Last Friday I used my CBC column to highlight a style that has long been one of my favourites, but only recently did I get a taste of just HOW good the beer can be. Of course, I am not able to post the column here for your – for some reason during the spring CBC stopped posting my columns on their website. My suspicion is cutbacks, as Mr. Harper has been rather hard on the CBC these days.

But back to the beer. I did the column on Altbier, the balanced, amber hybrid beer traditionally brewed in Dusseldorf. It is a unique beer for two reasons. First, it is one of the few styles in Germany that isn’t a lager. Second, it is that rare breed of beer called a “hybrid”. In this case that means using ale yeast (which like to ferment at room temperature – as opposed to lager yeast which likes it cooler), but fermenting at temperatures cooler than usual – around 15 degrees. This pushes the ale yeast to the boundaries of its tolerance and it truly creates a hybrid quality to the beer. It maintains some of the body and low-level fruitiness expected in an ale, but comes across cleaner with a more refreshing finish – which is a lager-like characteristic.

As authentic German alts are notoriously difficult to find in North America, for the on-air tasting, I opted for Dieu Du Ciel’s Rescousse – which in my opinion is a damned fine version of the style. It worked out fine.

But what motivated me to make Alt the topic of the column was a recent gift from a friend of mine. I have brewed Alts for years – they make regular appearances in my annual brew schedule. I really like how balanced the beer is – an assertive malt upfront and a sharp drying at the back end as a floral, earthy hop kicks in – and so find myself gravitating to it often.

A friend of mine was in Germany this past summer and brought me back a bottle from one of the last 4 traditional alt breweries in Dusseldorf – Uerige. And because she knows me well, she didn’t just haul back their daily altbier, she brought back a bottle of their Doppelsticke Alt – an extra strong version of alt brewed (I believe) once a year. At 8.5% alcohol, it packs quite the wallop. As you might expect, it is bigger and heavier than a standard Alt – but all the same qualities were there. Allow me to expand.

It pours a deep, mahogany brown with a thick, consistent blanket of light tan head. The aroma offers rich bready, toffee, deep caramelized brown sugar, dark plum, raisin and more sugar. Some hints of hop sharpness linger around the edges. The beer starts deeply bready and toasty with accents of fruit, honey and even a hint of smoke. However this quickly changes, as the beer becomes more angular and a sharp, earthy bitterness rises to the top. It finishes much drier than you might anticipate as you first sip.

The first half reminded me of a doppelbock, but then it goes in a completely different direction. It is unlike any other finish I expericne – earthier than a pilsner end, not as grassy as anything from the US, sharper than British ales. It is truly unique.

I know the double-alt isn’t comparable to a regular alt, like Rescousse, but I can clearly see how they are related. What would be fun is if the guys at DDC brewed up their Rescousse as a Doppelsticke, and see how that compares.

Either way, as this year’s Oktoberfest gets underway later this week, I have decided that Alt is a nice alternative to German lagers once in a while. A truly unique style.