Good Beer Guide: Fauerbach Challenge Revives Vintage Brew
Posted January 31st, 2008 by George Zens
By George Zens
The year 1948 was not only the centennial of the state of Wisconsin, it also marked the one-hundred-year anniversary of Fauerbach brewery. To commemorate both events, the brewery released Fauerbach CB, with CB standing for Centennial Brew. It was brewed from 1948 until 1966, the year Fauerbach stopped brewed.
Resurrected in 2005 by David, Neil and Peter Fauerbach, fifth-generation Fauerbachs and great-great grandsons of Peter, original founder of the brewery, Fauerbach Brewing Company today markets two beers, Amber Lager and Export Lager, both contract-brewed by Gray’s in Janesville.
In April this year, that line-up will be joined by a third brew, called, yes, Fauerbach CB. This time the CB stands for Challenge Brew and it is the result of a recent competition between homebrewers of the Madison Home Brewers and Tasters Guild (MHTG) and Fred Gray, Fauerbach’s present master brewer.
A few months ago Peter Fauerbach gave a presentation about the brewery to members of the MHTG and at some point showed them an original beer recipe used to make Fauerbach CB. This got everybody’s interest and soon the idea for a brewing competition was born.
As Peter Fauerbach explains, this recipe dates from 1956 and was for what could be called an American-style bock – a dark American-style lager, stronger than a regular American-style lager, but not to be confused with the much maltier and bigger German-style bocks, let alone doppelbocks.
The original recipe called not only for industrial quantities of ingredients, which had to be reduced and adapted to home- or craftbrewing dimensions, but also for ingredients that are more unusual for home- and craftbrewers, including corn and six-row barley.
According to Peter Fauerbach, the original recipe called for a sixty percent yield from malt and a 40 percent yield from corn, while the six-row barley contributed to a certain graininess that two-row barley doesn’t provide.
The contest guidelines for the participating brewers specified, among other things, that only store-bought yeast, no commercial yeast, was to be used, although Fred Gray could provide current lager yeast; that American hops had to be used; that minimum 24 percent corn had to used, and no other adjuncts; that a minimum ten percent six-row barley from North America had to be used for the malt.
A total of 16 beers were entered into the competition, with some participants entering more than one brew, and six certified beer judges selected the winner and three runners-up (please see below for list of participating brewers, judges and the winners).
The winning brew will be commercialized as the modern Fauerbach CB and released in spring, although, because the winner was Fred Gray himself who brews in larger quantities than your average homebrewer, it is available now on tap at Gray’s Tied House in Verona.
This, by the way, was also where the judging took place on Saturday, January 26. Besides the official challenge winner, a ‘people’s choice award’-winner was chosen by about one hundred knowledgeable guests and beer connoisseurs.
Full disclosure: I participated in the people’s choice tasting, and my favorite was Michael Ball’s beer, which came in second (by one vote, apparently) in the people’s choice, and which was second runner-up in the official challenge. I liked its smooth maltiness and light drinkability. Some of the entries frankly were too hoppy and one, while a very good beer, was a great stout, i.e. out of style.
The official judges had a harder time than the general voting public (who only had to judge according to personal preference), because not only was more at stake, but they also had to judge a fifty-year old recipe adapted to modern palates with no fixed parameters to guide them.
“The problem is that nobody here has ever drunk that beer,” explained head judge Keith Symonds before the competition. “We have scant knowledge of the raw ingredients used at the time, so we have to rely on educated guesses. We know that it is primarily an American dark lager, commercial examples of which today would be Shiner Bock or Michelob Dark, although no exact comparison can be made, because the commercial brewers for instance use caramel extract rather than darker grain for instance.”
The procedure, according to Keith Symonds, was for the judges to look for the “best beer first, then, if it’s close, order them according to historical accuracy”.
But he also pointed out that they were not trying to recreate beer drinkers from fifty years ago:
“We have to use some creative thinking, because the beer will also have to be commercially viable, although that’s not our job, but Fauerbach’s. Our job is to find a beer that tastes great. A later challenge will be of course to adapt a homebrew recipe for commercial brewing.”
Well, as it turned out, with Fred Gray winning the official challenge, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Winners, judges and participants
Best of Show: Fred Gray, Gray’s Brewing Company/Gray’s Tied House – Available on draught at Gray’s Tied House.
1st Runner up: Dan Hedtcke
2nd Runner up: Michael Ball
3rd Runner up: Bob Drousth
People’s Choice Award: Page Buchanan and Tony Jacques
Sponsors: Gray’s Tied House and Fauerbach Brewery.
Brewers: Michael Ball, Page Buchanan, Bob Drousth, Jeff Folgert, Mark Garthwaite, Fred Gray, Dan Hedtcke, Tony Jacques, Mark Schnepper, Eric Schoville.
MC: Fred Swanson
Judges: Steve Klafka, Jim Lapekas, Mark Morrison, Bob Paolino, Tom Rutkowski, Keith Symonds
Stewards: Dan Bradley, Cherri Carr, Mark Leiterman, Jesse Swing
Registration & Glassware Sales: Brooke & Sara
Organizing Committee: Mark Alfred, David Fauerbach, Neil Fauerbach, Peter Fauerbach, Fred Gray, Tony Jacques, Dave Pegelow, Mark Schnepper, Fred Swanson, Keith Symonds.
For more information, please visit:
