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ALTBIER
AKA:
Alt, Düsseldorfer Alt
Pronunciation guide for English-speakers:
"ullt-beer"
Definition:
One
of only a handful of traditional German ales. Altbier is Copper-colored,
cool-fermented, cold-conditioned, clean-tasting, with an aromatic hop presence,
a firm
creamy head, a medium body, and a dry finish. It is indigenous to the Rheinland,
which is part of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the northwestern
part of Germany, near the Dutch border. The best known Altbiers come from
the Düsseldorf,
the state capital.
Related beer styles:
A Sip of Altbier
is a Sip of Beer History Itself
"Alt"
means "old" an allusion to the old
style of brewing. Altbier is an ale, as were virtually all beers of Europe
before lagers were invented in Bavaria in the 16th century AD. Altbier is
now identified with the Rhineland, especially its capital city of Düsseldorf,
barely 50 miles from where the borders of Germany, Holland and Belgium meet.
The Altbier is an ancient brew, but it acquired its name and its distinction
as a modern beer style only in the 1800s, when it became threatened by the
"new" beer, the lager style, which is now the most popular brew
in the world. Before that time, in Düsseldorf, Altbier was just "Bier."
Few people
are aware that Düsseldorf ranks among the oldest
inhabited
places on the globe. In
fact, Neanderthal, which
gave the Neanderthal man his name, is a
suburb of Düsseldorf, about 10 miles east of the 
city
center. Herr and Frau Neanderthal roamed the Rhineland some
50 to 100
thousand years ago. The first-ever skeletal remains of these precursors
of Homo sapiens
(that's
us!), was unearthed in Neanderthal in 1858. It
is unlikely that Neanderthal man ever made beer, but we have reason to think
that his Stone Age successors, the Celtic and Germanic tribes of the Neolithic
period, started brewing ales from wild grains in the Rhineland at least
3,000 years
ago, and brewing hasn't stopped there since. Because
Altbier
has evolved from primitive tribal roots, it is arguably the oldest continuously
brewed beer style in the world.
In
spite of its ancient lineage, Altbier is considered a cool modern brew,
sipped by suave Düsseldorfers fom straight-sided 0.2-, 0.3- or 0.4-liter
glasses in the city's
many ancient brewpubs and ritzy bars. In the
city's Altstadt (old town), almost every house, many of which date from
the 13th to the 17th centuries, contains a pub. There
are more than 200 of them crowded together
in an area
less than one mile square! The
Altstadt
mercifully survived the bombings of World War II unscathed.
With its cobble-stoned lanes,
it is known affectionately as 
the
longest bar inthe world, and
it is there that you
can find three of the four brewpubs that have
defined the Altbier style for our age. Within a few hundred yards
from each other, there is the Zum Uerige, Im
Füchschen and Zum Schlüssel.
In translation, these names mean
"at the grouch," at the little fox,"
and "at the
key," respectively. The oldest Altbier
brewpub, Schumacher, so-named after its founder
Mathias Schumacher, is
only a 10-minute walk to the east of the Altstadt. It opened in 1838.
Düsseldorf's
climate is not
unlike that
of Britain. It
rarely gets
very hot or very cold,
ideal for ale making.
Altbiers
are fermented with a
specialty
ale yeast at a cool
55°F (13°C) to 67°F (19°C) and then
aged
for
one
or two
months,
like a lager,
to bring out its
mellow maltiness and aromatic hoppiness.
In Germany overall, Altbier has a market share between two and three percent, but on its home turf, in Düsseldorf, just about every second beer drunk is still an Altbier. Most of it is poured on-premise, tapped from wooden casks. It has an alcohol level of 4.7 to 4.9% by volume.
