Weichsel Red Lager
Rotbier (i.e. red lager) used to be common in Franconia. The city of Nuremberg in particular was known for its Rotbier. Since its production was extremely laborious, Rotbier was replaced in the 19th century by Braunbier (i.e. brown lager) which was produced using modern, simpler brewing methods. It was not until 1997 that the beer style was revived.
For our Aecht Schlenkerla Weichsel red lager, we dry the malt over fire with high-quality cherry wood (not over beech wood fire as with classic smoked beer). In contrast to the spicy beech-smoked malt, the cherry wood smoked malt has a fruity, almost sweet smoke aroma and provides a copper-red color in the glass. The finest aroma hops add berry notes to the multi-layered smoke flavor. With 4.6% abv, Aecht Schlenkerla Weichsel is a full-bodied, pleasantly quaffable beer.
Many people first think of the river of the same name in Poland when they hear "Vistula" (German: Weichsel). Seemingly fittingly, very high-quality sour cherry trees grow along it - especially in the river delta of the Vistula. However, this is not the reason why the sour cherry is given the nickname "Weichsel" in southern Germany and Austria. Rather, the word goes back ethymologically to the Indo-Germanic term uĚŻeis, which meant something like "flowing" or "seeping." The English word "ooze," which probably also goes back to this, sounds similar today and still has the same meaning. The sour cherry was once used for glue production; the tree resin was allowed to seep out of the bark for this purpose, which probably led to the nickname. In the case of the river Vistula, the word root is the same and probably goes back to the (slow) flow speed.
