Ale Street News Online

“The United States is the most exciting beer market in the world today.”

Those words, or a reasonable approximation thereof, were spoken several years ago by none other than Michael Jackson, and have been echoed by many people since, yours truly included.

And with some 1,500 US breweries these days cranking out beers that are alternately bold and innovative, finely nuanced and complex, or just plain “out there,” there is little question that the sentiment, however expressed, is true.

So why am I pondering this while seated in Zum Schlüssel, a brewery-beerhall located in the Altstadt, or Old City of Düsseldorf? Simply because it here occurs to me that there is a marked difference between an exciting beer market and a vibrant beer culture.

I’ll explain, I promise, but first a few words about Düsseldorf.

While the city does sprawl for quite a distance along the twists and turns of the Rhine, what is unquestionably the heart of Düsseldorf is the old Altstadt, a district of surprisingly modest size that is home to more than 260 bars, clubs, beerhalls and restaurants, thus giving rise to the Altstadt’s nickname of “Europe’s Longest Bar.” It is also there that three of Düsseldorf’s five city-center breweries are located.

While the sharp-eyed traveler will notice that a wide variety of drinks are both offered and eagerly consumed within the Altstadt, from beer to wine to cocktails and schnapps, wandering from bar to bar to beerhall, it becomes quickly evident that here, beer is king. And the dominant beer is Düsseldorf’s pride and joy, the altbier.

As relatively easy as these beers are to define — fundamentally, they are copper- to brown-hued, dryly hoppy brews that are fermented warm and conditioned cool — they are equally difficult to describe in terms of general flavor characteristics. I spent three days tasting — okay, drinking — the wares of all five Düsseldorf breweries and spent much of the time thinking that I was perceiving as many differences as I was familial commonalities.

Uerige, which Michael Jackson once described as being produced at “the most famous beer address in Düsseldorf,” struck me as arguably the driest of the alts, with a strong toasted, almost burnt biscuit maltiness and considerable complexity. Its around the corner and up the road neighbor, Schlüssel, is almost as dry and a bit more roasty to my palate, while the Altstadt’s other brewery resident, im Füchschen, or the “little fox,” produces a rounder, slightly fuller flavored beer that is also possessed of a mild fruitiness.

Of the non-Altstadt altbier breweries, Schumacher is the one with the most significant presence in the old city, thanks to its “house tap” at im Goldenen Kessel, just a few doors away from Schlüssel. Its beer seems a trifle more delicate, certainly paler and a little bit more refined than the rest, for better or worse depending on what you look for in an altbier. Frankenheim, which is still brewed within the city limits but in quantities likely exceeding that of the other four combined, and by a good margin, I expect, is by a good margin the sweetest altbier of the quintet, and much less complex.

Non-city altbiers I also tried included Diebels, which is far and away the market leader in terms of production and equally the least interesting, and Schlösser, which has a bit of a pumpernickel bread profile and a fairly assertive fruitiness, particularly when tasted in its unfiltered form as Schlösser Jonges.

In the end, my conclusion was that a typical Düsseldorfer altbier should be dry, at least somewhat roasty — less so than a schwarzbier, for example, but more than a typical brown ale — finish even drier than it starts, and have a difficult-to-describe malty character that I can best define as “earthiness.” On that last point, think of the smell of fresh-turned topsoil and imagine that aroma as a flavor.

Hey, nobody said this beer tasting thing was supposed to be easy!

But enough about altbier and its brewers, we’re supposed to be talking about beer culture. And as much as I enjoyed the traditional ales of the old city, what really impressed me was the passion with which others also enjoyed them.

Particularly at the brewery beerhalls, and at the aforementioned brewery tap, Düsseldorfers seemingly congregate at almost every hour of the day to swap stories, enjoy a bite to eat, and of course, sip or sometimes gulp at the traditional quarter-liter glasses of altbier. On a late February Monday night, the first evening I spent in town, almost every seat was taken at pretty much every beerhall in the Altstadt. Tuesday, too, although there did seem to be a curious dropping off on Wednesday, of all nights.

What’s more, I found no unifying characteristics within Düsseldorf’s population of avid beer consumers. Young and old, laborers and the evidently well-off, male and female; they all shared the same space, and sometimes the same tables, in the bars and beerhalls. Many of those with whom I spoke were almost rabidly loyal to their brand of altbier, declaring with strong conviction that it was without question the best tasting.

That, to me, is beer culture: The enjoyment of drinking beer within a social setting and a fealty born not of marketing dollars, but of flavor and character. We’re getting there, but even the world’s most exciting beer market could still learn a thing or two from the denizens of the Altstadt.