{"id":8565,"date":"2020-12-22T22:21:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T04:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=8565"},"modified":"2021-11-27T15:49:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T21:49:10","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-2020-5-einbecker-winter-bock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/8565\/12-beers-of-christmas-2020-5-einbecker-winter-bock","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 2020 – 5: Einbecker Winter-Bock"},"content":{"rendered":"\"ein<\/a>\n

Today was a double Zoom day, beginning as most Tuesdays do having a chat with my racquetball buddies Jerry and Gary. We haven\u2019t played since early March, much less gone out to breakfast afterward as is our wont, where we regularly solve all the world\u2019s problems. So we\u2019ve been checking in via Zoom on Tuesdays, getting in the requisite Trump-bashing and Netflix recommendations.<\/p>\n

I asked Jerry, a retired library director but now an active genealogist<\/a>, to see if John Brown had any German ancestors\u2014the second Zoom meeting was my book group, discussing James McBride\u2019s remarkable novel about abolitionist John Brown, The Good Lord Bird<\/em>. That\u2019s how far I was reaching for a tie-in to the Einbecker Winter-Bock. Well, it\u2019s a winter beer, so there you go.<\/p>\n

(While I\u2019m at it, I can\u2019t recommend McBride\u2019s book highly enough. It\u2019s a rollicking, language drunk spree that won the National Book Award in 2013 and provoked the judges into likening McBride to Mark Twain. There are hints of Huckleberry Finn<\/em> at work, to be sure, as well as Thomas Berger\u2019s Little Big Man<\/em> or Winston Groom\u2019s Forrest Gump<\/em>. But as many comic novels go, it\u2019s also deadly serious, about race, gender, and all the world\u2019s problems.)<\/p>\n

\"1John<\/a>Brown, here in an early photo looking remarkably like Lyle Lovett, had English, Welsh and Dutch in his background, not that Jerry had time to do a definitive study. In 1849, while working in the wool trade, he traveled to Europe, including Germany, where he undoubtedly had some Einbecker beer.<\/p>\n

Well, the brewery was certainly around then, and generally credited with originating the bock beer style<\/a>. There are a couple of interesting Einbecker beers I\u2019d love to see in my hands, including the Weihnachtsbier (a 5.3% ABV Christmas beer,) and the Ainp\u00f6ckisch Beer 1378, harkening back to the date of the brewery\u2019s first sales receipt.<\/p>\n

\"Ein<\/a>A 6.7% unfiltered bock, that one is a modern take on a recipe said to have been a big favorite with Martin Luther. The story goes that Luther, while defending himself at the Diet of Worms in 1521, was given a mug of the beer. During a break, one presumes. But he was so enraptured with it he was said to call out, \u201cThe best drink known to man is called Ainp\u00f6ckisch Beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, at 7.5% ABV, the Winter-Bock is the strongest brew Einbecker makes, worth keeping in mind as it would be easy to drink a lot of these in a row. It\u2019s undemanding and not terribly complex, but a very nice doppelbock, if not the best known to man. It has a pretty mahogany hue, a lively tan head, and malt fumes pouring out the glass\u2014a mix of caramel and brown sugar, maybe a touch of fig. It\u2019s a sweet beer but not overly so, with a restraining if mild hop bite at the finish.<\/p>\n

But no question this is a dark malt-accented brew, with those brown sugar notes and a pleasing velvety, tongue-coating mouth feel. Certainly not a beer likely to win over hopheads, but a refreshing change from the relentless IPA assault–if they\u2019re looking for one.<\/p>\n

\"einbecker_winter-bock<\/a>Name: Winter-Bock
\nBrewer: Einbecker Brauhaus AG, Einbeck, Germany
\nStyle: Doppelbock
\nABV: 7.5%
\nAvailability: Seasonally, nationwide
\nFor More Information: www.einbecker.de\/home-en.html<\/p>\n

[December 22, 2020]<\/em><\/p>\n

< 12 Beers of Christmas 4: Fant\u00f4me Hiver<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 6: De Glazen Toren Canaster Winterscotch<\/a> ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a double Zoom day, beginning as most Tuesdays do having a chat with my racquetball buddies Jerry and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":8567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[627,939,18],"tags":[1029975,764,1029976,676069,708489,975741,1002722,1029970,1029971,1029972,1017401,667,1029974,749],"class_list":["post-8565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-beer-on-tap","category-lifestyle","tag-james-mcbride","tag-bock","tag-the-good-lord-bird","tag-christmas-beers","tag-winter-lager","tag-12-days-of-christmas","tag-12-beers-of-christmas","tag-einbecker","tag-einbeck","tag-doppelbock","tag-martin-luther","tag-germany","tag-john-brown","tag-christmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/12\/ein-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8565"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8787,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8565\/revisions\/8787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}