Malt & Grain

What malt is Schwarzbier made from? The base is a pale to medium-colored barley malt that carries the body. To this is added a small portion of darkly roasted malts, which color the beer and lend it a hint of coffee and bittersweet chocolate.

The barley for this comes mainly from the Thuringian Basin, where the soil is fertile and brewing barley has grown for a long time. The regional marketing board explicitly names it as a local raw material. Which maltster processes it for which brewery depends on the individual operation.

Malting means sprouting the grain and then drying it. During kilning—drying in a stream of hot air—heat determines the color: the higher it climbs and the longer it acts, the darker and more roasted the malt becomes. Pale malt is gently dried at low temperatures, while dark roasted malt is heated strongly at the end.

Brewers favor dehusked roasted malts for Schwarzbier. Since the bitter husk is removed beforehand, the roast character stays smooth, and the beer doesn't drink like an infusion of burnt bread. This has nothing to do with smoke, unlike the Rauchbier from Bamberg.

The law allows for one more option. Under the regulations that still apply, color beer may be used, made exclusively from malt, hops, yeast and water. Sugar or artificial coloring would be off-limits here too. So anyone tasting a Schwarzbier is tasting barley at different roast levels and nothing else—and that's exactly the appeal: a single grain produces an entire spectrum of color, from gold to coffee brown.