Smoked beer

Even though hot air kiln drying of malt, using indirect heat, did not enter into widespread usage until the industrial era, the method was known as early as the first century BC.

Since the hot air kiln method prevents any smoke from coming into contact with wet malt, a smoky flavour is not imparted to the grain, nor to the subsequent beer.

Two brewpubs in Bamberg, Germany, Schlenkerla and Spezial, have continued this type of smoked beer production for more than a century.

Due to the popularity of craft beer in recent years, smoke-flavoured industrially-produced malts became available, and so the style has been attempted worldwide, including in its heartland of Franconia and Bamberg.

Grodziskie or Grätzer are similar, traditional smoked beers from Poland, but made from wheat and highly carbonated, and with a perhaps older history, although they saw a period of no production in the late 1990s.