Author: Jason Cipriani

The term “lager” is likely to conjure up images of a pale beer with a relatively light malt character that’s balanced by some degree of noble hop presence. This makes sense considering Pilsner is the most popular style of beer in the world, despite the fact a much darker lager holds the title of longest continuously brewed style.

The first documented mention of Schwarzbier, which translates to “black beer” in German, was in 1390 and references Braunschweiger mumme, a rustic dark beer that was brewed in the northern part of Germany. While many of the earliest commercial versions were fermented with ale yeasts, including the popular Köstritzer Schwarzbier, the style eventually came to be defined by the delicate and clean character imparted by bottom fermenting lager yeast.

The BJCP provides the following description for Schwarzbier:

A dark German lager that balances roasted yet smooth malt flavors with moderate hop bitterness. The lighter body, dryness, and lack of a harsh, burnt, or heavy aftertaste helps make this beer quite drinkable.

I’ve heard it said that Schwarzbier is just a Pilsner that’s dark, though the few examples I’ve had possessed at least a hint of smooth roast or chocolate flavor, which I enjoyed. Having relatively little experience with Schwarzbier, I was excited to see what others would think of a version made using less than traditional methods!

| BREWING THE BEER |

Having little experience brewing Schwarzbier, I relied on a recipe I found on the AHA website, reducing the amount of Midnight Wheat to lighten things up a bit.

Short & Shoddy Schwarzbier

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 6 gal 20 min 21.6 IBUs 22.6 SRM 1.049 1.011 4.9 % Actuals 1.049 1.009 5.2 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pilsner (2 Row) Bel 8.5 lbs 61.82 Munich Malt 4.25 lbs 30.91 Caramel Malt - 40L (Briess) 8 oz 3.64 Midnight Wheat Black Malt 8 oz 3.64 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Magnum 20 g 20 min Boil Pellet 14.4 Hallertau 16 g 15 min Boil Pellet 2.7 Hallertau 16 g 5 min Boil Pellet 2.7 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Global (L13) Imperial Yeast 75% 46°F - 56°F Notes Water Profile: Pueblo, CO tap water Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

I’m a decent multi-tasker, so on the night I tried my hand at making homemade pizza, I thought it’d be a good idea to brew this Schwarzbier. Since my brewing setup is right next to my stove, I figured it’d be pretty easy. After collecting the water and turning the element on to heat it up, I weighed out and crushed the grain.

The water wasn’t to strike temperature when I was done milling, and I didn’t feel like waiting, so I stirred the grains in early and let the mash recirculate until it reached my desired mash temperature.

It took 37 minutes for the mash to reach my target of 152°F/66°C…

…which seemed long enough to me, so I immediately removed the grain basket and began to sparge using hot water direct from my sink faucet. Then I experienced my first ever stuck sparge.

I have no clue what caused this, but it stripped the “short” and increased the “shoddy” of this brew day. It took some screwing around, but I was eventually able to get the water to slowly flow through the grain, during which I weighed out the hops.

Once the sparge was complete over an hour later, I began heating the wort and thoughtlessly tossed in a spoonful of spent grain for kicks.

The wort was boiled for 20 minutes with hops added at the times stated in the recipe. Per my normal Grainfather routine, I kicked on the pump with 10 minutes left to go to begin sanitizing my chiller, which is when I realized I’d made a terrible mistake– the spoonful of grain I added earlier clogged the damn pump.

Hello, Shoddy, my old friend.

I was hungry and dinner was ready, so I left the wort in the kettle and ate pizza with my family. It was pretty good!

By the time I was done eating, the wort had dropped to 167°F/75°C. It was a cold night in Pueblo and only seemed right to rely on nature to help me out, so I dumped the wort into my stainless Brew Bucket and put it on my back porch to finish chilling.

A hydrometer measurement confirmed my concern– my OG was a bit lower than planned. Meh.

I then proceeded with the task of cleaning up, which involved removing the clogged pump to get it working again. Definitely wouldn’t recommend anyone add grains to their boiling wort when using the Grainfather.

The next morning, I moved the adequately chilled wort to my fermentation chamber controlled to 72°F/22°C and direct pitched a can of Imperial Yeast L13 Global.

Signs of fermentation were present the following day and stopped after a couple days, unsurprising considering the lower OG. I let the beer sit a couple more days to ensure the yeast had a chance to finish up before taking a hydrometer measurement confirming FG had been reached.

The warm beer was transferred to a sanitized keg along with gelatin fining.

I placed the filled keg in my keezer and hit the beer with a period of burst carbonation before reducing the gas to serving pressure. After a few days of cold conditioning, my first Schwarzbier was ready to serve.

| METHOD |

Participants, all blind to the brewing methods used, were served samples of the beer in standard clear taster glasses then asked to focus on its appearance, aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel. Each participant completed a brief survey in a relatively quiet setting after being instructed not to interact with others while evaluating the beer.

| RESULTS |

A total of 19 people of various levels of experience participated in this Short & Shoddy evaluation. Participants were first asked to write-in the style they believed the beer to be based on their perception.

Tasters were then instructed to rate how hoppy, malty, and dry they perceived the beer to be on a 0-5 scale where a rating of 0 indicated “not at all” and 5 indicated “extremely;” these ratings were then averaged.

Tasters were provided a list of common hop, malt, and yeast characteristics then instructed to select from each the one they perceived as being strongest in the beer.

Hop Characteristics

Malt Characteristics

Yeast Characteristics

Next, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they detected any off-flavors in the beer; those who did were provided a list of common off-flavors and instructed to select the one they perceived as being strongest. Out of the 19 participants, only 2 indicated off-flavors– acetaldehyde and metallic.

Tasters were then asked to rate how much they enjoyed the beer on a 0-5 scale where 0 indicated they hated it and 5 indicated they loved it.

Finally, the beer style was revealed to participants and they were asked to rate how representative it was on a 0-5 scale where 0 meant “not at all” and 5 meant “extremely.”

My Impressions: I was taken by surprise the first time I sampled this Schwarzbier once it was finished, as it had the crispness I expect from a lager with a backbone of roast and chocolate that I really enjoyed. I perceived a mild bitterness that lingered a bit longer on my palate than I would have liked, but even so, I felt the beer was pretty well aligned with the BJCP description. All in all, this Schwarzbier was incredibly crushable, to the point I had to disconnect the keg from my taps to stop myself from pulling a Ray.

| CONCLUSION |

If someone were to hand me a random dark beer and ask me to identify the style, Schwarzbier or any lager style would likely be close to my last guess. I’m pretty sure the color would prime me to experience characteristics more consistent with styles like Porter and Stout.

Analyzing the data, it would appear this may have been the case for some participants, though I was admittedly impressed with the number who endorsed the style as being some sort of dark lager… even if nobody correctly identified it as a Schwarzbier. Identifying beer style when sampling completely blind is insanely difficult, much more so that I’d wager most confident beer drinkers assume, and hence the fact some people thought this Schwarzbier was a arguably more well known dark ale wasn’t terribly surprising.

What I did find a little odd was the number of people who endorsed phenolics as being the the primary yeast characteristic, something I simply didn’t detect at all over multiple personal evaluations. It’s possible the beer did possess such flavors, though it could also be that tasters weren’t familiar enough with the style and perhaps confused the roasty malt character as a fermentation derived phenol.

In post-evaluation talks with participants, a point at which the style had been revealed, the only complaint was that the beer lacked a prominent lager character. Besides that, the feedback was largely positive, many stunned to hear of my Short & Shoddy brewing process, and all indicating they enjoyed drinking the beer.

Given all my other brew day mishaps, I was generally surprised with how well it turned out, especially given the fact I added spent grain directly to the boil, which I fully expected to impart a noticeable astringency. While I’ve no plans to make that particular mistake again in the future, this experience certainly strengthened my confidence that good beer can be produced using less than traditional methods.

If you have thoughts about this Short & Shoddy brew, please feel free to share in the comments section below!

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