Malt & Grain

The copper color in a glass of Altbier comes from the malt. Malt is barley that's briefly allowed to germinate and then dried or roasted on a kiln, a heated drying chamber. The hotter and longer the roasting, the darker and more sweetly roasted the malt becomes. Düsseldorf Alt needs a good dose of this, which clearly sets it apart from pale Pils.

By the standard style guidelines, the color ranges between 18 and 33 EBC, a measure of color depth — a Pils would sit around 4 to 8. Typical is a pale malt base, rounded out with darker malt that brings notes of bread crust, nut and a touch of caramel. The exact recipes of each house remain trade secrets.

The original gravity, meaning the proportion of dissolved solids in the wort before fermentation, lies for Alt between roughly 11 and 12.9 degrees Plato. From this comes an alcohol content of 4.3 to 5.5 percent. This makes it a classic full-strength beer — a beer of medium gravity, bold in flavor but without the sweetness that would make it hard to drink. It's precisely this interplay of dark roasted malt and firm bitterness that turns a simple raw material into what the city simply calls "an Alt," and it explains why the glass so rarely tastes sweet.

German law permits additional malt types for top-fermented beers outside Bavaria, such as wheat or rye malt. In Altbier, though, barley remains the core. Special beers like Schumacher's Latzenbier reportedly use more malt according to the house, making them darker and fuller in flavor than standard Alt.