Few things in humanity’s long climb from the depths of prehistory have been as constant as the safety, the warmth, and the sanctity of the hearth and its fire. Smoke and flame have been totems that life was resoundingly good—or, at least safe for a few hours. With the exceptions of camping trips, winter cabins, and tending to long-smoked meats, modern life is surprisingly devoid of the pleasures of smoke. Our lungs are better for it. But what about our hearts?
Back in the misty history of American craft brewing—before the mist turned into a thick and hoppy pastry haze—there were certain rungs on the ladder of beer appreciation that every serious beer nerd would climb. The order might have differed a bit for each; maybe the first step was a fruit beer, a Kölsch, or something smooth, malty, and brown. Then there were some hoppy rungs—pales ales and IPAs—followed by barleywines, imperial whatsits, and big Belgians of every stripe. Somewhere up there were rungs for funk and acidity—worlds in which a geek can get lost and linger a while.
But near the top of the ladder—before stepping off, smugly, to rediscover wines and whiskeys—there were the smoked beers.
The most famous of these are the luxurious smoked beers of Bamberg—the rauchbiers of Schlenkerla and Spezial, namely, coming in a range of styles that include märzen, weizen, and bock. They can be challenging at first, until you realize that you want another. And another. Their brewers are among the most skilled craftsman, able to replicate the right balance again and again as a matter of generational family pride.
A great smoked beer is much easier to drink than it is to brew—yet it’s easier to brew than it is to sell.
While many people are intensely devoted to smoked meats, cheeses, barbecue, and the pleasures of the campfire, most drinkers are less than keen on the smell and taste of smoke in their beer. It’s odd if you think about it. This aversion ignores our primal wants. It ignores history. Most of all, it ignores possibility.
The Taste for Smoke
Historically, we know that maltsters worked hard to reduce the impact of smoke on their malts, but it still ended up as a trait—variable, but present. It was a consequence of drying malt with fire fed by various fuels, and it would be until we developed indirect heating techniques that produced cleaner heat.
Why did they bother? It’s all about “sensory thresholds,” or the level at which most people can detect a sensation, such as flavor or aroma. Some compounds, if we’re not aggressively sensitive to them, get measured in parts per million. Diacetyl (butterscotch/microwave popcorn) is measured in parts per billion; we can smell diacetyl coming a mile away. Meanwhile, amid the complex molecules swirling around in smoke, there are compounds to which humans are extraordinarily sensitive. We’re talking thresholds measured in parts per trillion.
To put that in a less abstract way: One part per trillion is the equivalent of a drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Our ancestors evolved to be smoke-sensitive, either to find a fire (and food) or to run away from a wild blaze.
In other words, smoke is a tricky beast to tame. It takes skills to wrestle it into something drinkable.
Thanks in large part to know-how preserved in places such as Bamberg and Scotland, a niche world of smoked beers and malts has persisted. And thanks to their tempting availability, American brewers in recent decades have tried to bend them to their will.
The Dark Canvas
Smoke adores malt. Its relationship with hops is testier. Despite the attempts of multiple savvy brewers, I’ve never tasted a smoked IPA that worked. Hop and smoke phenols just do not play well together.
Where American brewers have excelled with smoke, the beers have often been dark—especially stouts and porters. These are the beer world’s equivalents to warm hugs—beers that envelop you and say, “Hello, friend. Here you are warm and safe.”
However, these days it’s hard enough to sell any dark beers that aren’t imperialized or stuffed with dessert. Take a classically brewed, mid-strength, well-balanced porter that few people are drinking anyway, then add some smoke to it … and forget it. It’s a dead keg. Ask your local brewers. I guarantee there’s a tiny but fierce group who would love to dedicate a tap or two to smoke shows—if they weren’t destined to sit there forlornly, like a once-beloved stuffed animal now forgotten and destined for a culling.
Given the general apathy toward darker styles and the lack of appreciation for smoked beers, it should be no surprise that very few smoked porters have left a mark on the national beer scene. One of those is long gone: Stone retired its Smoked Porter (5.9 percent ABV) in 2016 after a two-decade run. The other is a world classic: Alaskan Smoked Porter (6.5 percent ABV) is one of the winningest beers in Great American Beer Festival history, with 19 medals since 1990 plus seven more medals from the biennial World Beer Cup. Rarely, there are local stalwarts that persevere against long odds—such as Missouri’s O’Fallon Smoke Porter (6 percent ABV), which won GABF gold in 2004 and managed to hang around long enough to win another gold in 2020. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Here’s the beauty of it: The essence of craft is brewing what you want to drink—then tinkering to make it great—popularity be damned.
Selecting Your Smoke
Despite its relative lack of use, smoked malt comes in a handful of varieties whose character is more driven by smoke than the underlying barley. The rise of small-batch maltsters has broadened the options in some places. (Notably, the famous Heller-Trum brewery that produces Schlenkerla in Bamberg malts its own barley with local beechwood; see “Exploring the Most Brewery Rich Region in the World,” beerandbrewing.com.)
Though often used by an earlier generation of American craft brewers, Scottish peat-smoked malt largely has fallen out of favor—and with good reason. Its aggressive smoke character tends to overpower every other flavor. It helps that brewers finally realized that peat malt was meant for whiskey and not for Scottish ale. If you must use it, I recommend no more than two to four ounces per five-gallon batch (or no more than three to six grams per liter). Yes, I know there are maniacs out there using more, but I don’t trust that they can actually taste anything. (Another exception worth noting: The aforementioned Stone Smoked Porter used a small amount of peat-smoked malt, and it remains the only peat-smoked beer I’ve ever loved.)
With peat malts in the rearview mirror, the main players in the field are the German smoked malts. Bamberg’s Weyermann reigns supreme with its beechwood-smoked malt, but other German maltsters such as Bestmalz and Ireks also offer their own varieties. These are all far softer than peat-smoked malts, and if you’re a true smoke fiend you can use them as 100 percent of your grist. For the rest of us normies, I recommend starting at 10 percent before increasing it. I tend to prefer 20 to 30 percent for a soft smoke character that doesn’t quite reach Schlenkerla bacon-sandwich levels.
American maltsters, meanwhile, aren’t leaving the game to the Germans. The first I found was a small-batch product from a now-defunct manufacturer. Briess has picked up the mantle with its cherrywood-smoked malt, which leans more rauch than peat in terms of intensity. Again, start at 10 percent and ramp up to taste. (Briess also offers applewood- and mesquite-smoked malts, which are said to be more intense, but I haven’t used them and can’t offer guidance.)
A number of small-batch craft maltsters are smoking their own malts, too. For example: Blacklands Malt in Leander, Texas, has a series of smoked malts that includes a mesquite-smoked brand called Texas Brisket and an oak-smoked one called Classic Campfire.
Smoke Your Own
But let’s face it: You’re a brewer, squarely in the do-it-yourself set. So, how do you smoke malt at home?
The best advice I can share comes from both Weyermann and accomplished homebrewer Jeff Gladish: cold-smoke it. Treat it like bacon.
Like Schlenkerla, Weyermann runs its entire malt-drying process with beechwood—impractical for us. Gladish, on the other hand, starts with malt that’s already kilned. He gives it a very light spritz of water and then runs his smoke through a 16-foot duct, keeping it barely above ambient temperatures. The smoke floats through trays roughly 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) deep to gently permeate the malt.
If you go this route, you’d be in good company. The lauded Alaskan Smoked Porter is custom-smoked at a nearby salmon smokehouse, assiduously scrubbed clean of all fishiness. Alaskan cold smokes the malt with alderwood, like so much Alaskan salmon.
Likewise, you can choose your own regional flavors—just be sure to avoid resinous softwoods such as pine. Here in Southern California, I’ve seen brewers make citrus-smoked malts, or I’ve seen Texan hickory- or pecan-smoked malts. Just keep it cool.
Finding Your Balance
Here’s one of the tricky parts about brewing a smoked dark beer such as porter or stout: You’ll need to balance the highly roasted or “burnt” character of your darker grains against the “burnt” character of your smoked malt. Both smoked malts and darkly roasted grains can add acrid flavors—push too hard, and your beer will taste like a burnt cup of coffee with a stubbed-out cigarette butt.
No need to be overly traditional with the underlying style. I prefer to mix in a bit of the dehusked and debittered darker grains, such as Carafa or BlackPrinz. Getting color this way allows me to get the deep, dark browns and blacks I want without overcooking the roast/smoke bite.
Everything else about the beer is simplicity itself. For a toasty pale-malt base, I prefer Maris Otter because I’m fancy like that. I also want a touch of crystal since we want some residual sweetness to support the smoke. For the smoke character, I start with about 20 percent of (non-peat) smoked malt. If you want more smoke, you can replace your base malt with smoked malt.
Make sure your water chemistry doesn’t get overwhelmed by the roasted malts. Use slaked lime to boost carbonate if needed. For hops, just one addition for balancing bitterness is enough. In this case, I like my IBUs at 50 percent of my gravity—in other words, about 30 IBUs for a beer that starts at 1.060.
For yeast, go for clean and well-attenuating, such as White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale, or one of my favorites, Wyeast 1272 American Ale II. Light fruity yeast character is not a bad thing in this mix.
There’s another important ingredient to consider: time. Don’t rush smoked beers. One of the weird, deeply organic, chemistry-laden secrets of a smoked dark beer is its incredible longevity. Between the dark malts and those loud-and-proud smoke phenols, these smoked porters and stouts can cellar well beyond their nonsmoked counterparts. If you ever get the chance, participate in a multiyear, multi-decade vertical tasting of Alaskan Smoked Porter. Remember, this is non-sour, 6.5 percent ABV beer—it shouldn’t last that long. The oldest bottle I’ve had was 19 years old, and it was remarkable. I can only attribute that to the brewer’s skill and care, and the magic powers of smoke.
So go out there and brew a smoked porter or stout. Brew something that wafts of ancient comforts and happy occasions. If you absolutely must stay on trend, maybe consider a smoked s’mores stout … in fact, I rather like that idea—just the thing to share around the fireside.