EISBIER

Pronunciation guide for English-speakers:
Pronounce as if it were the English word: "ice-beer"

Definition:
Usually a Pils or Helles, which, like Eisbock (see there), 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.

Alleged "inventor" of ice beer is the Canadian Labatt Brewery, which started marketing ice beer in the New World in 1993. The Labatt brew has an alcohol by volume level of 5.6%—more than you would find in a German Eisbier. Nowadays, virtually every large North American brewery has its own version of ice beer on the market. The recent "invention" of ice beer by Labatt is at least debatable. The French brewery Brasserie Schutzenberger of Schiltigheim, in Alsace, right across the Rhine from Germany, makes a brand called Tütz, which it claims on the label is a "‘bière brassée glacée depuis 1740" (brewed as an ice beer since 1740). Tütz is available as a specialty beer in a few high-end restaurants in North America, while German Eisbier is rarely, if ever shipped across the Atlantic.