When I suggested to my German colleagues that my girlfriend and I might be popping over to Düsseldorf for a spontaneous long weekend, it didn't take long for the topic to turn to beer. I'd been to Berlin not too long before and I had to break it to the Berliners among them that I wasn't impressed with their local brew Berliner Kindl. Seeking their validation that Düsseldorf was a good choice over Frankfurt and other destinations in the same price range, the general consensus was yes. "And they drink Altbier there", one of the Berliners added eagerly.
The prospect of escaping the daily grind for a few days was exciting as it was, but the idea of trying not just a new range of beers but a new beer style altogether suddenly added to the appeal immensely. So when I picked up a tourist map at the hotel I was staying at and noticed that "Brewery-Inns" featured as a distinct category alongside museums, shopping and monuments, and that most of them were within comfortable stumbling distance of the hotel, things got very interesting.
First impressions
A short 7-minute walk towards the town centre brought me to the closest of the five brewpubs, Im Füchschen. I was impressed to see that at around midday the pub was full inside and out with happy Germans sitting and eating pork knuckles on a bench or spilling out onto the pavements to stand beside a Stehtisch despite the temperature hovering between 10 and 12 degrees, practically every one of them holding short cylindrical glasses of a dark copper-coloured beer.
This scene piqued my curiosity as it defied everything I thought I knew about German beer culture, my mental image of it involving mainly curvaceous half-litre wheat beer glasses or imposing litre-large dimpled tankards holding something light and golden inside. Tempting as it was to dive in right away, I made a mental note to stop by on the way back instead.
As we meandered through Düsseldorf's streets it became clear that the scene at Im Füchschen was no exception. These little half-pint glasses of Altbier were everywhere, not just at pubs but accompanying people consuming sausages and chips or even ice cream outside on terraces. Having been on the go since 5am I put my desperate need for a coffee on hold and decided to join in.
With a cardboard plate of Currywurst and chips we sat outside at a table near the riverbank among the Düsseldorfers enjoying the fresh air under the warming glow of an outdoor heater.
I took the only Altbier on offer at this particular establishment. Family-owned until 2001 and now the biggest Alt producer since being taken over by Ambev, Diebels, a 4.8% beer is brewed in Issum in the west of the region. After my little 200ml Stange (pronounced shtang-uh) glass of Alt was placed in front of me I tentatively went in for a whiff and a sip, getting contrasting but complimenting qualities of bitter and earthy hop flavours with a sweet caramel biscuit finish, smooth yet crisp. Simultaneously refreshing and quenching but complex in character with a smooth malty base, I was experiencing something different yet familiar...
Altbier
...There's a good reason for this: Altbier, (or "old beer") is so named not because it's the manky stale leftovers found lurking at the back of the cellar, but because of the fermentation method used. Rather than being bottom-fermented like most continental-style lagers, Altbier is top-fermented in the same way as British ale, a process that dates back much further. Not that the two words are linguistically linked in any way, but knock off the "t" from Alt and add an "e", and that's practically what you have in an Altbier.
It's no surprise that my concept of German beer culture had mainly revolved around huge glasses of foaming pilsner style beer being clunked together by people wearing Lederhosen and Dirndls in an enormous tent; when most people think of German beer they think of the scenes at Oktoberfest and all that's on offer there.
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The Lower Rhine area within the state of
North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. |
The truth is, though, that this represents the beer culture specific to the state of Bavaria, and it's one that hasn't just affected the way German beer culture is perceived generally, but even the very beer styles on offer in the rest of the country. When the German states unified to form a single nation in 1871, Bavaria wasn't going to play along unless the rest of Germany adopted the beloved Reinheitsgebot, the so-called "purity law" that allowed only three main ingredients, water, malt and hops (somehow omitting yeast at the time) in the brewing process. This suited Bavaria where the tipple of choice was a refreshing golden lager, but put limits on what the rest of the country could brew, and eventually the golden bottom-fermented stuff was the dominant style. That's not to say that a few local beer styles didn't survive, and Altbier was one of them, remarkably isolated to the lower Rhine region in which Düsseldorf nestles.
Many of the formerly independently-owned breweries are now in the hands of the big corporate BrewCos, like Diebels, but a few of the Old Town brewpubs are still thriving today as they always have...
More beer
After a day of burning the candles at both ends it was time to put them out at Im Füchschen on the way back to the hotel. We took our places on a bench outside the front of the brewpub and soon after, a worn-out looking waiter holding a tray full of pre-filled glasses laid down two Füchschen coasters and plonked zwei Alt on top of them. Asking us for €3,80, we gave him €4 and he thanked us (claiming the change as his each time). For the rest of the evening we barely had to signal anything more than a quantity and sure enough, two Alt would land beside us. Everyone bypassed the other drinks options on the menu for Füchschen Alt, everyone tipped on every drink, and everyone was merry.
The atmosphere was no less convivial in the Old Town the following day at Zum Uerige, where the brewpub has resorted to claiming two sides of the street as theirs to provide enough seating space for all their eager punters who, once again, I was astonished to see were all drinking exactly the same brown ale, 4.7% with a biscuit malt base and a clean, hoppy finish. Uerige is so Düsseldorf that even the menu is in the local dialect, along with their slogan Dat Lekkere Dröppke (Das lekkere Tröpfchen) - the lovely drop - and lovely it was.
We didn't manage to visit all the brewpubs (what better reason to go back?) but a few others to look out for are Zum Schlüssel (see below), Kürzer and Schumacher.
Here's a few bottled Altbiers I managed to get my hands on while I was there:
Schlüssel Original went down smoothly with sweet crystal and chocolate malts and a hint of woodland berries.
Frankenheim had bitter, earthy and peppery hop notes and slightly smoky caramel malt flavours with a hint of nuttiness.
Schlösser Alt was earthy with hints of crystal and chocolate malts along with a nuttiness and hints of candied fruit. This one came home with me, hence the sacrilegious use of a shaker glass.
Over and Alt
This was an eye-opening experience for this beer-swilling Brit. Not only had I got up close and personal with a new beer style, but experiencing this kind of widespread yet highly localised uniformity of traditional ale-drinking was downright bizarre. Not that it's unusual in parts of the continent to walk into a bar and see everyone drinking the same thing, but if you do it's normally a golden-coloured macro-brew that's probably also available next door, and behind many other doors.
These are both very different pictures from back in the UK where anywhere you can find ale, whether it's a traditional pub or a new micro-brewery, you'll find a range that's desperate to cater to everyone's tastes while reflecting participation in the New World inspired craft beer movement.
Where Brits and other participants in the craft beer revolution are rebelling against a time when they were wooed by poor, mass-market lagers, however, the tradition of Altbier, be it small scale or large scale, never fell out of favour with Düsseldorfers in the first place. That's not to say there aren't plenty of bars where you can neck refreshing bottles of Pisse, but the Old Town brewpubs and their humble produce have continued to flourish regardless and, with nothing to rebel against (apart from possible future acquisitions), Düsseldorfers continue to embrace this beer style en masse. Who can blame them?
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The aroma was unlike anything I've known before from a beer. Rich chocolate and nutty aromas are belched out of the can in abundance with no room for ambiguity: chocolate fudge cake, brownie and peanut butter cups may as well be the indulgences lying at the bottom of your glass.
The flavour is everything the aromas promise to deliver: full-bodied, rich and packed with sweet, smooth, creamy chocolate and dark roasted peanuts which linger on for you to enjoy after every swig.
