Short & Shoddy | Märzen

Author: Marshall Schott

Soon after I received my undergraduate degree back in 2003, my then fiancée (now wife) and I thought it would be a good idea to spend 5 weeks backpacking around Europe, create some neat memories before getting hitched the following year. After spending a few days in Riga, Latvia, the homeland of my wife’s family, we hopped on a bus en route to Berlin, Germany, where we stayed a couple of days before heading to the beautiful Bavarian city of Munich. Delectable sausage offerings and the Marianplatz Glockenspiel notwithstanding, Munich is best known for hosting the original Oktoberfest, an annual multi-week festival that draws over 6 million people, nearly all of whom partake in the consumption of an amber lager named for the month in which it was brewed.

While my time in Munich was a couple months prior to Oktoberfest, I certainly drank my fair share of Märzen, often from a 1 liter mug that was served to me at a picnic table under a huge tent. This is where my love of the style began, and while German beer aficionados are likely chomping at the bit to point out that pale Festbier is more common at Oktoberfest than copper colored Märzen these days, great examples continue to be produced by many classic German as well as modern American breweries. The BJCP provides the following description of Märzen:

An elegant, malty German amber lager with a clean, rich, toasty and bready malt flavor, restrained bitterness, and a dry finish that encourages another drink. The overall malt impression is soft, elegant, and complex, with a rich aftertaste that is never cloying or heavy.

Upon returning home from our European adventure, I considered making a Märzen of my own but refrained due to oft cited difficulties with brewing lagers. I regularly sought out commercial examples and enjoyed watching my options increase as craft beer blew up over the following 15 years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally decided to give it a go, though I cut some corners by using a notably clean ale strain that could withstand warmer fermentation temperatures. Having proven to myself many times over that certain traditional lager strains aren’t as finicky as I’d been led to believe, and jonesing for a tasty German amber lager, I threw caution to the wind and brewed one up Short & Shoddy style.

| BREWING THE BEER |

During my recent electric brewery conversion, I ended up giving away some stuff I found didn’t use much anymore, and hence I didn’t have all of the grain required for my (m)Oktoberfest recipe. I made some adjustments, swapped out the yeast strain, and ended up with something I thought would work out well.

Short & Shoddy Märzen

I started collecting water for this batch at 1:53 PM one pleasant August afternoon.

As the water was heating up, I poured some gypsum and a little calcium chloride into my built-in measuring claw then stirred it into the water.

I then measured out and milled the grain directly into a BIAB fabric filter.

When the water was properly heated, I stirred the grains in before checking the mash temperature.

During the brief 25 minute mash rest, I returned occasionally to give it a good whippin’ with my comically large whisk.

I proceeded to measure out the kettle hop additions.

With the short mash rest complete, I removed the grains and gave the bag a gentle squeeze to achieve the proper pre-boil volume before setting the controller to heat things up. The wort was then boiled for just 20 minutes with hops added at the times listed in the recipe.

When the boil was complete, I quickly chilled the wort with my IC.

A refractometer reading showed the wort hit my target 1.056 OG.

This is where things got a little more shoddy. After kegging the Short & Shoddy International Pale Lager 3 weeks prior, I left the sealed fermenter with a thick slug of Imperial Yeast L28 Urkel sitting in my 50°F/10°C chamber. Rather than pitch a new pouch, I simply racked the wort into the used fermenter.

While I was only able to chill the wort down to about 74°F/23°C, the cool trub assisted in dropping it to a somewhat more acceptable pitching temperature.

The filled fermentation vessel was placed back in my chamber controlled to 66°F/19°C and hooked up my CO2 capture device. The time was 3:33 PM for a total brew day time of 1 hour 40 minutes.

I noticed activity had all but ceased after 6 days of fermentation and took a hydrometer measurement showing FG had been reached.

At this point, I hit the my fermenter with 2 psi of CO2 and reduced the temperature in the chamber to 33°F/1°C for cold crashing. The following evening, I added gelatin fining then waited another 4 days before proceeding with racking the beer to a naturally purged keg.

The beer was placed in my keezer and burst carbonated overnight before I reduced the gas to serving pressure. I let the beer condition for 10 days before serving it to tasters for evaluation.

| RESULTS |

A total of 17 people of various levels of experience participated in this Short & Shoddy evaluation. Participants were informed of the specific beer style and provided the BJCP description prior to completing the survey. Tasters were then instructed to rate how hoppy, malty, and dry they perceived the beer to be on a 0-5 scale where a rating of 0 indicated “not at all” and 5 indicated “extremely.”

Tasters were provided a list of common hop, malt, and yeast characteristics then instructed to select from each the one they perceived as being most prominent in the beer.

Hop Characteristics

Malt Characteristics

Yeast Characteristics

Next, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they detected any off-flavors in the beer; those who did were provided a list of common off-flavors and instructed to select the one they perceived as being strongest. Not a single taster identified any off-flavors in this beer.

Tasters were then asked to rate how well the beer represented the intended style, based on the provided BJCP description, on a 0-5 scale where 0 meant “not at all” and 5 meant “exactly.”

Finally, tasters were asked to rate how much they enjoyed the beer on a 0-5 scale where 0 indicated they hated it and 5 indicated they loved it.

My Impressions: While sampling this beer a few days after kegging it, a point at which it hadn’t fully cleared, I shot the following message to the other Brülosophy contributors: “This may be the best Märzen I’ve made to date, certainly the best I’ve drank this season.” The following weekend, when I began serving it to tasters, my experience was confirmed– the beer was fantastic. I perceived it as having a toasty malt that wasn’t rich or cloying with a nice earthy hop character that didn’t get in the way. I could easily drink this beer by the liter!

| CONCLUSION |

Of the various lager styles that exist, Märzen easily falls in my top 3, as it offers a bit more complexity while remaining crisp, clean, and crushable. At least this is the case for what I believe to be good examples. I can’t count the number of times a Märzen has come across to me as cloyingly sweet or awkwardly fruity, characteristics I’ve intentionally aimed to avoid in the years I’ve been brewing this tasty German style.

For my initial attempts at brewing Märzen, I tended to throw quite a few different grains into the mix, in part to achieve the flavors typically associated with decoction, which I had no interest in performing. And to mitigate my fear of traditional lager yeast, I opted to use a hybrid ale strain known for fermenting cleanly. Having reconsidered many of the brewing beliefs I once held so rigidly to, I wasn’t terribly worried about how this Short & Shoddy Märzen would turn out, and based on taster evaluations, I’d say it was pretty damn good.

I think it’s telling that, despite all of the corners cut during the brewing process, not one taster noted any off-flavors in the beer, and even more, most reported enjoying it quite a bit. I’ve not done much over-pitching of yeast in my day and have only ever racked onto a yeast cake once prior to this batch, so this is where most of my concern laid. Would the over-pitch lead to an insipid beer? What about all the trub from the previous batch that was present? To my tastes, any impact of this method was neutral at best, as the beer ended up being quite delicious. Using more traditional brewing methods may mean saving a small amount of coin on ingredients, but given the outcome of this Märzen along with my busy schedule, I definitely plan on brewing it again using the same Short & Shoddy approach!

If you have thoughts about this Short & Shoddy brew, please feel free to share it in the comments section below!

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