Beer Man: Old Fred is a pleasing German import
Beer Man is a weekly profile of beers from across the country and around the world.
This week: Old Fred
Zoller-Hof International, Sigmaringen, Germany
Old Fred is a German amber lager that is a tribute to Miller Brewing Co. founder Frederick Miller, who received his brewing degree in Sigmaringen in the 1800s before immigrating to the U.S. and settling in Wisconsin in 1855, where he started his Milwaukee brewery.
Zoller-Hof is one of five small German regional breweries that are having their beers brought into the U.S. for the first time by Liquid Projects of Brooklyn, N.Y. The portfolio is under the name of Reinheits Boten.
Technically, Liquid Projects is the sales/marketing part of the business; the official importer is MHW Ltd. of Manhasset, N.Y.
Owner Lars Dahlhaus of Liquid Projects said his intent is to introduce quality German beers with a bit of a twist into the American market.
“We want to show that within the boundaries of the Reinheitsgebot (German beer purity law), there is still a lot of variety,” he said during a phone conversation Monday.
Old Fred lived up to that claim. While it had the fresh grain aroma typical of quality German beers, it also had slight fruity aromas of apple and pear, not so typical.
The twist in the 5.3% ABV Old Fred is that it uses American-grown Cascade hops. In an even more surprising twist, the hops were spicy and somewhat peppery, not at all like the pine-grapefruit Cascade character that U.S. craft beer drinkers are used to in their American pale and India pale ales.
The beer was amber-brown with a light tan head. The lager had a nice solid malt presence without being dominated by, say, caramel or other specialty malts.
There was ample but not excessive bitterness with a slightly dry finish. It was remarkably clean on the palate, a quality that is the result of the water that Zoller-Hof uses, Dahlhaus said.
Other breweries represented in the Liquid Projects portfolio include Distelhauser, Friedenfelser, Riedenburger and Himburgs Braukunstkeller. While I will write in more detail on their beers in the future, I can say that all the beers I sampled had the clean palate and fresh grain character, plus noticeable hop aromas, which is often hard to keep in a bottle.
Liquid Projects beers are available in California, Massachusetts, New York, Philadelphia and Rhode Island.
Many beers are available only regionally. Check the brewer's website, which often contains information on product availability by mail. Contact Todd Haefer at beerman@postcrescent.com. To read previous Beer Man columns, click here.