In our case, Joe Phillips quickly embraced the need to participate in the relief effort for restaurant workers, and consequently we're now operating as a small grocery and commissary kitchen in addition to the evening hours of 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday for curbside carryout of food and drink.

Emergency reinventions have a way of becoming harbingers of the future, and I believe the pandemic responses are presaging an upheaval. At this juncture, I highly recommend reading this essay by a food writer in London. What he's saying here is what everyone in the business has been talking about.

Restaurants will never be the same after coronavirus – but that may be a good, by Jonathan Nunn (The Guardian)

 ... We are in uncharted waters: the industry has never seen this before, and all signs point to the likelihood that restaurants as we know them aren’t coming back for a while. To move forward, we must start by examining what we would like to save about the industry, giving space to the things that nourish us and our communities, and discarding what we believe doesn’t deserve to survive. After all, the real danger the restaurant industry faces isn’t annihilation – the danger is that it comes back the same as it was before.

Second, returning to the beer, I spent the past couple of days dreaming about smoked lager, Bamberg, travel and the occasional succulent sausage during the course of campaigning for the cause of all things Schlenkerla. These became Pints&union beer blog posts as a preface to seeing if the pre-selling of growlers from a special keg is an idea with legs.

Bamberg beer forever: Schlenkerla revisited (Part One).

Bamberg beer forever: Schlenkerla revisited (Part Two).

The few, the proud, the smoked: We have Fastenbier growler opportunities for Schlenkerla fans.

Indeed it was. This morning the quarter-barrel of Schlenkerla Fastenbier took less than 40 minutes to sell out, which is gratifying. The growlers will be poured on Thursday morning, paid and collected over the weekend, and then the proceeds will be enough to pay for a few cases of bottled and canned beer to fill in gaps.

We're not making much money this way, but subsistence is the art of survival for the pub, allowing worker relief duties to take place concurrently.

One of four $10,000 LEE Initiative “Grants for Good” is awarded to Pints&union to support restaurant workers relief efforts in SoIN.

The many significant ways, the world with which we re-engage after the coronavirus containment measures cease isn't likely to be the same as the one we inhabited just prior to St. Patrick's Day.

It isn't clear yet exactly what this means. Pouring a keg of Fastenbier dry via growlers on subscription isn't exactly what I thought I'd be doing in mid-April, but it's good enough for me at the present time as we await our new dimensions.

Speaking personally, I hope Schlenkerla and other breweries survive, and their beers continue to be available. At the moment, nothing seems certain.

Five years ago today: "2014 Euro Reunion Tour, Day 6: Sightseeing and Schlenkerla."

The 2014 Euro Reunion Tour began on September 10 and lasted through the 23rd. Friends joined us on an itinerary from Berlin through Bavaria to Belgium, and the trip was a lifesaver as well as a life-changer.

Recalling that Bank Street Brewhouse launched in 2009, the trials and tribulations of NABC's ill-fated expansion kept us from traveling abroad in 2010, 2011 and 2012. To be succinct, it was demoralizing.

By 2013 the indie biz trench warfare had stabilized sufficiently that we made it to England, then in 2014 came the long-awaited return to the continent, one glorious day of which is described here.

The kitchen at BSB had closed in May of 2014, and an effort was underway to shift operations to a taproom model amid mounting disagreement between owners, but in retrospect it seems certain that more than any other single factor the Euro Reunion Tour finally convinced me to begin the transition away from NABC. The business divorce began in earnest at the beginning of 2015

Duke Ellington's famous assessment: “Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.” For me it's Europe, not music. Many readers would have guessed beer, but this wasn't ever the case. It's deeper than just one aspect.

The brewery expansion project required me to be an American, and I gave it my best, and yet ultimately my heart was lodged elsewhere. We must be who and what we're intended to be, and I'm a European mistakenly dropped by a drunken stork in flyover America near Louisville.

It's an existential dilemma, one I've been grappling to make sensible since the early 1980s, and the process is okay by me for so long as I'm not compelled to pretend otherwise.

And now, five years ago today ... in Bamberg, Germany -- probably my favorite city in all of Europe.

---

The Gillenwaters and the Baylors began the day by hiking to the elevated square where the Dom (main cathedral) rests, facing both "new" and "old" residences of the archbishopric.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff and I discussed matters in the post-confessional rose garden.

Foreshadowing?

Various jaunts on a general theme of sightseeing subsequently occurred. Here's the monastery on Michaelsberg hill.

Little Venice along the Regnitz.

The much-reproduced old town hall building is astride the narrow river, which flows on both sides of the structure.

And, a bit of clever detail work, visible to the left in the above photo.

At 6 p.m., we met new arrivals Joe and Kris for dinner and smoky treats at the Schlenkerla tavern (to the right, below).

There we met delectable steak tartare with capers, onions, eggs and anchovies (and later, pork shoulder) washed down with the world's finest smoked lager beer.

More importantly, we met Julius Trum. For an explanation, skip over to my Potable Curmudgeon blog: Schlenkerla's next generation gets an early start.

Bavarian Christmas Interlude 2018, Thursday: A one-night stand with my sweetie in much beloved Bamberg.

Diana and I visited Bavaria (Munich and Bamberg) just before Christmas. Prior to departure, there was a series entitled Munich Tales 2018. This is the third of seven installments summarizing what we did, saw, ate and drank. They're being back-dated to the day we were there.

Previously: A sensory overload of Munich history -- and beer.
Next: Back to Munich for basketball. 

Um, no.

On Thursday morning we boarded took an InterCity Express (ICE) train from Munich to Bamberg, via Nürnberg, where there was a eight-minute change to the garden variety regional express. This trip used to be around three hour and twenty minutes; now it's been cut to a little over two.

Do we even have trains in America?

Oddly, there's an unexpected price to be paid for rail speed, over and above more expensive train tickets to ride them. These purpose-built ICE tracks obviously pass through rural areas, as intended to avoid all but a few of the towns and cities along the way.

It makes riding a high-speed express more like being on an airplane, and less about the things that always intrigued me when riding a train. In short, I miss the train station architecture and platform life viewed from the voyeur's compartment window. To cite another example, to take the fast train from Frankfurt to Köln these days means missing the beautiful scenery in the Rhine Valley, although of course one can opt for the slower journey; it helps to know the route when booking tickets.

Having noted all this, it was pleasant seeing hop trellises in the area near Wolnzach, and in the end, reduced travel time from Munich meant more hours to enjoy Bamberg.

I can't ever have enough of this place.

The purpose of a solitary Thursday evening in December with my gal in the town I love so well was to immunize myself for months to come against the disappointment of returning to the mind-numbing inanity of daily life in Nawbany.

The idea arose more than a year ago, when Diana jokingly said that we couldn't return to Bamberg until the garage was emptied of junk. Eventually I enlisted Big Wally to make the debris go away -- "just like David Copperfield." The result was angioplasty for our garage, and then when she expressed an interest in seeing Munich ... the deal was sealed. I love it when a travel plan comes together, even if Bamberg's part of it only for a single day.

There was a bakery in the old town, and we stopped for coffee and a snack. While there, the orange vest protests flared up outside: They selected an old-school broom and began tidying up.

I’d been under the impression that the venerable Klosterbräu Brauerei was a goner, but apparently there was an infusion of capital at some recent juncture. As a result, these excellent and unique beers live on. It’s also nice to have a brewery roughly 30 feet from our lodging, the Hotel Nepomuk. It was very quiet at Klosterbräu; no TV and no music, and in fact no one at all except the two of us and the woman working, until a tour group arrived.

The throwback floor drain pissoir was plenty groovy, too.

As noted, our choice for the overnight stay was Hotel Nepomuk, perched right on the river, which means that after 27 years of visiting Bamberg on the cheap, a splurge finally was merited. It was very nice, indeed.

Perched right outside the window of our room was an intriguing art installation.

In 2012 the exhibition 8 Poets for Bamberg of Catalan artist Jaume Plensa (born in 1955) was presented. The eight poets were sitting or crouching male figures from fibreglass who towered on six meters high steel steles. Removed from reality they shimmered in white during the day, after sunset they were glowing from within in changing colours by means of integrated LED-lamps. The figure titled Air-Earth that was placed at the Obere Muehlbruecke was purchased by the Association of the Friends of the Internationales Kuenstlerhaus Villa Concordia with the support of donors and sponsors. Jaume Plensa who lives in Barcelona ranks among the most renowned international sculptors and has realized large sculptures in public space throughout the world, such as Chicago, Dubai, London, Liverpool, Marseille, Tokyo, Toronto and Vancouver. By combining classical sculptural materials like steel, bronze and aluminium with different media like water, light, sound and video, with text also being included frequently, he creates sculptures of a strong psychological intensity.

Fun times.

It was dark early, and we set course for Brauerei Spezial. This involved weaving around the river paths to the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall) astride the river, then up into the pedestrian shopping area and across the canal. I'll get to these nighttime views in a moment.

First, it was time for an appetizer. Near the Christmas market there was a fishmonger's festive kiosk, and an amazing Bismarck herring sandwich.

Diana even captured a closeup.

The main room at Brauerei Spezial ranks among my favorite beer drinking venues in all of Germany. Bock on the left, and gently smoky lager on the right.

Now for those photos after dark.

While we were out and about, Diana found some seasonal mulled wine.

At seven we arrived at the Schlenkerla Tavern to catch up with Matthias, the heir to smoked beer fame. I'm fortunate to have made his acquaintance those many years ago, and we talked for two hours about beer and business and life itself.

Schweinehaxe is a roasted ham hock (pork knuckle). It is one of the glories of Bavarian cuisine, and Schlenkerla's is especially noteworthy. I'd already drained three half-liters of beechwood-smoked Märzen when the Haxe arrived, and moved to the Eiche (oak-smoked strong lager).

Do you see that crispy skin -- rind, crackling, whatever -- on top?

That's what I'm saying. The kraut and the dumpling were damn good, too.

THE BEER BEAT: This smoked beer story is fine, thank you. Also: Eiderdown and Sunday sales.

The heavenly source, 2003.

To know me is to know I've loved smoked beer since the first time I tried it, back in the 1980s, which probably was a Kaiserdom Rauchbier. It used to be in Merchant du Vin's repertoire well into the 1990s, although I'm unsure whether it or the Kaiserdom brewery itself still exists -- and I'm too lazy to Google it.

That's because we have Schlenkerla these days.

My first trip to Bamberg came in 1991, and later I learned that yes, Kaiserdom's example was brewed primarily for export -- in 1995, they seemed completely confused that anyone would want to know about smoked beer, even after my letter specified this as the only reason we were interested in visiting -- but I also saw plenty of locals in town queuing up to drink Schlenkerla and Spezial.

This made me indescribably happy.

Today's linked posting at Atlas Obscura strikes me as a perfectly reasonable introduction to the genre of smoky flavored beers, so naturally, I saw the article subsequently mentioned somewhere on Facebook, and found a heated debate among purists as to whether Garrett Oliver's description of a firebox was technically accurate, how such glaring errors as this fatally compromised his stewardship as editor of the Oxford Companion to Beer, and whether every "t" was crossed and "i" dotted  -- and I was muttering obscenities to myself.

Give me a freaking break.

I thought: Have any of you ever stood behind a bar and tried to help a real person understand what smoked beer was all about, with the goal of encouraging the customer to try one, and maybe even enjoy it?

While not deserving of a Pulitzer, I actually have done so, and I did it for something like 30 years, so please: silence the bullshit pedantry.

People at the bar just want to know why the beer tastes smoky, and it's very easy to understand that your wet coat hanging next to the fireplace will come away smelling ... well, like smoke, even if only lightly given the smoke is venting through the chimney. So will grain, and more so, when smoke passes through it.

Lesson learned; can we drink yet?

For normal folks wanting to try something new, it really isn't necessary to delve into molecular biology, advanced chemistry, the history of wood and the composition of rare Norwegian yeast. These might help, but what you need on a daily basis is a repeatable story to tell -- not a "fake" story, mind you, but one rooted in fact that is entertaining and will seal the deal.

Now decant an Eiche if you've got one and read this.

Why All Beer Once Tasted Like Smoke, by Jim Clarke (Atlas Obscura)

Those were the days.

... Refreshment isn’t the only reason to drink beer, of course, and some beer drinkers didn’t want to give up their smoky brews. Certain areas in Norway and Poland clung to a smoky style. Grodziskie, a smoked Polish wheat beer, persisted until the 1930s, and has been resurrected by some American craft breweries. Homebrewers in Norway shared communal malting houses using the old, smoky malting process until the 1970s. Homebrewer John Morten Granås resurrected the traditional malt house a few decades ago, and now the Stjørdal area east of Trondheim is home to a few dozen.

Commercially, only in Bamberg, Germany, have several brewpubs persisted in making smoke beers (Rauchbier, in German) since the Middle Ages. Much of the move to pale, smoke-free malts was tied up with industrialization, and bucolic Bamberg, in the heart of Franconia (the northern part of Bavaria), missed out.

“Bamberg is, by German standards, far away from any industrialized areas,” says Matthias Trum, the sixth generation brewmaster and owner of Aecht Schlenkerla. “We never had much industrialization here, especially no coal or steel industry. Coal was somewhat hard to acquire here, and it was easier for brewers to stick with wood as fuel.”

I'm delighted to know that Eiderdown's reboot has been a success, but I can't seem to find the beer list.

Any smoked beer there?

Eiderdown goes back to its roots, remains a delight, by Robin Garr (LEO Weekly)

The new menu gets touched up every now and then, but the basics stay the same. It’s distinctly, but not entirely, German; it’s not overly long, with just six entrées, a half-dozen sandwiches, a variety of house-made sausages and a list of appetizing snacks and starters. The $32 steak au poivre is gone from the menu, replaced by a $16 beef rouladen. The Sunday Sitdown chicken dinner remains, but it’s now $19, a few bucks under its original price. Everything else is $16 or less; house sausages are all $11, and the bar snacks and starters all fall in the single digits. Much of the meats, cheeses and produce are locally sourced, and the sausages, pretzels, beer cheese and desserts are all made in house.

As you’d expect from an eatery whose owners also operate the nearby Nachbar, Eiderdown’s beverages program is worthy, with an extensive, German-accented beer list and 21 taps, credibly promoted as “the most extensive German beer selection in town.” There’s plenty of local craft beer too, along with full bar service and a short, but thoughtful, wine list.

Finally, fresh news from the legislative trenches in Indiana.

Senate panel kills cold beer bill while Sunday alcohol sales gains momentum, by Robert King (Indy Star)

A legislative push to allow wider Sunday alcohol sales gained momentum Wednesday while an effort to expand the sale of cold beer likely suffered a death blow.

The push for Sunday carryout sales — approved Wednesday by a House committee 12 to 1 and passed unanimously last week by a Senate panel — seems on a fast track to passage.

But a bill to allow grocery and convenience stores to sell cold beer was defeated in a Senate committee Wednesday by a 9-to-1 vote, likely signaling its death for this session.

The starkly divergent paths for the bills is neatly following the path key lawmakers predicted months ago but also closely reflects the outline of the deal struck in the fall between the powerful liquor store lobby and big box stores — a deal to support Sunday sales but to oppose cold beer's expansion.

Bamberg beer forever: Schlenkerla revisited (Part Two).

Matthias more recently. Photo credit and fine story here: Schlenkerla tavern taps 609-year-old tradition, by Kerry J. Byrne (Boston Herald)

It can be seen that a proper respect for tradition is the norm in the Schlenkerla pub and brewery, but Matthias prepared for his career with thoroughly modern diligence after assuring his parents at an early age that he fully intended to go into the family business.

The same grandmother who rejected public lip-locking contact out of wedlock and shunned the tourist’s flowery Bermudas heartily encouraged the notion that Matthias should first attend university for a degree in business and economics before immersion in beer and brewing.

Afterwards, Matthias studied at the prestigious Weihenstephan brewing institute near Munich and served an apprenticeship at Zum Uerige, the most traditional of Dusseldorf’s Altbier brewpubs. He then worked the family brewery from top to bottom alongside the maltster, brewer and forklift operator.

When German Trum passed the baton to his son Matthias and retired from the business that he had directed for three decades, he did so without qualification, and has not visited the brewery since. It would appear that capable hands run in the family.

Meanwhile, Bamberg’s remaining breweries cope. Contemporary Germany is no different from any other Western consumer society. Its citizens are forever being offered “new and improved” beverages, foods, entertainment options and lifestyle choices.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, beer consumption has been on the decline in Germany for many years, and in Franconia, home to 500 or more breweries as recently as the 1980’s, the number has dropped to just above 300 now.

British beer writer John Conen, a close observer of the Bamberg brewing scene, says that the hemorrhaging has slowed of late, but to return to the analogy of disappearing species in the Amazon, the continued attrition of these small, distinctive breweries bodes ill for the future of German brewing.

I’m not speaking of German brewing in the sense of it functioning on its largest level as a multi-national business enterprise, for there are no shortage of large brewing companies actively pursuing acquisition, consolidation and the transformation of beer into a standardized supermarket commodity in Germany just as in the rest of the world.

Rather, I’m lamenting the inevitable decline of brewing in the artistic and cultural senses, for it is in these milieus that individualistic, highly localized attitudes and methods, once lost, can never be regained.

Bamberg’s nine breweries deal with problems of survival in varying, generally complementary ways.

Kaiserdom, the largest and least interesting to me, seeks to maintain a niche export market and positions itself as up-market “premium” at home. By contrast, the late Maisel (closed in 2008) brewed the local working man’s Pils and Weizen.

In the neighborhood known as Wunderberg, arguably Bamberg’s Brooklyn, Mahr’s and Keesman occupy opposite sides of the street and both make great beer. It is alleged by certain observers that the workers patronize Mahr’s and the bosses visit Keesman, but despite long hours spent at both establishments, I cannot verify it. However, I can attest to the lip-smacking beers that both produce.

Close to the Rhine-Main-Danube canal on Obere-Konigstrasse, Fassla is a brewpub and guesthouse that unashamedly caters to the working man. It I more “real” than Anheuser-Busch ever will be. Directly across the street, Spezial brews the city’s gentler, delicious smoked lager and operates the finest beer garden (Spezial Keller, located a few kilometers away on Stephansberg hill) in Bamberg, and maybe all of Germany.

Klosterbrau parlays its Old Town location, monastic religious connotations and rich textbook dark lagers into a steady trade with tourist and local alike. Greifenklau possesses yet another lovely hilltop garden with a view, and runs a big hotel that is favored by tour groups.

And then, there’s Schlenkerla. The Trum family resides above their pub, so there are no overnight rooms, but an outdoor garden for warm weather seating has been added, and the historic pub itself is jewel enough. It oozes history. Half of its current floor plan originally was part of an adjacent monastery, and the location deep in the epicenter of Bamberg’s old town is exemplary. Insofar as tourists can stomach real, unalloyed beer, Schlenkerla draws them, but at the Stammtisch (i.e., reserved table) are clustered with regulars who have been drinking in the same spot since long before Matthias’s birth.

Small amounts of Schlenkerla’s beer reach aficionados throughout the world, and there are off-premise accounts in Bamberg and its environs, but by far most of it is consumed at the bustling tavern, lovingly drawn one pint at a time from the real wooden barrel perched atop a venerable metal-topped counter, and consumed alongside smoked ham, horseradish and pungent beer cheese.

Time spent with Matthias Trum convinces me that Schlenkerla will remain a safe house amidst the destructive tsunamis of the warring multinational brewing conglomerates, and for this alone I keep going back to Bamberg.

How I manage to convince myself to return to Indiana remains a mystery to me … but somehow, each time, I do.

Maybe someday this will change, and I won't.

2014 Euro Reunion Tour, Day 6: Sightseeing and Schlenkerla.

The Gillenwaters and the Baylors began the day by hiking to the elevated square where the Dom (main cathedral) rests, facing both "new" and "old" residences of the archbishopric.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff and I discussed matters in the post-confessional rose garden.

Foreshadowing?

Various jaunts on a general theme of sightseeing subsequently occurred. Here's the monastery on Michaelsberg hill.

Little Venice along the Regnitz.

The much-reproduced old town hall building is astride the narrow river, which flows on both sides of the structure.

And, a bit of clever detail work, visible to the left in the above photo.

At 6 p.m., we met new arrivals Joe and Kris for dinner and smoky treats at the Schlenkerla tavern (to the right, below).

There we met delectable steak tartare with capers, onions, eggs and anchovies (and later, pork shoulder) washed down with the world's finest smoked lager beer.

More importantly, we met Julius Trum. For an explanation, skip over to my Potable Curmudgeon blog: Schlenkerla's next generation gets an early start.

We ended the session back at Spezial. For some reason, I remember very little about the nightcap.