Polskee Peevo: Nostrovia Grodziskie by Wisconsin Brewing Company

As a fan of smoke beers, I implore local brewers on this very blog to make more of them because they're almost as rare as hen's teeth in these parts. Generally speaking, though, my pleading is, as the Poles say, like throwing peas onto a wall. But brewers have better things to do than read my ramblings and who can blame them?

The Poles have another saying: hope is the mother of the stupid. And so rather than sitting around with my fingers crossed as the craft beer world became overwhelmed with IPAs back in 2012, I pestered Vintage Brewing Company's brewmaster, Scott Manning, because I wanted something special to drink when the Mayan calendar ended and the world turned into a Roland Emmerich film. He eventually surrendered and brewed his Grätzer Ale. "Grätzer" is the German word for Grodziskie, a Polish beer brewed with smoked wheat. The name comes from the Polish town Grodzisk Mazowiecki which used to belong to the Prussian Empire who called it Grätz, hence Grätzer.

I emailed noted punk rock aesthete and beer historian Ron Pattinson one time asking what the Grodziskie should taste like and he kindly replied, "smoky and hoppy, very well carbonated, too." "Smoky" and "hoppy" are two words I do not usually associate with Polish beers as pale lagers and Baltic porters seem to dominate the Polish brewing enterprise. And so, my interest in the Grodziskie was piqued by Pattinson's description. While certainly allowing for variation and interpretation, I generally expect any beer labeled "Grodziskie" (or "Grätzer", for that matter) to be smoky, hoppy, and fizzy.

Scott's take on the style was, to the best of my knowledge, the last one brewed here in the Madison area until earlier this year when I heard tell of a Grodziskie made by Madison's Working Draft Brewing. Unsurprisingly, I found that it was to have limited availability and I never got myself down to the brewery to try it. Bummer. The moral here is, as the Poles like to say, when bast can be torn, then tear it. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw that Wisconsin Brewing Company was offering one called "Nostrovia Grodziskie" as a limited release only in their taproom. Not wanting to miss out on the Precious again, I heeded the words of Steve Winwood who had a saying of his own - And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl when you see a chance, take it.

It was a rainy afternoon as I drove to the brewery where I was to meet a couple of my co-workers. I was feeling a bit giddy cruising down the road because I had noticed a Trachte shed that I'd never seen before a few seconds previously when suddenly

THUMP!

My fight or flight instinct kicked in and then I noticed a streak of red had formed on the left side of my windshield. What had I hit? Investigating a bit more closely, it appeared to be rather viscous. Ketchup. Someone in a passing car had thrown their dinner at me. As Voltaire once wrote, "We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly" and so I did and laughed it off.

I arrived at the brewery and met up with my fellow IT drones. We had a couple as we commiserated and used one another as an audience for jeremiads lamenting the capricious dictates of our tyrannical boss. I ended up going home with a crowler of the Grodziskie.

Nostrovia Grodziskie is a lovely straw color that reminded me of summer rather than the falling leaves and temperatures around us now here in Wisconsin. It was hazy too which is something I expect from wheat beers. My pour produced a lovely, frothy, white head that stuck around for a little while. There were few bubbles to be seen inside my glass. "Where is all the fizz?" I quietly asked my cat, Grabby, who was sitting on the table next to me. She had no answer beyond a big yawn of indifference to the plight of humankind so I plowed on and found that the beer had a lovely smoky aroma that wasn't quite as big as you get from a Schlenkerla beer.

The beer's paucity of bubbles belied a good, firm fizzy taste. While not to be mistaken with something from Schlenkerla, there was a nice smokiness to be had. Not overwhelming but not a token flavor relegated to a supporting role either. The beer's light body had a little wheat/grain flavor that brought with it a slight sweetness while a bit of lemony citrus held everything in check.

The smoke did a long fade on the finish while some grainy sweetness lingered. That lemony tang mixed with the fizz and a bit of herbal hoppiness to produce a mild, pleasant dryness.

Why this beer didn't see a tap until autumn is a shame. It's light body, relatively gentle smoke, and a citrus/fizz combo would have made this an ideal summer brew. Plus it's easy on the alcohol at 3.6% A.B.V. Still, I am glad that it reached my lips eventually. The server at WBC said that it was brewed by Kirby himself which was nice to hear. This doesn't seem to have been a thoroughly traditional take on the style as it did not have a big hop taste. Still, I greatly enjoyed the smokiness and its overall light touch.

Junk food pairing: Poles love their honey so grab a tube of Pringles Honey Mustard crisps to go with your Nostrovia Grodziskie.

Smoke from South of the Border: 15 Feet by Off Color Brewing

I am returning to my hometown of Chicago and Off Color Brewing here after having had a fine pilsner of theirs. Chicago has a large Polish/Polish-American population which once included my babcia. I have fond memories of eating her Polish cooking as well as other gustatory memories such as making a stop at a pierogi restaurant before seeing Son Volt at The Vic and nearly falling asleep behind the wheel after eating at a Polish all you can eat joint. It is only fitting then that Chicago's Off Color brews a Grodziskie. Native to Poland, the Grodziskie (a.k.a. - Grätzer) is a piwo that's light, smoky, and hoppy made from 100% smoked wheat. Or so the theory goes, anyway. Quite a ways away from the pilsners and Baltic porters that the country is known for.
15 Feet is one of Off Color's seasonal piwos and I bought a six pack back in the spring after stopping at a pierogi wholesaler in Portage Park. It has one foot in tradition with the other in today. While brewed with 100% applewood smoked wheat, the brewers either couldn't get their hands on any Polish hops or were keen on tweaking things to reflect the current microbrew ethos. Regardless, 15 Feet features Sorachi Ace hops, a Japanese variety that boasts lemon and lime scents and flavors. An odd-sounding pairing on paper, to be sure. But smoked beer is a passion of mine and I couldn't resist no matter how incongruent the ingredients.


Grodziskies as conceived today are not big beers – the Poles leave that to Baltic porters – and 15 Feet comes in at a mild 3.5% A.B.V. which, I have read, was standard, for at time at least. And so 15 Feet is a very light yellow color. It's got that wheat haze which made it only slightly difficult to see a fair number of bubbles inside. My glass was adorned only with a small white head and it didn't stick around very long.

The aroma was succulently smoky with a touch of fruity sweetness. It was applewood smoked, after all. I will admit to not being intimately familiar with Sorachi Ace hops but I found that they gave a pleasant citrus scent here.

I was in heaven as the first wave of smoke wafted over my tongue. It had that same fruity sweetness to it as I had smelled. Not mega-potent but rather a glorious golden mean. Those hops gave a definite lemon-lime flavor which, I have to say, reminded me of 7-Up but not in a sickly sweet cloying kind of way. A little wheat came through and the carbonation gave a little bite that made the piwo a tad dry.

On the finish the smoke lingered as did some citrus. But then a dash of Nugget hops brought forth a moderate dose of resiny bitterness which elevated the dryness.

My glass was left with lots of foamy spots.

This is really effin' good. As a lover of smoke I was entranced by the luscious smoke wrapped in its semi-sweet fruitiness. Kilometers away from the hackneyed "bacon" descriptor. The citrus taste went splendidly with the smoke which, if you think about it, isn't all that odd considering we put citrus juice on grilled meats. On top of all this was a gentle earthiness. Light, refreshing, and with just the right amount of smoke. Perfect refreshment for a summer day.

Junk food pairing: Root vegetables are a staple of the Polish diet and so I heartily recommend busting open a bag of potato chips to go along with your 15 Feet. Smoked gouda are highly recommended but Kettle Chips' Backyard BBQ variety go well too.

The Grätzer, er, Grodziskie That May Really Be a Lichtenhainer: Grätzer by New Belgium and 3 Floyds Brewing Cos.

Last year New Belgium and 3 Floyds collaborated on a brew and thusly Grätzer was born. Grätzer – the style, not the beer shown above - is made from oak smoked wheat malt exclusively. It was rather light on the palate and hopped enough to have been at least moderately bitter. At some point and some places willow bark was also part of the recipe.

While new Belgium and 3 Floyds concede that it's "a long-buried style from Poland", they use the German name for their beer. These Polish brewers make a good case for using the Polish appellation, Grodziskie.

The supposed “easiness” that German names carry over the Polish ones is an echo of anti-Polish propaganda, which was never examined in the West after World War II. Indeed, Polish language may appear strange and difficult to some, yet it is important to recognize the harm in the claim that such difficulties are somehow “universal” or “natural” and to learn about the history of such thinking and the continued harm it brings.

Now that I've wasted a bit of your time arguing that the beer at hand should properly be called a Grodziskie, it's a bit ironic that this concoction doesn't seem to be a Grodziskie at all but rather some kind of Lichtenhainer since, as Ron Pattinson points out, the Grodziskie was not a sour beer whereas the brew here is.

Regardless of nomenclature, I carry on…

A word of warning before I continue: the beer was released last spring or summer and the bottle says that the contents were best enjoyed by May 2015. So I'm a bit late. Hopefully three months or so didn't diminish the beer significantly.

Grätzer pours a deep, deep reddish brown that was nearly black. My glass was opaque and the beer defied any attempt to get light to penetrate it. I held the glass up to a light on my ceiling and then to a window but neither could penetrate the Stygian gloom held therein. From what I could tell the beer was clear. It was nicely effervescent too with a big foamy tan head that proved in no hurry to dissipate.

Smoky goodness caught my nose first. Curiously enough, I also smelled some sweetness that was tropically fruity. There were also some wonderful toasty-chocolate/coffee roasted grain tones. A fine start, if you ask me. The taste was similar. There was a moderate smokiness hand-in-hand with more of those chocolatey grainy flavors. The malt also provided some sweetness here which I found to be like stone fruit as opposed to mangoes or papayas. These flavors were tempered by a bit of dryness from the carbonation. Lactobacillus was added to the beer but in a small quantity. I caught a hint of sour immediately but the tartness came mostly in the finish which saw the nearly ubiquitous smoke come to a diminuendo and be superseded by some herbal hop bitterness and the more pronounced lacto sour.

Judging purely by Grätzer's Cimmerian appearance, you'd think this was a heavy beer but that's not the case. Grätzer has a light body and is rather small at 4.5% A.B.V. yet it is a tasty gallimaufry of malt pleasures with the grains offering smoky, chocolatey, and sweet flavors. While the malt is front and center on the palate, the carbonation and the lactic acid bacteria help keep everything balanced. As for the finish, I thoroughly enjoyed how the taste changed from being malt-centric to one that was slightly dry with some hop bitterness and acidulous to boot. Grätzer is a rather nimble beer as it managed to be rather hearty yet also light & refreshing at the same time.

Junk food pairing: If you still have some Grätzer and don't want to give it to me, then drink it now and pair it with Jay's Barbeque potato chips. Unless Jay's has changed the recipe, these chips have a prominent paprika flavor as opposed to a sweet BBQ sauce one. The earthy spice complements the smoke well. If you can get your hands on Polish junk food then I'd bet Lay's Papryka chips would be the perfect companion.

Grätzer Ale from Vintage Brewing

In a moment of weakness Scott Manning, the brewmaster at Vintage Brewing, read my plea on Google+ and brewed a grätzer/grodziskie (depending on whether you want the German or Polish name) ale. This is a Polish/Prussian smoked wheat ale and is believed to have been first brewed around the time the Great Plague was ravaging Europe. Its popularity declined after World War I and it eventually disappeared but was briefly resurrected in the 1990s in Poland before going the way of the dodo again. So what is this archaic brew supposed to taste like? I emailed Ron Pattinson and he told me that a grodziskie should taste “smoky and hoppy, very well carbonated, too.”

Yeah, my photo sucks. I wish I could be like some beer bloggers who make their snaps look like Ansel Adams but mine always turn out like something by Dorothea Lange, no offense to her legacy intended. Anyway, as you may or may not see, Scott's gräter is a nice clear yellow. It had a nice head on it so the carbonation is there but it disappeared fairly quickly. Schaumhaftvermoegen? Nein.

The aroma was smoky. This is to be expected since the grain bill was oak smoked wheat and more oak smoked wheat. Now, I'm no expert when it comes to rauchbiers with my experience coming in the form of having had three or four varieties of Schlenkerla and the occasional craft porter with some smoked malt thrown in for good measure. Having said this, rauchbiers usually smell like bacon to me. This beer had that but there was also some sweetness present which leaned towards the honey-glazed ham side of things.

Taking a sip I tasted that bacony/ham-like flavor and it was heaven. But then those hops kicked in and penetrated through the smoky goodness. They were spicy and herbal. Scott said that he was unable to procure Polish hops such as Lomik or Lubelski and so he worked with Gorst Valley Hops to concoct a replacement combo. I've had several varieties of Polish pale lagers but don't know what hop varieties were used in them so I'm not sure what hop flavor I should or could have tasted here. Regardless, it tasted like Noble hops – herbal but not piney. This is not a super-mega-maxi hopped beer but you need a goodly amount to compete with the smoke flavor.

Schlenkerla's rauchbiers tend to be pretty heavy on the tongue whereas this brew had a much lighter mouthfeel. It was weird because when I drink smoke beers, I expect a sturm und drang of smoke but this stuff was agile and nimble – as if you're bouncing flavor balls around in your mouth. Like comparing helium to lead. It had a nice, moderately bitter finish.

The brew weighed in at 4.5% ABV which I gather is a bit high for the style but by no means off the chart. (Can an imperial barrel aged grodziskie be far off?) As it stands, I would consider this a session beer and, indeed, I had two during my session at Vintage last night before bringing a growler of the stuff home with me. This is truly a smoke beer I could drink all night long.

Junk food pairing: Pair with kielbasa-flavored potato chips. If, like me, you're not in Poland, try Jay's Hot Stuff potato chips as they're heavy on the paprika.

Grodziskie Coming Up

Take one off-hand Google+ comment, add in a few months wait, and you get Grodziskie at the Vintage in July. Look for me there yelling "O' zapft ist!" What's the proper glassware for grodziskie? I'll be embarrassed drinking it from an American conical pint glass.

Next month I'll be in beervana. In addition to the grodziskie, there will be homebrew Kölsch courtesy of friend to Hopalicious drinkers everywhere, Joe Walts. My stangen are on standby. Still no Kölsch-Kranz, unfortunately.