Not every newly-added change found in the 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines is a home run – the decision to add myriad IPA styles but not subdivide Saison is bizarre to me – but I’ve tried to remain agnostic on most of them until I’ve had the chance to work up examples of the newly-added styles. One that made an early impression on me, and which genuinely seemed to fill a niche in the beer style pantheon, is the Czech Amber Lager. Try as I might, I couldn’t reasonably make the case that it was “just such-and-such a style, repackaged.” It stakes out a position in terms of recipe, flavor profile, strength, and color that is distinctly its own, which is both refreshing and lays down a nice brewing challenge. Start working this one into your autumn or late-winter lineup (I like it as a “welcome to spring” beer), and I think you’ll find yourself with a new favorite sessionable lager.
STYLE
Picture a lighter-than-Altbier Altbier with different hops. Or a Marzen, but hoppier and more herbal. Or an English Bitter, but a lager, and with totally different malts and hops…rats, see what I mean? It really seems like this one should land in another category, but it simply doesn’t. Czech Amber comes in at a very modest 4.4-5.8% ABV (this recipe is at the lower end of that range), but punches above its weight class in both malt character and hopping. The malts are complex and rich, but can also have that same woodsy, dry-toast character I like in my Altbiers. It’s also prominently bitter but not especially strong in hops flavor, but what’s present isn’t the soft floral earthiness of Hallertau, but the spicy herbal notes of the Saazer hops. If Bock, Vienna Lager, English Bitter, and Altbier had a love child, it would be the Czech Amber Lager. It’s a session lager with big flavor, with a unique palate of impressions competing for your attention.
RECIPE
Finding a recipe to start from that I could trust proved impossible here, so instead I just borrowed from recipe components that gave me the desire elements in other styles – after one initial brew and two surprisingly-minor rounds of recipe “tweaks,” I settled on this recipe.