Grodziskie
Na Zdrowie, Homebrewers!
Saturday 06 February 2010
February 6, 2010
Back in April of last year at the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing included a video in his keynote speech that immediately went viral. The video, "I Am a Craft Brewer", included commercial craft brewers from around the USA talking about why they do what they do.
Not long afterwards, some enterprising home brewers put together a response, "I am a Home Brewer"
Now, some home brewers in Poland have offered up their response. (I'm of half-Polish heritage, so I've got some tribal pride here. I'm working on perfecting my version of the Polish smoked beer style, Grodziskie.)
ENJOY (CIESZYĆ SIĘ):
Thanks to Andrew DeWeerd of Clearwater, Florida for pointing me to this.
Back in April of last year at the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing included a video in his keynote speech that immediately went viral. The video, "I Am a Craft Brewer", included commercial craft brewers from around the USA talking about why they do what they do.
Not long afterwards, some enterprising home brewers put together a response, "I am a Home Brewer"
Now, some home brewers in Poland have offered up their response. (I'm of half-Polish heritage, so I've got some tribal pride here. I'm working on perfecting my version of the Polish smoked beer style, Grodziskie.)
ENJOY (CIESZYĆ SIĘ):
Thanks to Andrew DeWeerd of Clearwater, Florida for pointing me to this.
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Bitter Wheat Experiment
Sunday 12 October 2008
With last Saturday's back-to-back batches of
Hellsmoke Porter fermenting away in my largest
fermenter, this Saturday I brewed up a small
experimental batch of a Polish / German style that
appears to have otherwise become extinct -
Grodziskie. Grodziskie, a smoked wheat ale, is
considered to be the only beer style native to
Poland, and it is named after the city where it was
brewed.
When the city of Grodziskie was part of Germany, it (and the beer style) was renamed Grätzer. (My heritage is more Polish than German, so I prefer to refer to this as Grodziskie). This style is said to have been popular across much of Poland and northern Germany up to the period before the first World War.
Thought to have been born sometime in the 14th Century, the last known commercial example of this style was brewed in the 1990s, when the last brewery producing it closed.
Grodziskie is considered by some to be related to Weissbier, in that the majority of the grist is Wheat, but in the case of Grodziskie, about half of the grist mashed is first smoked over oak.
I smoked some of the wheat malt over medium-toast French oak chips. For this test batch, I used a German ale yeast, rather than a weizen yeast, and hopped with 30 IBUs of Saaz. This style is said to be bitter and of a relatively low ABV. I'm shooting for an ABV of 3.7%
While there was a surprise somewhat-unwanted guest in the brewhouse last Saturday, yesterday morning there was a most-welcomed guest: Rich Thatcher - President of the Long Island Beer & Malt Enthusiasts, as well as the manager of Bellport Beer & Soda. Rich got to see just how small this nano-micro brewery is just before I started smoking up that wheat.
When the city of Grodziskie was part of Germany, it (and the beer style) was renamed Grätzer. (My heritage is more Polish than German, so I prefer to refer to this as Grodziskie). This style is said to have been popular across much of Poland and northern Germany up to the period before the first World War.
Thought to have been born sometime in the 14th Century, the last known commercial example of this style was brewed in the 1990s, when the last brewery producing it closed.
Grodziskie is considered by some to be related to Weissbier, in that the majority of the grist is Wheat, but in the case of Grodziskie, about half of the grist mashed is first smoked over oak.
I smoked some of the wheat malt over medium-toast French oak chips. For this test batch, I used a German ale yeast, rather than a weizen yeast, and hopped with 30 IBUs of Saaz. This style is said to be bitter and of a relatively low ABV. I'm shooting for an ABV of 3.7%
While there was a surprise somewhat-unwanted guest in the brewhouse last Saturday, yesterday morning there was a most-welcomed guest: Rich Thatcher - President of the Long Island Beer & Malt Enthusiasts, as well as the manager of Bellport Beer & Soda. Rich got to see just how small this nano-micro brewery is just before I started smoking up that wheat.