One thing awesome about Standard Brewing they send out learning stuff with their press releases.
Ever heard of the Reinheitsgebot? It’s also known as the German Beer Purity Law, instated in 1487, mandating that beer be made with nothing more than water, hops and barley. No mention of yeast was made because Louis Pasteur had yet to be born and brewers still thought that fermentation happened when you said the right prayer, or put the unfermented wort into the right, “blessed” barrel. It’s unlikely that the Reinheitsgetbot had anything to do with “purity”, but was probably used to prevent price competition with bakers over wheat and rye, which was more valuable than barley. It wasn’t for the benefit of the beer, but the law was a clever political move to make sure that brewers didn’t affect the production of bread. Humans don’t like being told they can’t have something, but a positive misdirection can be highly effective. The people bought it, hook, line and sinker, and still do today. You can still find breweries advertisin g that they conform to the standards of “pure” beer, even though the law was changed in 1993 to allow for the use of wheat and sugar, among other things. Hilariously, the consequences of non-conformity was confiscation of the offending barrels without compensation. I’m sure they dumped them out, wink wink.
One beer that would have been confiscated was Kotbüsser. In a tiny town in eastern Germany, prior to the purity law, there was a style of cool fermented ale that used a heavy helping of oat and wheat, with honey and molasses. The result was a creamy, but light and clean drinking ale with a subtle, complex sweetness in the finish. In our version of it, the base grain is pilsner malt, and we used our Kölsch strain of yeast. It’s 5% ABV, and very refreshing. The creaminess makes it wintery while maintaining a crisp, refreshing vibe. This beer is a welcome addition on our list, which was averaging about 7% ABV, with a lot of dark malts and heavy hops. I’m pretty sure we have a beer for every type of drinker at this point in time.
A few things about our hours this week:
- Wednesday, December 24th (Christmas Eve) – we will be open from 12 noon until 6pm.
- Thursday, December 25th (Christmas Day) – we will be closed.
From Friday going forward, we will be open our normal hours.
