Like our neighbors to the south, I like a little flaked corn in my Vienna lagers. I also prefer to use continental hops over their American cousins in this case, the clean Magnum for bittering and the floral Saaz for flavor. Vienna malt has a toasty, nutty flavor that just can’t be replicated anywhere else. Like the originators of the style, I prefer a base of 100% Vienna malt. My version of the Vienna lager combines attributes from both the Mexican and Austrian styles. Thanks in part to Graf and his fellow Mexicans, the Vienna lager has had a resurgence in the craft beer community. By the 1890’s, his Negra Modelo was the most popular beer in Mexico. One of these men was Santiago Graf, who decided to take the standard Vienna lager recipe and amend it with inexpensive and readily available corn. Though he reigned for only three years, it was enough time for thousands of Austrians to immigrate to Mexico and bring their native country’s brewing culture with them. In 1864, Napoleon III gifted Mexico to Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Habsburg of Austria. After a bloody, years-long war against Napoleon III’s France, Mexico fell under European control. Naturally he called the resulting product Vienna malt, and thus the Vienna lager was born.įast-forward several years and to an entirely new continent. His solution was to kiln his barley slightly longer than traditional Pilsen malt until it took on an amber hue. His only problem was that the water in Vienna was much harder than the water available in Northern Germany. His goal: to brew lagers in his native Austria that matched the flavor and quality of the pilsners brewed in Northern Germany. Vienna lagers trace their roots back to 1841 and to one man. This style’s history is based on ingenuity, war, geopolitical intrigue, and cultural cross-pollination (and you thought Mexican beers were boring). But Mexico has a rich brewing history of its own, and in fact is singlehandedly responsible for saving a beer style from extinction: the Vienna lager. This is no doubt because of that country’s role in the popularization and proliferation of watery, lime wedge-adorned, adjunct-laden pale lagers. Many craft beer-lovers have contempt towards the beers of Mexico. NOTE: We have recently turned this into a beer kit! You can find and order the all-grain version of the kit here, and the extract version here. This month’s recipe post is brought to you by our Avon store manager, Steve Kent (affectionately called Steve Kent Goldings by us)!
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