Stefan Stretz, founder and managing director of Brauerei Schanzenbräu in Nuremberg, Germany, knew early on that he wanted to brew rotbier. “Our first brew was red lager,” he says.
Stretz started Schanzenbräu in 2004, originally brewing small batches for a group of friends who had an affinity for classic American cars. He chose rotbier as a flagship because of its traditional roots in his home city. “In Nuremberg we have big cellars, always at 8–10°C [46–50°F], and there’s a history of red lager,” he says.
In crafting his own version, Stretz wanted something less sweet than the one from Hausbrauerei Altstadthof, which opened in 1984 and gets credit for resurrecting the local, historical style. Yet even two decades later, there weren’t many other beers labeled as “rotbier.” Today, there are dozens of different versions around Nuremberg and wider Franconia.
Schanzenbräu’s Rotbier, however, stands out for its characteristically dry finish and elevated bitterness. “Our target is drinkability,” Stretz says, “not because we want to bring people to alcohol, but we think that when you sit down with your friends and you drink beer, sometimes you have many beers.”
Hitting the Target
Stretz says that it wasn’t easy to achieve such drinkability in a red lager, which is typically a full-bodied, malt-forward style.
For Schanzenbräu, it starts with a custom mix of Vienna and melanoidin malts from local maltster Steinbach, just a 10-minute drive from the brewery. It was important to Stretz to get a true Vienna, not just a mix of Munich and pilsner malts. “I think it tastes better,” he says. The melanoidin malt is a significant portion of the grist, giving the beer an attractive ruby color in a reference glass. “If you filter it for the lab testing, it’s a shiny, dark red,” Stretz says.
Schanzenbräu performs a multistep mash on its modern system from Bamberg-based Kaspar Schulz. It’s a striking difference from the brewery’s first decade, when Stretz would rummage through the scrap piles of local breweries, piecing together various parts to create a working system. “Everything they threw in the garbage, I would ask for,” he says, “and they would say yes.”
The days of taking other brewery’s scraps are over. The newer 20-hectoliter brewhouse went online in 2015 and is automated, allowing Schanzenbräu to brew four days a week, around the clock.
The initial mash rest is a brief one at 131°F (55°C) before moving to a longer 147°F (64°C) step. “I like this rest because a lot of the sugars are built, and it gives the beer a high fermentation rate,” Stretz says. Next, the temperature rises to 162°F (72°C), then up to 172°F (78°C) for mashout.
Stretz has experimented with single decoctions before, but he says there wasn’t enough difference to make it worth a permanent change.
The beer originally had a bit of caramel malt in it, but Stretz removed it—he says he didn’t like the impact it had on flavor of pasteurized bottles of the beer. “It left a little roasty taste,” he says. Removing the caramel malt also helped to increase the drinkability that Stretz prizes.
The brewery fills its kegs in-house, and those remain unpasteurized. However, another nearby brewery bottles for Schanzenbräu, and the pasteurization means that the bottles can have a best-by date nine months out; the kegs get five months.
From the historical style to the brewhouse to the malt and outsourced bottling, Stretz is proud of the local connections. “We buy in the region; we sell in the region,” he says.
That local focus extends to the hops, with pellets sourced from the nearby Hallertau and Spalt regions. Stretz says that at 26 IBUs, his rotbier is more bitter than most other examples in the region. It’s unclear whether that modern taste also extends to the historical rotbier. “If you go into the Middle Ages,” Stretz says, “you don’t really have recommendations for hops.”
Schanzenbräu adds the bittering hops 10 minutes into the boil, eschewing higher-alpha varieties such as Magnum or Herkules. “You get too much of the harsh bitterness and not the best flavor,” Stretz says. The aroma hops go in with 10 minutes remaining, and they include some Mandarina Bavaria. In the end, the beer is firmly bitter with a touch of grassy hops and subtler hints of herbs and citrus for depth. “It smells a little bit like berries,” Stretz says.
After the boil, the beer ferments at 54°F (12°C) in conical tanks with yeast from Kulmbach. Stretz says he’s tried a lot of yeasts over the years, but this was the best. “Kulmbach has the best yeast management that I’ve ever seen,” he says. With 6 percent of the sugars left in fermentation, they cap the beer and raise the temperature to 59°F (15°C) to finish out the fermentation and reduce diacetyl. The brewery will repitch the yeast six or seven times before getting a fresh one.
Red Renaissance
Schanzenbräu Rotbier—featuring a fierce, growling bear head on the label—is often a hit with customers at local butcher shops.
Stretz says it pairs especially well with meaty regional specialties such as schweinebraten, a deeply savory roast-pork dish. Bavarian cooks often make its sauce with dark beer, but around Nuremberg they might use rotbier—including Schanzenbräu’s—instead.
The Rotbier is popular, accounting for roughly 30 percent of Schanzenbräu’s annual output of about 15,000 hectoliters (13,000 barrels). However, that number is down—it used to be half the brewery’s production.
The culprit for that decrease? Helles. Germany, like elsewhere, has seen beer consumption declining for many years. However, one bright spot for demand has been pale lager. “Everyone wants blue crates with white labels—helles beer,” Stretz says. “It’s the Bavarian trend.”
Stretz adds that the “television beers”—mass-market brands such as Warsteiner—have a more familiar, common taste. “Everybody likes it because it’s not specific,” he says. “It’s just a beer for drinking.” He doesn’t say this in frustration—he also enjoys a Bayreuther or Augustiner Helles, and he says that they can have some character and are drinkable.
He’s also selling a lot of pale lager himself—Schanzenbräu Helles is now his brewery’s top seller. Yet Stretz says he hopes that red beer sees greater popularity in the future.
“People don’t like the red color as much; they think it’s too malty,” he says. “Some of the other beers are sweeter, but I think the art is to get a beer that is drinkable. You have to drink six beers and say, ‘Okay, I need a seventh.’”
He adds: “I think the red beer trend is coming again.”