Karl Strauss' Karlfest was held last October and helped raise money for the Karl Strauss Brewers Education Fund, which was established to help fund aspiring brewer’s education in Southern California.  Last year’s Karlfest was especially exciting because it also featured our first Annual Homebrew Competition. The finalists’ beers were judged by a panel of our very own brewers.
 
The winning beer was a Rauchbier submitted by San Diego’s Matt Morrison. Our brewers chose this beer because it was an accessible interpretation of a style that can sometimes be intensely smoky. Matt’s Rauchbier still had those delicious smoky flavors characteristic of the style, but they were nicely balanced by a rich toasted maltiness.  


Because Matt won our homebrew competition, he was given the opportunity to come back and brew his recipe at our Main Brewery in Pacific Beach. Because Matts’ recipe was originally written for a 5-gallon homebrew batch, our brewers worked with him to scale up his recipe for our system.  Matt came to our brewery on Friday, July 11th and brewed a 40-barrel batch of his Rauchbier.
 

Matt’s Rauchbier will be available on tap at all Karl Strauss Brewing Company Restaurants in August so enjoy a pint while you can. Because of its balance of smoky and sweet flavors, it’s a perfect match with our BBQ ribs.
 
In addition to serving Matt’s Rauchbier in our Brewery Restaurants, we will be also be entering it in the 2008 Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am competition – a competition for professional brewers to enter beers that they brewed collaboratively with a homebrewer.

 A bit about Rauchbiers:
Rauchbiers are German Lagers that have a rich and toasty malt flavor and a smoky, woody, almost bacon-like character.  The smoky flavors come from the use of smoked malts, which are pale malts that have been gently smoked over a beechwood fire.  Smoky flavors in Rauchbiers can vary from being very subtle to very intense.  Some interpretations have just a hint of smoke, while others have an intensely smoky flavor. Rauchbiers tend to be medium in body, amber to dark brown in color, and range in alcohol from 4.8-6%. Matt’s Rauchbier came in at 5.1% alcbv.