There will come a day when there are no more German beer styles left for Slow Lane to brew, but today is not that day. Ahead of spring 2024 they've come up with two very fun, rarely-seen traditional styles just as worthy of your pleasure as any other.
Are they time-travelling back a few centuries in regional Germany and coming up with a new style of beer just so they’ll have something new to brew in the year of our Lord 2024? It’s a bold strategy but it seems to be working. Although, if you are-time travelling in and around Germany, it’s arguable there may be a slightly more pressing matter to address at this moment in time...
Dunkles Bock beers originated around the 14th century in the northern German town of Einbeck, where their popularity waned until the style was fully adopted by the Bavarians a few centuries later. Dunkles bocks are dark, strong lagers that are platforms for the caramelised maillard compounds found in speciality German malts. Think of them as sitting somewhere between the lighter maibocks and the more robust dopplebocks.
Pass the Bock is Slow Lane's recreation and a very lovely one at that. This deep chocolate brown beer presents with a thick sand-hued head and positively reeks of German lager and malt. The palate is like a breakfast of Vegemite on toast with a choc ripple biscuit on the side. Smooth, dark malt flavours intermingle with a beautiful balance of mild malt sweetness and hop bitterness that finishes clean and moreish despite the 6.5 percent ABV.
Weizenbocks are a much more recent invention generally credited to the Schnieder Weisse brewery in Munich, with the release of the much beloved Aventinus in 1907. A combination of a dopplebock and wheat beer, Wezienbocks can be dark like the Aventinus or pale like the Weihenstephaner Vitus.
For Born Too Late, Slow Lane have opted for the path of the old masters Weihenstephaner. A pale weizenbock is, for all intents and purposes, a hef that’s decided to get absolutely jacked. Take all the banana, bubblegum, clove and doughy bread you love from a hef and inject it chock-full of that Hollywood juice that turned Kumail Nanjiani’s face into a brick. This is a beautiful golden wheat beer that could very well rip your torso in half lengthwise (complimentary). It’s chewy, spicy, warming and sweet while still remarkably easy to drink. What more could a boy ask for?
Judd Owen
Published September 3, 2024 2024-09-03 00:00:00
