Beer Styles

What exactly is a monastery beer? There’s no protected style for it. “Klosterbier” describes the origin, not the recipe. The Kreuzberger Klosterbier Dunkel, the monastery brewery’s flagship beer, is a bottom-fermented dark lager, closely related to Munich Dunkel.

What does a Dunkel taste like? Of bread crust, lightly nutty, with a sweetness that never feels cloying. The difference from Pils lies in the malt: Pils is pale, dry and bitter, while Dunkel is soft, round and malt-forward. Both are bottom-fermented; they differ only in malt and hopping. Anyone tasting the two side by side notices the difference after the first sip, no expertise required.

The Kreuzberg Christmas Bock belongs to the Bock family of beers. In Germany, only beer with an original gravity of at least 16 percent may be called “Bock.” Original gravity refers to the dissolved sugar content of the wort before fermentation — the higher it is, the more alcohol can develop.

A Pils also belongs to this lineup in the Rhön. The Rhönbrauerei in Kaltennordheim describes its Landpremium as an amber-colored beer in the Pils style, and its Urtyp Dunkel is considered full-bodied and malty. Style guidelines, such as those from the BJCP competition standards, show the range within which such styles are expected to fall. Rother Bräu and Kloster Kreuzberg, with their flagship beers, sit squarely within that range.

Individual breweries deviate from this, and that's perfectly normal. A style guideline describes the category, not any one specific beer.