On Thursday, the authors of Modern Lager Brewing are coming to DC to discuss their book with me at Churchkey. Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly, of the Massachusetts lager brewery Jack’s Abby, will bring six beers with them. The panel runs from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM and it’s my goal to generate some thought provoking conversation.
Getting my bias out of the way: I love lager and I love a good book, so clearly I am an ideal reader. But the book really lives up to its full title: Modern Lager Brewing Techniques, Processes, and Recipes in that you get modern lager as well as techniques, processes, and recipes. A ticket gets you a guaranteed seat and one of six beers:
The book includes more than 20 recipes from over 20 breweries, broken into the categories of Adjunct Pale Lagers, German-Inspired Pale Lagers, Czech-inspired Pale Lagers, Copper to Brown Lagers, Strong Pale Lagers, Dark and/or Strong Lagers, Nouveau Lagers, and Smoked Lagers. The second recipe is for F.X. Matt Utica Club 1933 Pilsener. This “Pilsener” is a beer that detractors deride as “meh,” but for New Yorkers and history nerds this beer should be praised for its import. Yes, there are lots more recipes for beers with fuller flavor, but I wanted to look at the Matt brewery, which was the first to obtain a license and the first to sell beer in 1933, after the repeal of Prohibition.
The Matt brewery, then called The West End Brewing Co., was brewing what we would technically consider a post-Prohibition pilsner, given the 1933 timing, but it still has elements tied to pre-Prohibition times. The recipe as it appears in the book is “Contributed by F.X. Matt Brewing Co. and Scott Grenier of Utica, New York,” and its ingredients are listed as six-row pale malt, flaked corn, flaked rice, and Briess Caramel Malt 60L.
It would be a fun exercise to see how the Jack’s Abby beers hold up to the those of America’s past. The Utica Club 1933 Pilsener is in some ways close to the Jack’s Abby’s Pre-Prohibition Pilsner, in that it has corn and is 5% ABV. Yes, they are both pale lagers but the Jack’s Abby has more perceived malt character to my taste, and just generally feels a bit more significant. In addition to being fuller on the tongue, the Jack’s Abby Pre-Prohibition Pilsner is brewed with “old school American hops,” thus is a tad more bitter and aromatic.
While we might consider a beer like Jack’s Abby’s Bourbon Barrel-Aged Framinghammer to be the most modern beer of the half-dozen, it is in a way, the oldest. Framinghammer, the Baltic porter, was born in 2011 which was the same year Jack’s Abby was founded. You may think of an imperial Baltic porter like Framinghammer unheard of in American brewing history, but there are some very strong beers in America’s past. Yes, Bourbon Barrel-Aged Framinghammer 2023 is a 12% alcohol by volume Bourbon BA Imperial Baltic Porter. Yes, Baltic porter, let alone an “imperial” one, is nearly impossible to find in the American brewery landscape before 2011; however, that doesn’t mean strong beers didn’t exist.
I asked Doug Hoverson, author of books like The Drink That Made Wisconsin Famous: Beer and Brewing in the Badger State, and Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota, specifically about strong beers. Hoverson wrote, “Wisconsin had not one but TWO 12% ales in the 1930s. There is the Waukesha one you found (with two different label variations, so it probably wasn’t a one-and-done), and Old Derby Ale from Ripon Brewing Co. The latter is in my book. The Waukesha one isn’t[.]” Outside of the 12% abv Fox Head Old Waukesha Ale, there was an 8% abv beer in Florida. The Spearman Straight 8 beer was an 8% abv beer, originally brewed in Pensacola, FL by the Spearman Brewing Company.
While these beers likely never had a footprint the size of a nationally-distributed lager, they remind us that the past is never dead. It’s not even past. Modern Lager Beer focuses largely on contemporary accounts of lager and its mission is aided with modern beers like Jack’s Abby Modern Pils and Modern Hell and I am very excited to try these beers in celebration of finishing the book.
I recently had the Porch Fest, purchased at The Brew Shop and was pleasantly surprised at how pale and how hoppy it was. When I asked Jack Hendler, Jack’s Abby founding brewer, he said that Porch Fest is a bit of a hybrid lager in that it’s brewed with German techniques but using more modern ingredients. He also said it was modeled off of Fest of Both Worlds, a beer Jack’s Abby crafted with Weihenstephan.
Porch Fest is sold as a “Refreshing Summer Lager” and features a decoction mash, a month long maturation, and natural carbonation. Jack’s Abby employed the German hop variety Calista instead of the more traditionally and widely used Hallertau or Tettnang hops. Hendler said he appreciated the balance of an American hop character with zero American hops used in the recipe. The pleasant lemony and citrusy notes the Callista hops provide allow for a bright hop character to shine through pleasant malt notes that are firm in bready ways, but not overpowering as some American-brewed festbiers can be.
Hendler often finds himself asking, “do we try to just copy what the German breweries are doing or try to do something uniquely of our own?” He finds himself more and more choosing the latter. But I would argue that while the techniques, and processes may find popularity amongst German brewers, the ingredients make sure I will be returning to Porch Fest throughout the summer as I re-read Modern Lager Beer at the pool. What’s old is new again: on Thursday at Churchkey Jack’s Abby revives America’s love for lager.
