Hey, Scratch #28 is currently on tap at the brewery! As Tim mentioned the other day in his blog post, #28 is a Roggenbier, a pretty uncommon beer style commercially produced by only a handful of breweries. It’s essentially a German wheat beer made with a portion of rye malt, which gives the beer a nice spicy dimension. If you’re familiar with the Scratch beers, you know we can’t get enough rye, so this style was a natural for us.

For our interpretation, we took our Dreamweaver base recipe and substituted about half of the wheat with rye, added a bunch of Munich and Vienna malt, tossed in some spicy and citrusy German and American hops, and fermented it with the Andechs weizen yeast strain. The result is a really flavorful, yet dangerously drinkable German ale that offers a fresh take on the traditional Hefeweizen.

Tasting it on tap today, Troggen Roggen looks like this:

• Spiciness and creamy mouthfeel from the rye? Check.
• Tartness from the wheat? Check.
• Breadiness from the lightly toasted Munich and Vienna malts? Check.
• Clove phenols and banana esters from the yeast? Check.
• Refreshing citrus from the late hop additions and liberal use of the hopback? Check.

I wonder how many other Roggenbiers have been made with a hopback. Probably can’t be more than a handful at the most. This one’s gonna be a nice, early spring quaffer, so bust out your weizen glass, give #28 a vigorous pour, grab a deck chair, and enjoy! Now what we really need at the brewery is a deck…