I don’t think there’s a beer I brew more often than German Altbier. I nearly always have one on tap at home. I’ve made trips to the homebrew shop to buy ingredients for three different altbiers. When in doubt about what to brew next, I brew an altbier. And I suppose it’s about time that I finally get around to writing about them here at Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® because this, in my mind, is the perfect beer. Not “the best beer you’ll ever have” kind of perfect, but the “lets you taste and enjoy every aspect of what beer is” kind of perfect.
Style
Altbier hits the perfect chord of all the flavors and impressions of beer. There are lighter and darker and crystal malts, bitterness, hops flavor, and aroma, a noticeable amount of alcohol, a touch of ester but the cleanliness of a lager, and all in a format that you can drink by the liter. The name itself translates to “old beer” and refers to the more traditional use of ale yeasts—a retronym that became necessary when lager yeasts stormed onto the scene in the nineteenth century. Ale yeasts they might be, but this is still, well, Germany. It’s cold. So altbier is generally referred to as a “hybrid”—a beer that is neither ale nor lager, but has elements of both. It is either a beer that uses ale yeast fermented at colder temperatures or lager yeast fermented at warmer temperatures. The style features (or can feature) significant flavors of almost all types (except fermentation characteristics, obviously!). They’re definitely malt-oriented…except that they’re not. There’s plenty of malt flavors on display but also lots of hops flavors and bitterness.
Simply put, when referring to an altbier, if you’re asked the question of “does it have any…?” and fill in the blank with any flavor, the answer should probably be, “Yeah, a bit.” I don’t recommend it, but I’ve even made one with a touch of acidulated malt, and it was surprisingly good—zippy. You’re pressing down on lots of the keys on the piano—and if you’ve got your fingers spaced out properly, you get a huge harmonic note, not a discordant mess.