I popped into
Marks & Spencer at the weekend, ostensibly to pick up a few items of
shopping for my wife; but whilst in the store I couldn’t resist taking a look
at the beers on sale. With always an eye open for a bargain, I spotted this
little beauty sitting on the shelf at the almost give away price of 70p a
bottle.
M & S Smoked Ruby 4.7%, is a
dark red beer, with an intriguing
sweet nutty, smoky flavour, derived from the fact the malt used in the brewing
process has been smoked over
cherry wood. This gives an interesting twist to
the classic smoked flavours normally associated with this style of beer.
The beer is brewed by
Adnams of Southwold, on
behalf of
Marks & Spencer, and I recognised it as one I tried a couple of
months ago. I liked it back then, and said at the time I would definitely buy
it again, especially as there’s plenty of smoke in this beer! So to see it
selling at less than a third of its original price was something I just
couldn’t resist, and I ended up buying all four bottles remaining on the shelf.
They still had a couple of months shelf life remaining, so I was left
wondering was this just a genuine stock clearance or had
M&S bought a pup
by commissioning a beer which for some people pushes towards the limits of
“extreme” beer?
Smoked beer is definitely a
“Marmite” beer for most drinkers; you either love
it or hate it. Fortunately I absolutely love it, ever since I tried my first
bottle of
“Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier”, the legendary, world-classic
Smoke
Beer, from
Bamberg in the
Franconia
region of northern
Bavaria.
This would have been back in the late
1980’s when, for a brief glorious period,
Sainsbury’s stocked the beer. Twenty
years later and I found myself sitting in the centuries old
Schlenkerla Tavern in
Bamberg itself, enjoying a few
glasses of draught
Schlenkerla Rauchbier, poured straight from a wooden cask. I can’t tell you how good that beer tasted, and what a magical experience it
was drinking that beer in the inner-courtyard
(Schwemme), of this rustic old
inn, whilst taking refuge from the intense cold of an early December day. I
have returned to Bamberg on a
further four occasions, and without fail have always called in for a few
glasses (Seidla’s in the local dialect) of
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier.
I described smoked beer earlier as a
“Marmite” beer, but I have known people
who loathed it on their first taste, but then developed a real appreciation of it over
time The
Heller-Trum Brewery, producers of this classic Franconian Rauchbier
say,
“Even if the brew tastes somewhat strange at the first swallow, do not
stop, because soon you will realise that your thirst will not decrease and your
pleasure will visibly increase."
Many other drinkers take to the beer straight away. I admit to being
somewhat surprised by my son, who in the UK is a consumer of industrial lager,
knocking back glass after glass of
Rauchbier, as though he had been drinking it
all of his life!
Schlenkerla, of course, is the most famous of
Franconia’s Smoke Beers, but rather surprisingly only one other brewery in
Bamberg
(Spezial) produces the style; and then in a much toned down version. There are
several other Rauchbier breweries in the region, but some of the best examples
of the style come from outside Franconia, and indeed
outside of
Germany
altogether.
Beer rating sites
RateBeer and
Beeradvocate, both list dozens of smoked
beers, with very few Franconian examples. Most appear to come either from the
USA,
or from
Scandinavia (predominantly Denmark
& Norway).
Apart from the seasonal variations produced by
Brauerei Heller-Trum, I have
only had one beer on these rating lists, and that is
Alaskan Smoked Porter.
This dark 6.5% ABV beer is brewed in limited
numbers each
November by the
Alaskan Brewing Co. who are based in
Juneau; the
Alaskan state capital. The beer first appeared in 1988 and was largely responsible for introducing
the style to an appreciative American audience.
Three years ago, I was singing the praises of another
Smoked Beer, in the
form of
Greenwich Smoked Bock Beer, another beer brewed exclusively for
M&S,
but this time produced by
Meantime Brewery. This was another excellent beer,
which seems to have died a death; as after the initial run had disappeared from
the shelves, I never saw it again.
Perhaps
British drinkers just don’t like the style, and I accept it’s not to
everyone’s’ taste and certainly not for the fainthearted. The evidence certainly points
to this, otherwise there would be a lot more smoked beers gracing the shelves
of off-licences and supermarkets. However, keep your eyes open, as you never
know when or where one of these excellent beers might crop up and as an
accompaniment for roasted meats, cured meats, strong or even smoky cheese, I
can’t think of anything better!