brewNEWS
Bridgette Turner (far left) with members of Pink Boots Society and Sister Doris at Kloterbrauerei
An American Girl in Bavaria By Bridgette Turner
B
eing a woman in the professional brewing industry isn’t for every elegant lady, but for the past five years, I’ve dedicated my life to craft beer. From the beginning, I joined Pink Boots Society to link up with fun loving, beer making girls like myself. Pink Boots is an organization for women in the beer industry, and their main goal is to help women advance their careers through education. They offer a ton of amazing scholarships throughout the year. As I was perusing the Pink Boots website this summer, one of the scholarships jumped out at me. It was a trip to Germany for ten days to visit breweries and hop farms, and learn about German brewing traditions. I have a passion for traditional brewing, so I applied immediately. A couple of weeks later, I got the news that I was chosen for the scholarship along with six other professional beer ladies. It was off to Bavaria for us, and Germany did not disappoint. As a professional brewer, I knew a little bit about German beers. The first thing to come to mind was the Reinheistsgebot law. The Reinheistsgebot is also known as the “German beer purity law.” It states that beer must only contain water, hops, and barley. It was written in Bavaria in 1516, before they knew
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about yeast. Now it’s 500 years later and the laws are still strictly enforced. That means no cocoa nibs, no orange zest, not even a little sugar. Some people think you can’t make very interesting beers with such limited ingredients, but Bavarians are extremely proud of the Reinheistsgebot and the traditional beers they brew are complex and fantastic. The other thing I knew about Germany is their intense love of lagers. Lager is king in Germany, and I was expecting to drink a lot of German pils and Munich helles. Neither style can hide behind an extreme malt or hop bill, so the beer must be brewed to perfection so no off-flavors are produced. Other German lagers include festbier and marzen, which Americans fondly know as Oktoberfest beers. Many American Oktoberfest beers are ales, but they’re all lagers in Bavaria. Some of the lesser-known styles include Munich dunkle, a dark lager, and radler, a refreshing mixture of German pils and lemonade. My personal favorite lager is rauchbier. It’s a dark, ruby colored smoked lager, and it’s especially popular in the small, quaint city of Bamberg. While every German brewery is unique, there are an exceptional number of similarities. This was especially obvious