Dreherhaus is a Vienna-style lager produced by brewer Josh Chapman at Sojourn Fermentory out of Suffolk, Virginia. Listeners will remember Josh and Jenna Chapman from a DC Beer episode. Drinkers will remember his tenure at Right Proper and the now-defunct Black Narrows on Virginia’s eastern shore. Dreherhaus is a 5% alcohol by volume amber lager and its name pays homage to a key player in lager beer production.
Per Sojourn it is “[n]amed for the father of Vienna Lager, Anton Dreher.” Dreher is often honored in lager-loving circles though he remains relatively obscure to the lay reader. He and his son’s breweries produced a lot of beer, in a bunch of places. He lived from 1810 to 1863 and is largely credited with the creation of Vienna lager. His brewery, which popularized the style, was, you guessed it, in Vienna, in what is now Austria. His story is worth exploring in my humble opinion.
A year before he died, Dreher bought a brewery in Hungary, in 1862. His son, Anton Dreher Jr., continued the manufacture of lager and after Dreher Jr.’s father died in 1863, he began exporting beer to the Netherlands, Trieste, and Germany.
Per the 1901 text, 100 Years of Brewing, Dreher Jr. opened a plant in Michelob, Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic) in 1867 and in 1868 he purchased the Aktien brewery in Trieste (today’s Italy). If you’re of a certain age you may remember a product called Michelob that was hoppy. And while you may find the errant Michelob amber bock, the far more popular product, number one by volume in America in fact, is Michelob Ultra made by Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Dreherhaus comes down on the maltier side of Vienna lagers, which, as you’ll read below, are on a spectrum. Its color is a beautiful light amber, more like Bon Maman orange marmalade than the orange you’d find accenting the paint job of The Mystery Machine in a Scooby Doo Episode. As I make my way through the beer, however, the color perhaps lends a bit more sturdiness to the beer than actually exists in the glass. It’s not as chewy as many other beers that possess this color.
The aroma is of creme fraiche on a freshly toasted pumpernickel slice. I get a touch of light citrus and dried fruit; there is a savory character, but it’s balanced by more creamed honeyed than black tea aroma. Certainly a very pleasant grainy and malty character in the nose.
Up front I’m greeted with a spritzy, toasty taste. I have an image of dough with bubbles escaping and while I know this finished beer is ultimately like a loaf of bread that’s fully cooked, the notion of dough, not-yet-ready to be pulled from the oven, is in my mind’s eye.
The mid palate reveals a light toast balanced by a carmelized sweetness. It’s certainly not roasty, but it’s got enough bread-doneness to let you know this beer has more than just pale malts. The beer has a medium body with a lingering finish that makes me think it’s perhaps drier than it is given the residual–albiet mild–bitterness. The hops are too light in the finish to affect the overall taste, but they’re present, letting me know this is a malt-dominant, easy drinking amber lager. The beer is a study in malt and though grainy, it is not as rustic as some of the other all-local malt lagers we’ve had in town in the last week thanks to the Snallygaster festival.
Unlike the original Vienna lager of centuries ago, Dreherhaus is brewed exclusively with Virginia malt from Charlottesville’s Murphy & Rude. There is a local connection to Dreher beyond this beer being brewed by Chapman at a brewery co-founded and owned by Jinson Chan, co-founder and General Manager of High Side in Fairfax. One tidbit my beverage research firm, Lost Lagers, recently discovered is that the biggest brewer in DC history, Christian Heurich, was at one point an employee in Dreher’s Vienna brewery.
From a 1933 Evening Star newspaper article, “[w]hen he [Heurich] left Europe, he was an overseer in the world-renowned brewery of A. Dreher, of Vienna, and had learned the manufacture at [of] the malted beverage from the ground up.”
Andreas Krennmair, writer of Vienna Lager, notes that Heurich “stayed in Vienna for almost 2 years and worked there as a brewer, then continued his travels but came back to Vienna, where he worked as ‘Biersieder’ (which is basically a foreman position in wort production) and ‘Kellermeister”’(i.e. the head position of managing the beer cellar)… This was in the 1860s, so he definitely learned first hand how to brew proper Vienna Lager and related sub-styles (Märzen, Export, Abzug).”
Beer judges may think of these three styles as distinctly different styles of beer, but at the 2020 Great American Beer Festival Lost Rhino’s RhinOfest and Port City’s Oktoberfest took gold and bronze, respectively, in the Vienna-Style Lager category. I recently heard Lisa Allen, Head Brewer at Oregon’s Heater Allen, discussing her brewery’s Abzug, Vienna, and Marzen style lagers and felt further clarity.
On the Master Brewers Association of America podcast, Allen mentioned Vienna lager as a family of three distinct styles: Märzen, Vienna Lager, and the more obscure style, Abzug. She has brewed all of these in McMinnville, Oregon, and the key distinction she mentions is that Abzug is a smaller Vienna lager while Märzen is the strongest of all three styles. She relays that she’s using exclusively European malt and her Märzen is a mix of Munich and Vienna malts. She told me “Abzug is about 4.1%, Vienna comes in right around 5-5.1% and Marzen is typically 5.7% Also I would definitely put Marzen as the maltiest” and there it is! DC Brau’s Vienna-style lager, Dueling Grounds, also sits right at 5% ABV.
While I have yet to try all three of these from Heater Allen, and will soon have Brau’s, Dreherhaus is a beautiful amber lager that I think both Anton Dreher and Lisa Allen would enjoy. More Vienna lager please! DC Beer Patreon members receive 10% off this beer at The Brew Shop in Arlington for the month of October.
