Beer of the Week is a rich and roasty dark lager. Hopburgh Schwarzbier (Black Lager)

 Beer of the Week

Hopburgh Schwarzbier (Black Lager) 5.2% ABV, 500 ml bottle Bradleys

A rich and roasty dark lager.

Black, with tints of red, is the colour of this black beer, not from Germany as you might think, but from Hopkins & Hopkins at Dublin’s Bow Street Brewery, reportedly a side project of JW Sweetman’s head brewer. This Schwarzbier, a traditional

dark German lager is rich and roasty all the way, from the aromas to the flavours.

Brewed with roasted malts, it has otherwise been through the lager route, with a slow cool fermentation and 6 weeks of cold conditioning and a naturally occurring carbonation, striking an attractive balance between strength and drinkability. By the way,  some Irish brewers, including Kinnegar, Whitefield, Whiplash and Lineman, have relatively recently brewed in this German style, essentially a black lager. 

The later history of this style goes back to the toppling of the Berlin Wall (according to World Atlas of Beer) and the re-unification of Germany. “What the five East German states brought back to the nation was Schwarzbier.” It had more or less died out in the west of the country. Those states also brought Angela Merkel of course!

 Schwarzbier = black beer