Mr. Lembke, we are currently drinking the light of Brlo. Perhaps it is unusual to talk to a Berlin brewer about Helles, which comes from Bavaria. But I am interested in your external view.
Uwe Ebbinghaus Editor in the feature section.
Helles was our first beer, we started in November 2014, back then still as a gipsy or Wanderbrauer. At the beginning, we rented out to medium-sized breweries, including the Neuzelle Monastery brewery.
How to get started with Helles?
To pick up the normal beer drinkers and not scare them off with more unknown styles. If you like our pale ale, we can also make the Pale Ale tasty for you, that was the consideration. We wanted to get them to drink something else for a long time. From Pale Ale it can then continue to the IPA and Porter. Even today, the Helle is our top seller in the beer garden.
Is it still necessary to introduce craft beer in Berlin today?
In big cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, you know craft beer by now. In the countryside, craft beer has less chance in the beverage markets.
Isn’t it actually absurd to start as a craft brewer with a bright one?
I don’t think so. The Helle is actually the domain of Bavarian private breweries. And they are actually almost all “craft” – artisanal. True, there is not the blatant variety there. But I can’t deny a brewery that has been making great beer for centuries that it works artisanly.
Is it necessary to brew a bright one with special dedication? They say yes, with the light and with the pils you immediately notice every mistake.
Michael Lembke is responsible for beer and production at the BRLO brewery (the Slavic name for “Berlin”), which he co-founded. : Image: private
Helles and Pils are Champions League for me. You can measure breweries by that. With strongly hoppy beers you can mask mistakes better. With the light and with the pils you taste immediately, if it is not as it should be.
How should it be?
Our light should be spicy, not as slim as a pilsner, a little more full-bodied, with a subtle bitterness. As a craft brewer, we want to perceive the bright hop aroma. For us, this is the difference to Bavarian or Franconian Hellen. More aromatics comes at the expense of drinkability. The beer becomes more complex, stands out from the standard bright ones.
Your bright is also cloudy.
Yes, that’s right. The definition should be clear and shiny. We had recently registered for the World Beer Cup, so we were able to cancel many of our beers, because in order to fit into the appropriate categories, they should have been filtered. When filtering, however, you always get out taste, but of course we wanted to preserve it.
Also a light sulfur aroma belongs to the variety description. I don’t smell that here, it goes more in the hop direction.
Exactly.
Couldn’t your Helles actually be called a “cellar beer”?
Yes, you could also call it Keller-Helles, but then it should actually be cloudier. Due to long cool storage, the beer already clears itself well.
