Liquid Assets – The Season of Bock Beer
Editor’s Note: Guest Columnist Greg Fowlkes discusses Bock Season in Wisconsin. In his previous columns, Greg wrote about The Five Rules of Wine Lists , What Makes A good Wine List, Three Stand Out Madison Wine Lists, and The Ritual of Ordering Wine.
The previous articles in this series have been about wine, but before I was a wine snob I was a beer geek, that is a home brewer, beer aficionado and searcher after rare and exotic brews, the darker and stronger the better. Tapping into that past, I’d like to discuss that timely brew, bock beer.
Bock beer has its roots in the monastic brewing traditions of northern Europe. In the late middle ages, the breweries associated with various monastic establishments were about the only large scale brewing around. Some of the current breweries of Belgium and Bavaria can trace their lineage to these breweries. It was the practice of these breweries to brew a particularly potent beer to drink while fasting during Lent. This beer had a rich, malty character and was full of calories to sustain the monks. It became known as “liquid bread.”
Bock beer is produced by using more malt than would be used for an ordinary beer. This has several effects. The first is that it gives the beer a strong, malty, sweet taste, just the thing for a cold winter night. It also tends to produce a stronger beer. Bock beer has an alcohol content of 6-7% as compared to 5% for a typical beer. Doppelbock, or double strength bock has an alcohol of between 7-9% which is about as strong as beer can be used using normal methods and yeasts. Over the years a number of different styles of bock and doppelbocks have been developed.
The tradition of brewing strong beers for the Lenten season, roughly February and March depending on the date of Easter, has continued into the present. In Munich, it is known as “Stark Bier Zeit,” or “strong beer time,” and is accompanied with various ceremonies and celebrations. German brewers, when they came to Wisconsin, continued the tradition, and many of the old Wisconsin breweries would produce a bock beer in the late winter. This beer was typically a little maltier and stronger than the standard brew. A myth developed that this beer was made using all the leavings or stuff that had built up over the year in an effort to clean out the brewing vats. This myth is not true.
We are lucky in the Madison area, to have one of the best producers of bock beers in America if not the world, Capitol Brewery. In keeping with their original concept of being a village brewery in the Bavarian tradition, they have long brewed a number of seasonal beers, including a number of bocks. It is my opinion that Capitol and their brewmaster, Kirby Nelson, are at their best when they stick closest to these German roots.
The first bock that they produced was in the tradition of Wisconsin bocks such as those produced by Huber and Stevens Point. It was a decent beer, but not particularly noteworthy and has been long out of production.
The second attempt was much more adventuresome and more successful. This was their Dark Doppelbock, a rich, dark beer similar to the Munich beers of this style, Spaten’s Optimator and Paulaner’s Salavator. It was very good and won a number of awards. Unfortunately, it is not currently part of the brewery’s lineup.
Their next offering, which is still brewed in season, is the Blonde Doppelbock. This is a strong beer with a deep malty character but much lighter in color than the Dark Doppelbock. It does not have the bitter edge produced by the darker malts of its darker brother, and has something of the flavor of a Belgian abbey trippel or Spaten’s Premium Bock. Again, it has won numerous awards and is a very good beer.
It is with the third Doppelbock that Kirby Nelson showed his true creative genius, and that is the Autumnal Fire. Breaking out of the seasonal mode, this is a beer brewed in the fall with the character of an Oktoberfest but brewed to doppelbock strength. This beer is unique and has won legions of fans from the beginning as well as the usual collection of awards.
A number of Bavarian breweries produce bock beers for the spring. These are known as Maibocks, and are lighter in color and not as strong as their Lenten counterparts. Capitol has continued with this tradition with their own Maibock which is available through April or early May. It has a lovely golden color and rich taste.
To round out the selection of Capitol bocks, they have in the past produced a DoppelWeizen Bock or doppelbock wheat beer. Produced in the style of Bavarian weizen biers such as Franziskaner or Paulaner, it was a dark brew but with a refreshing citrusy character. Another example of Kirby Nelson’s creativity, it unfortunately hasn’t been available since the 2004 season.
All of these bocks have their allure, a seductive smoothness and a rich, malty flavor. They almost make winter worthwhile. But beware, beneath the surface lies potent fire, so drink carefully and in moderation, but do give these beers a try if you haven’t before.
