Beware: This rabbit hole is deeper, darker, and more mysterious than any limestone cellar that riddles a hill in Upper Franconia—and, once you’re down here with me, you’ll find that it’s also much, much cooler.
It starts with drinking a good one—ideally from a cool steinkrug on a warm day—and trying to pick apart why it has so much character. Let’s say it has body and sweetness—certainly not “crispness”—yet it’s more than balanced by a pronounced earthy bitterness, a distinct minerality, and a drying finish. The mug’s opacity and weight conceal the liquid, so it’s a bigger surprise than usual when you realize, with great sadness, that it’s empty.
Maybe that moment occurs in Franconia; if not, the path of curiosity might lead you there, eventually. It might even lead you to the base of the Kellerwald in Forchheim, about 15 miles south of Bamberg on a hot, sunny day anytime from, say, May to September. As you find the path up that hill, you enter the shade of the chestnuts, and the temperature drops palpably, cooling your brow as well as the earth below. That matters.
There are 23 old stone beer cellars dug into the Kellerwald, and there’s a reason people either planted those trees or put their cellars beneath them. It’s not just about shade, since leafy trees like the chestnut do something that no umbrella can match: They transpire moisture, literally pulling water from the soil and slowly, almost imperceptibly releasing it from above as vapor—a thing that we can feel, if not see.
Naturally, a long table beneath those shady trees makes an excellent place to sit and drink fresh beer. The Kellerwald is a sociable place of many beer gardens—but nobody here calls them that. Instead, they’re just kellers. Keller in German literally means cellar—the basement where you keep provisions—but in Franconia, it means much more than that. The keller is where you go to drink beer, snack, and relax; you bring your family, friends, dog, bicycle, deck of cards, or whatever you have handy.
The keller is a happy place. And the keller is the true home of kellerbier—and it has been for a long time.
In 1807, Joachim Heinrich Campe wrote what’s considered one of the most important German dictionaries of his era. It includes a definition for kellerbier (my translation): “beer that’s offered at a public keller and fetched from there, as opposed to bottled beer that’s kept in one’s own cellar.”
In its most essential form, kellerbier is simply beer from the keller.
By tradition, it was the freshest beer you could get, right at the spot where it lagered in those tunnels. That tradition continues, in a way: While some German breweries still occasionally pour beer from a lined, spigoted barrel known as a stichfass or holzfass, that practice is entrenched in Franconia—even if, these days, they typically fill those barrels with finished beer from the lagering tanks.
While you can find “kellerbier” almost anywhere in Germany, it’s usually a bottled, unfiltered version of a brewery’s flagship lager. Outside Franconia, “keller” became code for unfiltered or slightly cloudy. That has little or nothing to do with real Franconian kellerbier, which isn’t often cloudy and is more flavorful—because the people there demand it, just as they expect to get a half-liter at the keller for less than a few euros.
The Local Tradition
Markus Raupach is a beer sommelier, author, and international beer judge who knows his IPA as well as his Berliner weisse. He also was born in Bamberg and grew up there—so, he really knows his kellerbier.
When he was a kid, it was normal for him to join the family and go to the keller, a cultural activity central to local life. “It means that we go up a hill where there is a brewery tap and benches,” he says. “My mother and grandmother would pack picnic baskets with salads, bread, sausage, cheese, plates, and cutlery, and we would all go to a beer keller in the town or region together. Once there, my mother would spread out the tablecloth and set the table. All the bowls and platters and, of course, plates and cutlery for everyone were placed on top. We often had friends or relatives whom we met at the keller.
“My job as a young boy was to regularly run to the bar with the beer mugs my parents and friends had brought with them, and [to] have them filled with kellerbier. So, I associate many wonderful afternoons and evenings with the topic of kellerbier—and, of course, my first sensory experiences because I was able to sip from the beer mug and taste the beer every time I fetched it, without my parents noticing.”
When he turned 16, Raupach’s friends gave him his own steinkrug to take to the keller. He’d go there less often with family and more often with friends. These days, he doesn’t go quite as often, but when he does, it’s usually to join friends and play board games or cards—especially Schafkopf, a card game beloved throughout Bavaria.
“And there’s simply no better place than a beer keller, where you can sit and play all day in the sun or in the shade,” he says. “If we’re thirsty, we get a kellerbier, and the kitchen is always open.”
Proto-Lager
While pilsner and helles are beautifully refined, kellerbier tends to have an old-fashioned, rustic edge that evokes the earliest bottom-fermented beers.
“Historically speaking,” Raupach says, “it is the first consciously brewed lager in the world.”
In the 14th century, brewers in the Franconian city of Nuremberg were describing bottom-fermenting yeast cultures as distinct from others. For centuries, brewers could differentiate between top- and bottom-fermenting cultures—but that doesn’t mean they were pure. “They were always mixed fermentations,” Raupach says, “because it was not until the middle of the 20th century that bottom-fermented, pure yeast from laboratories was used in small breweries. The temperature in the cellars determined whether the beers were rather top-fermented or rather bottom-fermented.”
Of course, brewers knew that certain practices led to better-tasting results—such as keeping that beer longer in cool cellars. “Because these beers were taken ‘out of the cellars’ and served, they quickly acquired the popular name ‘kellerbier,’” Raupach says.
Until the mid-1800s, most kellerbiers would’ve been brownish, malty, and smoky, with plenty of residual sweetness, low carbonation, and a strength of 2 to 3 percent ABV. Their ingredients were local, with different grains—including oats, rye, wheat, spelt, and einkorn—and varying amounts of hops. “The basic idea behind these beers has remained the same to this day, which is why kellerbier can still vary greatly from brewery to brewery,” Raupach says.
While lager yeast and methods spread across Bavaria, kellerbier stayed brownish but eventually gained strength. Märzen was somewhat stronger, brewed in spring to be enjoyed in autumn—but people drank kellerbier all summer. Modern malts in the 19th century brought evolution, making it easier to brew paler, nonsmoky beers. Yet some Franconian beers stayed brown, some even stayed smoky—and few strayed far from their old character.
“Breweries generally remained true to their old recipes,” Raupach says, “which is why every sip of kellerbier is still a little journey through time.”
Photo: Joe Stange
The Contours of Kellerbier
As if to confuse us, many Franconian brewers make what is essentially kellerbier but don’t necessarily call it that. The seemingly generic lagerbier often denotes something hearty and rustic—and it can often be found at a keller, being poured from barrels. Likewise, words such as zwickelbier, ungespundet, and zoiglbier—the last technically from Upper Palatinate, not Franconia—all have different meanings yet lots of overlap with the kellerbier tradition. Rauchbier arguably belongs to the same tradition.
Still, today’s kellerbier varies widely—even within the same village, sometimes. Two of the best-known brands are St. Georgenbräu and Löwenbräu, two regional breweries located right next to each other in Buttenheim—population 3,729—about 10 miles southeast of Bamberg. (Buttenheim also was the birthplace of Levi Strauss, before blue jeans and lager took over the world.) Both breweries operate thriving kellers, and other kellers in the region often serve their beers. Yet St. Georgen Kellerbier is amber, with hints of roast and caramel-like sweetness, balanced by dusty-earthy bitterness and drying minerality—a prototypical kellerbier of its type. Meanwhile, the Löwenbräu Lagerbier Ungespundet—a kellerbier for all intents and purposes—is golden, leaning into brioche malt and herbal hops, but also balanced by a fine bitterness. These two divergent beers from the same village are emblematic of the same tradition.
Around the region, kellerbier is usually golden or amber but can verge into brown. It’s almost always in the range of 4.7 to 5.2 percent ABV. Some look like pilsner or helles but unfiltered and less refined, with more body, sweetness, and yeast expression. Others offer notes of biscuit, toast, or caramel from generous portions of Munich or Vienna; sometimes there’s a lighter touch of roasted malt. Bitterness tends to be firm, roughly 25 to 45 IBUs on paper. Hops are Noble in character and vary in intensity—could be herbal, earthy, spicy, or floral, occasionally verging into subtle, zesty citrus peel.
Clockwise from left: A keller in the Kellerwald, Forchheim; Stefan Zehendner pouring Mönchsambacher Lagerbier at his brewery; Lieberth Kellerbier at Lieberth’s Keller, Hallerndorf. Photos: Joe Stange
How They Brew It
Despite that seemingly broad territory, kellerbier has several common traits derived from local tastes, ingredients, and entrenched brewing techniques—many of which challenge the conventional wisdom about German lager brewing.
One American who’s made it a personal quest to pick apart what makes kellerbier and other Franconian lager different is Ben Howe, cofounder and brewer at Otherlands Beer in Bellingham, Washington. “It usually has more character,” he says. “It usually has more yeast presence. It usually has less carbonation. It’s almost always unfiltered. And it doesn’t fit anywhere else.”
Ingredients
Bamberg is home to two large maltings: Bamberger Mälzerei and Weyermann Specialty Malting. Franconian brewers nearly always get their malt from one of those two, so that’s a common thread: local malt.
Hops traditionally came from Spalt, just south of Nuremberg in Middle Franconia, but local brewers these days embrace many German varieties. At Brauerei Zehendner in the village of Mönchsambach, owner-brewer Stefan Zehendner likes Hallertauer Magnum for bittering and Hallertauer Perle for aroma and flavor. In Buttenheim, St. Georgen Kellerbier gets Hallertauer Tradition and Spalter Select. Some breweries remain dedicated to Spalter hops, and they might use multiple types—such as Spalter Select, Spalter Spalt, and Spalter Hallertau (i.e., Hallertauer Mittelfrüh grown in Spalt). Permutations are infinite, but the hops are nearly always German and Noble.
One well-hopped local favorite is the Lagerbier from Brauerei Knoblach in Schammelsdorf, about five miles east of Bamberg. Its malt base is 50-50 pilsner and Vienna. Brewmaster Johannes Knoblach hops it to about 40 IBUs, or slightly higher at times—his goal isn’t a number, but to be consistent with the assertive bitterness that locals expect. The beer gets plenty of Hallertauer Tradition but also some Mandarina Bavaria at first wort—it’s got the alpha acids but adds subtle complexity.
Nothing too crazy, there, so far—but water is where things get more distinctive. Water tends to be hard in Upper Franconia, the region around Bamberg with the highest concentration of breweries. Some brewers use their water as is, embracing the profile. Others blend in reverse-osmosis water—as much as 80 percent. Either way, that hardness is an element of kellerbier’s typical character—accentuating bitterness and adding a subtle, drying minerality.
At Knoblach, some of the variance in bittering is because their water supply changes in the summer, shifting from their exceptionally hard local water to somewhat softer water flowing from reservoirs farther north. “Harder water needs more hops,” Knoblach says. “We don’t want to pull out all the calcium and lose all the hardness.” So, they adjust, and he says he’s always making small tweaks—first to maintain consistency, second to make refinements. “In your tests, everywhere is the focus not to lose your own character,” he says. “The taste must be the same.”
At Otherlands, Howe brews his Household Gods Lagerbier using various techniques gleaned from Franconian brewers, always trying to capture that kellerbier-like profile. He’s found that harder water gets him nearer to the ideal. “I just whacked the hell out of my water with calcium carbonate,” he says, “and it opened up a totally different expression in the beer. What I’ve come to realize is that using harder water—which is really counterintuitive—yields really different results in terms of malt flavor.”
Much of this flies in the face of conventional German brewing wisdom and those who revere it. If Wolfgang Kunze’s Technologie Brauer und Mälzer is a bible, then Franconian brewers know the text but hold on to some pagan wisdoms. “A lot of the people I’ve talked to in Franconia are like, ‘Oh yeah, I went to German brewing school. I’ve got my brewmaster’s [diploma] up on the wall. I’ve read Kunze. But this is our water. This is our process.’ … And I think that is the case at so many of the places that we love. In Franconia, people are making different decisions.”
On the Hot Side
Decoction mashing—often single, sometimes double—is nearly universal when it comes to Franconian lager.
Zehendner, for example, prefers a single decoction that brings the main mash from 144°F (62°C) to 162°F (72°C) after initial steps at 113°F (45°C) and 126°F (52°C). (For more details, see our recipe for Mönchsambacher Weihnachtsbock.)
Another key puzzle piece is pH. Harder water leads to higher pH, and many Franconian brewers appear to be unusually comfortable with that. Most professional German and American lager brewers are used to adjusting their pH in the water, mash, and boil, keeping it low for a crisp profile and robust fermentation. But what if they just … didn’t?
After Howe learned that a Franconian brewer he respects doesn’t adjust for pH—letting it rise as high as 6, in some cases—he tried it for himself. Whenever he refrains from acidification, he says, “we get this other thing. We get this kind of rising-dough character. We get this very intense, full maltiness, even if the beer finishes at the same place—it seems independent of gravity.”
His helles, meanwhile, demands a tighter window. “I have to have pH control,” he says. “I have to do certain things in order to make that beer hit the right way.” But when he brews a kellerbier, “I have to think, ‘Okay, put all that aside. Don’t freak out about the pH. It’s going to be okay.”
A notable side effect: Less acidity leads to more Maillard reactions and melanoidins. “We definitely have more color in the beers where we back off on the pH control,” Howe says, “and we just get a really different malt expression.”
At first, Howe was concerned that if the pH were left to rise, unchecked, he would pick up tannins and lose the softness of his helles and other lagers. That hasn’t been the case. “The beer is still really round and full and soft in some way,” he says. “And that’s really surprised me—especially because I’ve put so much time into this other thesis of this tight window.”
Knoblach’s practice jibes with Howe’s observations. With their Lagerbier, Knoblach says, the mash or boil pH would often drift up to 5.6 or 5.7, “but it was never a problem.” Lately, however, he’s been noticing more sweetness in the beer and experimenting with somewhat lower pH—5.3 or 5.4—to rein that in, help the attenuation, and get a slightly drier beer.
On the Cool Side
Bad news: There is no magic yeast that can make Franconian kellerbier for you. While it tends to have more yeast expression than other German lager, the specific strains—when brewers are willing to divulge them—are often those that would be more neutral if treated differently; many are close relatives of 34/70. While more expressive strains are worth trying, the notes of lager-sulfur, fresh dough, and subtle fruit that can emerge from a fresh kellerbier may be products more of the process than yeast genetics.
Like elsewhere in Germany, kräusening—adding a portion of vigorously fermenting beer (and yeast) to boost fermentation—is virtually obligatory. At Knoblach, as much at 10 percent of a batch’s volume is kräusen. “I think kräusen is better all the time because you have totally happy yeast,” Knoblach says. “It’s important to have a nice rotation in the brewery room, so you have the kräusen.” Fermentation temperature there ranges from 46 to 51°F (8 to 10.5°C)—another variable that he’s been testing.
Fermentation is open and unpressurized—not necessarily in open vats, but certainly in unsealed tanks. Brewers often avoid subjecting the beer to any pressure at all until fermentation is nearly or even fully complete. The meaning of ungespundet, after all, is unbunged, which is how kellerbier traditionally fermented and conditioned.
A modern-day Franconian brewer might start spunding for natural carbonation when there’s 1 to 1.5°P (1.004 to 1.006) left to ferment—but perhaps not before racking to the horizontal tanks in the cellar, where lagering tends to happen slightly warmer than freezing. At Knoblach, lagering temperatures can vary by season—from as low as 36°F (2°C) in the winter to 41°F (5°C) in the summer. “Normally, colder is better,” Knoblach says. “But it’s important to have happy yeast in the lager keller.”
Other breweries might let fermentation finish completely then drop to about 41°F (5°C), rack to lagering tanks, and add a bit of kräusen before spunding slowly over the next four to six weeks.
At Otherlands, Howe is taking the no-pressure approach to heart, leaving his tanks unsealed until fermentation is almost done; then he harvests the yeast. He loves its smell at that point: “It’s really fruity and full,” he says. “It’s like banana and pineapple and rising dough—which is the character we get in our beer, when things are all going right. That’s the character—at really, really low levels—that we get in Household Gods. … Basically, the yeast never sees pressure, and that seems to really lead to healthier, happier yeast, in my opinion. It’s more expressive, it’s more flavorful, it has more of the expression that I want.”
Another discovery: By following Franconian brewers in their cold-and-slow spunding, he believes he gets a different quality of carbonation. “It feels much more integrated,” he says. “It’s softer. It feels like the bubbles are tinier. It’s just lovelier. And then when it pours, it just it has a better, stickier, prettier head.”
Emerging from the Keller with Fresh Beer
Whatever it is you try—Bamberg malt, hard water, decoction, higher pH, expressive yeast, unpressurized fermentation, cold kräusening, spunding, pouring from a stichfass, or drinking from a steinkrug—there is no one thing that can make your lager taste like proper kellerbier.
“It’s all these tiny little details,” Howe says. For Franconian brewers, “it’s their brewery, it’s their dad’s brewery, it’s their grandfather’s brewery. Those details are established there, and they’re used to it. And for us, as brewers from another culture—really interested in it and trying to ape it, to some degree—there’s no one silver bullet. It’s all these little things that you have to kind of wrap your head around and try doing differently, and get outside your comfort zone. And it’s a culmination of all those little things working together that I think really makes the beer distinct and different.”
Despite all its vestigial quirks, there is one thing about kellerbier that’s really the same as any other great beer.
Says Raupach: “The most important characteristic of a kellerbier is and remains its drinkability. After all, these beers have been produced for over 600 years for a single purpose: that people like to drink a lot of it. Only then does the brewery make money, and the customers are happy.”