Raise A Glass…“Grätzer”
A historic light ale with oak-smoked malt brewed by Schulz Bräu has received a Gold Medal at the U.S. Beer Championships. The following is written by field correspondent M.Thomas.
The sun was a mild sunset orange, but still hanging high in the sky, shrouded in haze. Everything was grey, despite the untamed bursts of greenery fueled by a recent spate of storms. On the road from northern Wisconsin to Knoxville, wildfire smoke lingered. Everything began to look the same, even as sandy soils and stands of pine gave way to fields of corn and soy, then foothills and hollows. Only the rising thermometer verified my southward route. When I finally opened the car door at home, hot, heavy air pulsed with a languorous surge. Ideal atmospheric conditions for a cold drink in a glassing dripping condensation, cooling to the touch and the tongue.
A view of Schulz Bräu’s famed Biergarten
Many beers perform a certain kind of magic in the summer swoons of our humid subtropical environment, from the classic American pilsner of lawnmower beer to beach-dreaming Mexican lagers. Today, though, I raise a glass to an award-winning exemplar of a rare historical style that cuts to the crisp through the haze and heat with a combination of biting complexity and easy-drinkability: Schulz Bräu’s Grätzer, which just won a gold medal at the 2023 U.S. Open Beer Championships, held annually a few hours up I-75 in Oxford, Ohio.
Grätzer is the German name for piwo grodsiskie, a style from the Polish city of Grodzisk. It’s a centuries-old style of light-bodied, low alcohol beer, notably made with oak-smoked malt. Though Schulz Bräu produced this brew for a renaissance fair, it has landed perfectly amid our summer haze.
Schulz Bräu’s 2023 U.S. Open Beer Championship Winning Beers
The Schulz Bräu Grätzer is a muted pale gold in color and cloudy, looking somewhat like their hefeweizen but with a lighter hue. Unlike most of the German styles that Schulz Bräu produces, Grätzer is an ale, not a lager. Without clarifying agents, unfiltered ales are often cloudier than their lager cousins, which gain clarity from their extended periods of fermentation at lower temperatures. The clarity expected of piwo grodziskie by American judges probably comes from its pre-World War II commercial examples. Schulz Bräu has chosen to go with a more natural look for this beer, which suits it.
There is nothing clouded about the taste. After a very mild aroma, a moderate but pleasing bite cuts right through the humid air, delivering the crackling refreshment summer drinkers desire. Fear not: there is no harsh smoky acridity. The smoked malt flavor melds with the herbal notes of continental noble hops into something akin to a solid high-five between friends picnicking in the shade or cooling off by the quarry.
There’s some kind of small but wondrous magic to the whole thing, the kind of enchantment that makes beer so remarkable, from the eminent crushability of the body to the beguiling flavors – to me, it was lemongrass – produced by the alchemy of woodsmoke and grain.
At 4.1% alcohol, Schulz Bräu’s Grätzer is on the high end of the style’s range, but still low enough by far to provide low key refreshment enlivened by a surprisingly pleasing blend of flavors. So, if that eerie orange sun has you thinking of the apocalypse, change choking smoke for this Grätzer which will brighten your day instead.
A view inside Schulz Bräu’s grand Bier Hall taproom
