Kellerbier

“There is no recipe for the real zoigl,” says brewer Reinhard Fütterer of the Schafferhof-Zoigl pub in Neuhaus. “Everyone has their own—that’s one of the things that make it so special.”

From shared breweries to shared tables, the zoigl tradition of northeast Bavaria is unlike anything else in modern brewing or hospitality.

Using information provided by brewers Stefanie and Helmut Bayer, we’ve pieced together a homebrew-scale recipe for the Franconian country lager at Brauerei-Gasthof Bayer in Theinheim.

In Bavaria’s lager-loving Franconian region, the Bayer family’s Theinheim Landbier is integral to their tradition of local hospitality.

Kevin Ely, brewer and cofounder of the Wooly Pig Farm Brewery in Fresno, Ohio, shares this recipe for his unfiltered German-style pilsner—light, fresh, floral, and subtly malty, with a moderate bitterness. Plus: See the notes for why he prefers an unusually thin mash for this beer.

Based on an early 19th century recipe, this might well have been the kind of thing locals would’ve drunk fresh from the keller. It includes an older technique called hopfenrösten, which means the brewers boiled the hops separately in a small amount of wort.

From Otherlands Beer in Bellingham Washington, this evolving recipe represents a snapshot of head brewer Ben Howe’s ongoing quest to crack the code of Franconian lager.

As independent brewers worldwide follow their own paths of lager rediscovery, it’s worth taking a closer look at where it all started—the keller—and the rustic tradition we know as kellerbier.

Kevin Templin, cofounder and head brewer at Templin Family in Salt Lake City, shares this recipe for their GABF medal-winner that also became one of our Best 20 Beers in 2023.

This no-frills pub/café near the Vatican features Italian craft, Franconian lager, and unique street food.

Kellerbier merges the best of British cask ale with German malts and hops in a unique lager style. It has an atypical flavor profile that, depending on your finishing steps, can represent itself as a kind of German ESB or a Continental IPA.

Kellerbier is functionally similar to British pale ales in that it was/is often cask-conditioned and served young and unfiltered, often with very low carbonation.