GERMAN BEERS

Steps:

• Bockbiers rank among the heaviest and maltiest, yet smoothest, brews in the world. Like British barley wines, they are very rich and should be sipped, not guzzled.
• A Westphalian lager that originated in Germany's steel and coal district along the River Ruhr in the 19th century. Dortmunder is the laborer's answer to the elegant, aromatic deep golden Pilsner from Bohemia and the straw-blond, brilliant, malty Munich Helles. Dortmunder is a full-bodied, moderately hopped beer of at least 5% alcohol by volume. It became the favorite quaff of coal miners and heavy industry workers in the first half of the 20th century. The mines and mills of the Ruhr District have all fallen silent now, and the Dortmunder has largely been replaced by the racy modern Pils. However, the Dortmunder Unions Brauerei (DUB) and the Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei (DAB) each still make their own version of this classic lager style, as do many brewpubs. Both DAB and DUB export their brews to North America.
• Eisbier, usually a Pils or Helles, which, like Eisbock, is brewed less strong than a normal beer. It is partially frozen at roughly 25°F (-4°C) at the end of fermentation and then filtered. In the process, the brew loses some water, which increases the alcohol concentration to a "normal" of around 5% by volume. Because freezing also removes some of the hops' bittering substances (but not their aroma substances) as well as acrid tannins from the grain husks and the hops, this beer tastes smoother and more rounded than its "unfrozen" equivalent. In Germany, ice beers are targeted particularly to younger consumers, who consume it in clubs and discos. It is always drunk chilled.
• In Germany, unlike in the rest of the world, a Lagerbier is always a blond, mild, low-hop quaffing lager, with an alcohol by volume level near the low end of the Vollbier spectrum of 3 to 5.3%. It is often sold in cans.
• Pils is arguably the most successful beer style in the world. Nine out of ten beers drunk in the worldtoday are made according to the Pilsner style or a style directly derived from it. Pils is a very blond, brilliantly clear, moderately effervescent lager, modeled largely after a beer style invented in 1842 in the Czech city of Pilsen. Pils is often strongly hopped with an assertive up-front bitterness bite. It emerged in the north of Germany. Perhaps the classic representation of the style is Jever Pils, a beer from a small town by the same name. Jever Pils is being imported into the United Sates and is available in many parts of the country.