STYLISTICALLY SPEAKING Märzen by Graham Lees
With the exception of the hybrid marketing concoctions of the late 20th century, tracing the origins of our beer styles would surely be pleasantly challenge for the great evolutionary sleuth Charles Darwin. Most beer boasts an evolutionary history, often, but not always, associated with the Industrial Revolution. Evidence suggests that the copper-red Märzen style owes its existence to spying expeditions to England by two young German-speaking pioneers of lager brewing. Viennese Anton Dreher and his Munich contemporary Gabriel Sedlmayr junior (pronounced: Zay-dull-myer) visited England twice in the 1830s during their Europe-wide quest for new brewing knowledge-armed with a hollowed-out walking stick for secretly collecting samples. At that time, brewing in England was more technically advanced than elsewhere because England was the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. In particular, methods of malting barley had already led to the creation of paler colored beers. Bohemia's golden pilsner was still nine years away when Dreher, aged 23, and Sedlmayr first visited England in 1833. Dreher was particularly attracted to the English pale ales. Back home, Sedlmayr concentrated on developing scientific methods of producing bottom-fermented beers, while Dreher at first tried brewing an English ale. A marriage meant to be But that was a dead-end in this evolutionary path. We don't know for certain, but its seems that the Viennese palate was unimpressed with Dreher's interpretations of English beer. His commercial rivals briefly made capital by ridiculing him as Vienna's "English brewer." Undaunted, Dreher reexamined his stock of knowledge and set about marrying the new English malting techniques with bottom fermentation. In the 1830s, the brewers of mainland Europe made only dark malts because established kilning methods, often using wood fires, meant less temperature control. In England, brewers had access to coal and better machinery, which gave them more control and enabled them to make paler malts. What Dreher achieved by the end of the 1830s was a beer that combined the clean palate and crispness of a lager with the paler hues he had admired in English ales. His marriage and adaptation of techniques produced a new style of beer-methodically bottom fermented and a copper-reddish-brown color. The precise recipe and flavor is not recorded and, in any case, he may have refined his new beer over several years. For instance, it is unclear whether he isolated a particular yeast at the beginning. Dreher called his new beer Schwechater Lagerbier, after the Vienna suburb home of his brewery, and its popularity grew rapidly-giving him the last laugh over those ridiculing rivals. Generically, Dreher's beer may for a time have been dubbed Wiener Typ (Vienna style) after his malting process, which produced a reddish caramelized crystal malt, but the enduring name for his style is Märzen. Coining the Name Ironically, the name was coined 30 years later by Josef Sedlmayr, younger brother of Gabriel. Although bottom-fermenting techniques had swept across Europe by 1870, beer color in Bavaria had remained dark (Dunkel). But in 1871 Josef Sedlmayr, who had separated his brewing activities from Gabriel years earlier, decided to produce a slightly paler beer. Perhaps because of the old Sedlmayr-Dreher link, he chose to brew a reddish "Vienna style" beer. He called it Märzenbier because he had brewed it in March, although it was September before he broached the first barrels for public judgment. Traditionally, Bavarian brewers had produced large batches of beer in March and April before the weather got too warm for brewing and then stored it in cool places to use during summer. But by the 1870s this practice was becoming obsolete with the development of mechanized refrigeration. This was also a time of railroad development, which enabled tens of thousands of Bavarians to travel to the Munich Oktoberfest. Whether Josef intended his new Märzenbier for the festival is unclear, but it became the Oktoberfest beer style for the next 100 years and its popularity spread. The style faded in Vienna after World War I. Sadly, Märzen has in recent years been supplanted at the Oktoberfest by a paler, less robust "Oktoberfestbier" to suit broader international tastes. But even this beer still retains a deeper amber color than the average lager beer. Many south Bavarian breweries still faithfully reproduce Märzen, if only in small quantities. Most of Munich's big brewers still brew a draft Märzen at Oktoberfest time (September-October) for sale in their beer halls, notably Hofbrau and Spaten (which incorporates Josef Sedlmayr's Franziskaner brewery). Typically, a Bavarian Märzen will be copper-red, with a full-bodied maltiness, a little spicy and dryish with an abv of around 5.5 percent. In Austria, the term Märzen is applied loosely to any golden lager of around 5 percent abv, but a new wave of brewpubs in Vienna has begun brewing red-brown beers that they call Märzen. These new Vienna reds are malty, full bodied, fruity-dry and unfiltered, which may have been the condition of Dreher's early brews. Two of the most noteworthy are Salm (at Rennweg 8, near Schwarzenbergplatz), which has an initial malt sweetness, a fruity dry finish and long aftertaste; and Siebernstern (at Siebernstern Gasse 19), with a rich malt-fruitiness, hints of spiciness and a dryish finish. Siebernstern calls its interpretation a "Wiener Märzen," but of Dreher's name there is no mention or commemoration in today's Vienna and Austria, although his Schwechat brewery still functions as part of the giant Brau AG group. Dreher died prematurely in 1863-possibly from over work-at the age of only 53. He did live to see his Vienna style become one of the biggest selling beers in mid-19th-century central Europe. He acquired a chain of breweries across the Austro-Hungarian empire. One of them was in Michelob, yet another Bohemian-German name borrowed by Adolphus Busch, co-founder of the Anheuser-Busch giant. It is left to Dreher's former Kobanya brewery in Budapest, now owned by South African Breweries, to honor Dreher by recently naming several brews after him. The beers are being made to rediscovered 19th-century recipes and, of these, Dreher Export is thought to come closest to Dreher's Vienna style, with an amber color, full-bodied malt flavor and dryish finish.	AYINGER FEST-MÄRZEN, Ayinger Brewery, Germany. Amber-copper color. A dominant malt aroma and flavor with a hint of roastiness. A mellowing spicy-dry aftertaste with a faint mild hop background. HUBSCH MÄRZEN, Sudwerk Brewery, Davis, CA. Richly copper-colored, with a full toasted nutty aroma. The flavor is decidely sweet malt, with with a huge dry aftertaste that lingers. PAULANER MÄRZEN, Paulaner München, Munich, Germany. A taste dominated by malt, but also some fruitiness and a final dryness, which is the typical Paulaner house character. SPATEN UR-MÄRZEN, Spaten-Bräu, Munich, Germany. Reddish brown in color. A rich, full-bodied maltiness with a lightly hoppy background and bittersweet but clean-tasting palate. The "Ur" signals a claim to being the original Märzen beer, as with Pilsner Urquell (original source). Not to be confused with the less characterful and paler Spaten Oktoberfestbier.
Graham Lees is a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. This column originally appeared in All About Beer magazine in March 1996. RETURN TO TOP © 1996 Chautauqua Inc.