Malt & Grain

The lager Anton Dreher brought from Schwechat belongs to the Vienna lager family, characterized by malt kilned slightly darker than that used for pale pilsners. Kilning means drying the germinated grain in hot air, and the warmer it gets, the more golden, nutty, and bready it tastes afterward.

Malt is made from barley. The grains are soaked in water, allowed to germinate so the starch inside becomes more accessible, and growth is then halted in the kiln. This malting process is what turns a field grain into a brewing ingredient.

Hungary is an agricultural country, and the vast Pannonian plain supplies grain. Which malt house supplies the big breweries today and which barley varieties they use isn't consistently disclosed by the companies, so the description sticks to what defines the flagship beer: barley malt as the main ingredient, kilned pale to golden yellow.

During mashing, the crushed malt mixes with warm water, enzymes convert starch into sugar, and the sweet liquid is called wort. How much sugar it contains is measured by original gravity: for Vienna lager, the style guideline puts it between 11.9 and 13.6 degrees Plato. This is what gives the beer its full body.

Put a Hungarian lager next to a German pilsner, and you'll often taste the malt difference first. It's less hoppy-bitter and more bready-round, and that's precisely where the influence of Vienna malt shows.