Full disclosure: For most of my life, I was not a fan of smoked salmon, smoked meats, smoked cheeses—smoked anything. Thinking back on it, my dislike was probably based on some bad experiences with smoked foods in the past.
So, the first time I enjoyed a smoked beer was only about six years ago. I was on a work trip in Germany in the summer of 2018, on our way to a trade show in Berlin. My colleague suggested we stop in Bamberg, where we could visit the Weyermann malthouse as well as the famous Schlenkerla pub for some glasses of “the smoked stuff.”
I knew the Weyermann visit would be fun, but the thought of smoky beer did not sound nearly as inviting. Truthfully, I felt a bit embarrassed that it would be my first time drinking a rauchbier—but I also knew that, in Bamberg, I’d be exposed to the best. My friend reassured me that I’d been missing out: “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
She was right. And I’ve become a total smoke convert.
I love being right, but not as much as I hate being wrong—and man, was my colleague right about smoked beers. At Schlenkerla, I drank three half-liter glasses of the smoky, chestnut-brown Märzen and soon forgot about my jet lag. There were other Schlenkerla beers available—the Weizen, Helles, oak-smoked doppelbock, and more—and I tasted them, but the rich Märzen was my favorite. The next day, I had a new perspective as we toured Weyermann, learning about their own malt-smoking process as well as the local smoked-beer tradition.
Several months later, back home in Seattle, I decided to brew my own smoked beers. At the time, there was a small German imports store down at Pike Place Market, so I procured a few bottles and settled on Schlenkerla Märzen as my ultimate guide.
Smoke Your Own
There are lots of quality smoked malts available these days—and we’ll get to those—but first let’s consider an aspect of this tradition that gives us an opportunity to experiment, get creative, play with fire, and ultimately have a lot of control over the final character: the smoke.
Over the years I’ve experimented with smoking my own malts, including trying different types of wood. Pro brewers sometimes swear by the smoke flavor they get from fruit woods such as apple or orange, while others go with traditional hardwoods such as almond, hickory, oak, or pecan. Perhaps the most famous smoked beer in the United States—Alaskan Smoked Porter—uses alder, the same wood you might use for smoking salmon. There are lots of options, and part of the fun is in deciding which woodsmoke you want to use.
One way to decide is to try different smoked beers, find some you like, and figure out what kind of smoke was involved. Another way is to use a cocktail smoker. (Yes, I have a cocktail smoker now. Told you I was a smoke convert!) Just use it to smoke some cold water, then evaluate the aroma and taste using different wood chips.
Firing up a barbecue smoker or grill is another way to try different woods—and, in that case, you might as well smoke some malt while you’re at it. First, soak some malt in water for about an hour, then spread it out about a half-inch thick on some fine mesh. Set your grill up for smoking—instructions will vary depending on your type of grill, but they usually involve some moistened wood chunks and indirect heat—and keep the temperature low, below 200°F (93°C). The longer the exposure, the more intense the smoke aroma and flavor will be in the malt.
Now, given that our focus here in the No Rests Test Kitchen is extract brewing, smoking the bulk of the grist isn’t an option. I’ve experimented with a few ways of smoking malt extract using a cocktail smoker and smoking bell, and the results were … mixed. But there is one more DIY method I want to mention: making your own liquid smoke.
While the artificial stuff from the supermarket probably isn’t going to taste great in beer, making your own might be the ticket to a smoke flavor that can be easily controlled. (There are some entertaining YouTube videos that explain how to make it—Alton Brown has a method—but you’ll need a barbecue smoker and a few accessories.) As with other potent extracts, you can even bench-test it by dosing a drop or three into whatever beer you have handy.
Recipe Considerations
While it’s fun to play with smoke, this recipe represents a more reliable way to get that character into a highly drinkable lager, using malt extracts—and it includes a taste of Bamberg.
At Schlenkerla, they malt most of their own barley over a beechwood fire—the smoke comes from their old-fashioned malting process. Obviously, that’s not a practical option for most of us. Thankfully, there should be a lot of different smoked malts available through your local homebrew shop or online supplier. Those include Weyermann’s beechwood-smoked malt from Bamberg as well as others smoked with alder, cherry, hickory, and more. Smaller craft maltsters are producing some of the more interesting options these days, including some unusual fruit woods.
However, most of those are base malts, and their smoke intensity varies widely. We can steep them with the partial-mash method, but we want one with enough smoky oomph that a few pounds will be enough to make an impact. I’ve found that Weyermann’s beechwood-smoked malt is just right for this, in combination with a base of Munich liquid extract plus some Caramunich for depth and a small amount of debittered Carafa II for a deep, rich copper color.
(Notably, Weyermann also makes a smoked-malt extract—and I don’t know of another company that does—but that’s not a product I’ve seen available in the United States. If you can get that, it would certainly be worth trying.)
The yeast is an easy choice—Fermentis SafLager W-34/70. The dried yeast is easy to pitch and tolerant of somewhat warmer temperatures, in case you lack temperature-controlled fermentation or don’t ferment under pressure. (For more on that, see “Extracting the Elegance of No-Pressure Pilsner,” beerandbrewing.com.) It’s a clean and reliable lager yeast, and I love the high cell count, affordability, and ease of use.
Rauchbier isn’t about hop flavor; we just want some bitterness there to balance the sweet-and-smoky. German-style beers deserve Noble hops with low alpha acids, and Hallertauer is a solid choice.
The brewing here is pretty straightforward: Add the liquid malt extract to your pot or kettle of warmed water, bring it to 150°F (66°C), and stir well to avoid any clumping on the bottom. Put the malts in a mesh bag, immerse them in the water, and allow them to steep for an hour before straining, then bring the wort to a boil. I like to boil a full hour with the hop additions in this recipe. (And it sure makes the house smell great!) After the boil, cut the heat, chill, and pitch. Fermentation might last about two weeks, then you can package and lager it at cold temperatures for at least a month.
When it’s time to enjoy the beer, be sure to enjoy it with food—roast pork and dumplings with rich sauces, sausages, cold cuts, potato pancakes… But I think my favorite is a good old bratwurst and crusty pretzel with brown mustard. I find the beer’s smoky-malt character pairs well with the meat’s salty fat and the mustard’s tang.
If all goes well, your rauchbier should be visually stunning, with rich garnet highlights and a creamy, long-lasting head. I find the aroma on mine to be a wonderful mixture of woodsmoke and Munich-malt richness, slightly evoking bacon. It may seem odd until you have a few sips—and before long the glass is empty, and you’re pouring yourself another one. And another.