Altbier: A Book Report

When I was brewing beer in Cleveland, I ordered a signed copy of a book on eBay:

I wanted to expand my knowledge of German Beers, and a copy with the author's signature was a plus.

Cheesy cover photo aside, this read was absolutely captivating.  The author, Horst Dornbusch (what a great name!) has a unique writing style, as well as a sense of humor.  I did some checking and found that Mr. Dornbusch wrote a second book.  It is Stylebook #12 of the "Classic Beer Style" series:

Mr. Dornbusch hails from Dusseldorf, Germany--the home of Altbier, and his love for his native brew becomes very evident through his writings.  In fact, he made me want to brew an altbier.

Well, it only took a year and a half, but I finally put one together, and it debuts on April 13th for the Mug Club and the 14th for everyone else.

So, what is altbier? 

Frankly, there are very few commercial examples available.  For reasons that are beyond me, it is a largely overlooked style.  This is a shame, as it's hard to find a better balanced, light German ale.

A German Ale???  Blasphemy!

Now, now...  Before you purists get yer undies in a bunch, please remember that Lagers are a relatively new development in brewing.  Yes, the Germans perfected the Lager, and arguably brew the world's best.  But, pure Lager strains have only been around since the early 1800s, while the Germanic peoples have brewed beer for nearly 3000 years!

For a full history lesson on the style, I would encourage you to purchase (and read) the second book pictured above.  For the sake of this blog entry, let's just say that there was a lot of stuff going down between the Lords, the Brewers, the Lawmakers, and the competition from nearby Cologne.  While the Bavarians were concentrating on Lagers, the Rhinelanders stayed true to the old (Alt) style of brewing.

And that, kids, is where the name comes from.

Now, about the beer:

Our "Doozy Altbier" pours a beautiful copper color with a modest cream colored head.  There is very little hop aroma.  It is well balanced with a touch of hop bitterness layered over a mostly malty flavor.  I used a special Alt yeast strain which gives it a hint of fruitiness, and I then lagered it for over a month.  It is unfiltered, so there will be a bit of a haze. 

I used Pilsen malt as the base malt.  There is also some Munich, Caramunich, Carafa II and chocolate malt.  I used German Magnum hops for bittering.  There are no flavor or aroma hop additions.

ABV is around 4.8%, making this a "sessionable" beer.