[Rhodes22-list] Bavaria

[John Lock]

At 10:30 AM 10/3/2008 -0400, Andrew Collins wrote:

>More beer trivia: all of the excellent Japanese beers like Sapporo are
>wonderful clean German-style lagers brewed per German purity laws (water,
>malt, hops and yeast are teh only permitted ingrediants) in beweries built
>with German technology during the dark days before and during WW II.

Unfortunately, that's no longer true.  While most of the Asian 
breweries did begin with German beer styles, brewing technology and 
ingredients, they have long since departed from the Reinheitsgebot's 
directives.  Japanese brewers in particular started adding rice malt, 
since it is cheaper to obtain locally and produces a much lighter and 
clearer product than all barley malt.  In addition, they pioneered 
the "Dry" beer craze of a decade ago with genetically engineered 
yeast that assimilated more sugars than standard yeast, leaving fewer 
by products (read "less flavor").  Less complex character and lower 
sweetness meant adding less hops as well to maintain the balance.  So 
the final result is a mere shadow of what a good German lager should 
be.  If you like crisp, light, beers with little body or aftertaste, 
you'll like Japanese beers.  Hell, you'll like most American 
(non-micro) beers too.

Cheers!

John Lock
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s/v Pandion - '79 Rhodes 22
Lake Sinclair, GA
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