A German IPA is born

[iain 141]

Their have been several discussions over the last wee bit about German beer not being interesting, and only producing the tried and tested helles and weizen. well at least one brewery has decided that life is not exiting enough. The Hopfen Fluch beer is being marketed as an IPA and coming in at 70 IBUs and 8,1% ABV it would seem that they may have produced an American style IPA. The beer is produced by the Wernecker Brauerei in Werneck near Schweinfurt. This is of course the second IPA that I know of being produced in Franconia, although this is the first bottled and marketed one. This is my mind really solidifies Fanconia as the most awesome beer place in Germany.

 

I can't comment on how good the beer is, I'm still actually waiting for my order. However I thought I would share this with the TT community to see what people had to say. According to the beweries website the total beer production has more than doubled in the last couple of years to 20.000 HL a year. I personally love hearing about breweries diversifying and thriving.

[BigEnglish 129]

 

it would seem that they may have produced an American style IPA.

 

Ah yes, that great beer producing country America. What a world renowned beer making tradition and heritage they have!!!

[iain 141]

 

Ah yes, that great beer producing country America. What a world renowned beer making tradition and heritage they have!!!

 

Wow ignorance must be bliss.

[BigEnglish 129]

For anyone to produce any type of 'american style' beer then all it requires is the ability to bottle up your old dirty bathwater and call it something that ends with 'Light'.

[nina_glyndwr 4,748]

Oh.. what is an IPA? I thought it was going to be an 'independent pensions adviser'... like IFA means 'independent financial adviser'.

[Pas 8,133]

India Pale Ale. Which makes me wonder about 8.1%

[michel78 58]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Pale_Ale

[rhody 3,170]

IPA stands for India Pale Ale and was the beer that the East India Company would ship to India and it fermented in the time it took to get there from England. Despite BE2009's obvious ignorance regarding US microbreweries (basically how much of the beer is brewed in Germany by small independent breweries with meister brewers), there are some fine Reinheitsgebot beers being produced there.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

 

I can't comment on how good the beer is, I'm still actually waiting for my order.

 

At €8 for a 750-ml bottle, I'm not convinced they'll be selling huge quantities. There was also a Bavarian-brewed IPA at the Hallertau beer festival in July, but I can't remember who brewed it.

 

 

drivel drivel drivel

 

Gah, why does every single beer thread get ruined by such ignoramuses?

[iain 141]

 

At €8 for a 750-ml bottle, I'm not convinced they'll be selling huge quantities. There was also a Bavarian-brewed IPA at the Hallertau beer festival in July, but I can't remember who brewed it.

 

Really? I wish you'd told me about it. The only IPA style beers I've tried around here have been from Ziemans and Weyerman. Can you try and remember who produced it?

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

Fortunately I'm enough of a trainspotter to have kept the programme. It was in fact a research brewery, Forschungsbrauerei St Johann. 6.6% vol., 15.2% Stammwürze and 40 BE.

[iain 141]

So it was another IPA that didn't come from a commercial production brewery.

[Beuel 4,947]

The brandname Hopfen-Fluch makes me wonder if it is such a good idea to drink that stuff.

[jewski 5]

Germany already has a home IPA. Alt. I suggest Diebels or Uerige.

[robinson100 12,852]

As a Brit, I must admit to being somewhat wary of "American-style" beer!

I'd be the first to admit to not having much experience of things American, but I tend to think along the lines of "while in Rome" - while in Germany I am more than happy to drink what the locals drink - and it IS NOT "American-style"!

Maybe one day I will take a look at the other side of the puddle, and then I might well enjoy an American beer, but here, for me, is not the place for it!

[mlovett 8,681]

IPA sure as hell ain't Buttweiper (ahem, Budweiser). Anyone who knows beer knows that.

 

from Wiki:

In the USA, IPA is considered by some to be a distinct variant (though there isn't universal agreement), sometimes termed "American IPA".[18] IPA has a long history in the USA with many breweries producing a version of the style, with the most famous example being from the Ballantine Brewery of Newark, NJ. Ballantine's version was (according to accounts by former brewmasters and brewery employees) a high gravity ale (OG.1.070-75) that was highly hopped (60-70 IBUs), and aged in oak for one full year before packaging. It was a strong, copper colored, and highly aromatic brew with a distinctive and intense hop aroma (achieved with in-house distilled aromatic hop oils) and a restrained but still distinct oak character from the long aging in wood. For many, it remains a benchmark beer that remains the topic of much interest and discussion and is very fondly remembered by beer afficianados old enough to have tasted it.

Several current examples of the so called "American IPA" are Alesmith IPA, Lagunitas IPA, Prism Beer Company Prism Beer Company, Victory HopDevil, Bells Two Hearted Ale, Anderson Valley Hop Ottin, Dogfish Head Brewing Co, Stone IPA, Russian River Blind Pig IPA, SweetWater IPA, Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA, Bridgeport Brewing Co. Portland, OR Bridgeport IPA, New Belgium Brewing Company's Ranger IPA, Southern Tier Brewing and some brands from Sierra Nevada such as the Harvest Wet Hop Series, Torpedo Extra, and Celebration Ale. A number of American IPAs are brewed with a single hop variety or a blend of varieties including Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo, Tomahawk, Warrior, and Nugget.

[ryhntyntyn 17]

 

Ah yes, that great beer producing country America. What a world renowned beer making tradition and heritage they have!!!

 

Actually, we started we with the English Ale tradition and pretty much kept that, and did it well enough, until 1848 when we got a great big influx of brewers from Germany after their revolution here.

 

We maintained a high quality of beer production, the equal of anywhere in the world until we destroyed our brewing industry and capacity with prohibition in the early 20th century.

 

When we brought beer back it was cheap mass produced stuff in cans for the war effort and no one really made an effort until the 70's. After Carter made it even vaguely possible for us to do craft brewing our Beer started to make a comeback, today it is doing very well. Yep the bad stuff still exists, but it gets better every year.

 

And isn't an IPA an English type of beer?

[mlovett 8,681]

Yes, IPA originated in England. See my Wiki quote above for the U.S. version.

[iain 141]

I guess it is a hard concept to grasp mlovett, that something that originated in one country, could be adopted by another country and over time take on a life of its own. Funnily enough it could be argued that the American IPA is more representative of the original style of IPA than the current british versions are.

 

I've got two bottles of the Hopfen-Fluch in the closet and I'm now just waiting for my exams to be finished then I get to treat myself to hoppy goodness.

[rjurban101 10]

First off...anyone who thinks American beer is shit has never been to the Boulder/Denver/Ft. Collins area of Colorado. There are more world class breweries than you could imagine. Also, Germany pales in comparison to the US when considering variety. Most Germans drink one, maybe two types of beer their whole lives, swearing that nothing beats German (Bavarian) beer, even though they've never tried anything else. Fine, but that's not for me. Sounds a bit like having sex with one woman for 75 years. I shiver at the thought. Please don't tell my wife! Also, while the small breweries in Europe are being gobbled up by the conglomerates left and right, it is the microbrewery industry in the US that is leading the way and growing at an amazing pace.

 

Second...thanks for the heads up on the IPA! I've been craving some hoppy love for far too long now. Dales Pale Ale, out of Lyons, CO is one of my absolute favorite beers. Don't let the can fool you, it is the absolute surest way of preserving the original flavor of the beer.

 

On a side note, what is up with all the beers here using hops extract? Even the local brewery in Eichstätt, which has been brewing beer since 1492 now uses hopfenextrakt...what a shame! It destroys a beer's flavor, taking all the flowery notes of the hops and leaving the bitterness. Not good! Is this common elsewhere?