Eisbock uses a fractional freezing process to concentrate the beer’s strength, and it does so without requiring your yeast to work overtime. The result is a smooth, rich, and intense lager—perfectly suited to sipping on a cold winter night.
Style: The classic type of eisbock is an intensified doppelbock, with amplified bready richness and warm (but smooth) alcohol. It tends to have more noticeable fruit flavors than a typical doppelbock; subtle roast may emerge, too. The key is that less obvious flavors may come to the fore in a finished eisbock. That means that simply making our standard doppelbock, freezing it, and calling it an eisbock is not the most successful approach. The recipe should account for the freeze-concentration, to avoid a beer that is overly sweet, bitter, or alcoholic—because a good eisbock is none of those.
Ingredients: Time for restraint. Don’t try to make the beer intense; let the freezer do the work. Normally for a doppelbock, I use mainly Munich malt with a couple of small add-ons to round out specific flavors. With eisbock, we don’t even need those. This grist is simple: 100 percent Munich (9L), shooting for a starting gravity around 1.080. Don’t worry if you miss by a couple of points—it won’t matter much in the end. Two or three additions of classic German hops for about 20 IBUs should be enough to balance the sweetness and add some earthy, floral flavors. I use Bavarian lager yeast here (Wyeast 2206) for solid attenuation; we don’t want a beer that’s too heavy, even after concentration.