"...at last some beer writer puts us Swiss back on the world beer map, from which we've been unduly excluded ever since Samichlaus was axed. But well, Samichlaus was the big tree that hid the forest, and a pretty nice forest, at that..."
So began an email I received recently from Laurent Mousson, a committee member of l'Association des Buveurs d'Orges ("The Association of Drinkers of Barley") , the Swiss member organization of the European Beer Consumers Union (EBCU). He was writing in response to my notes on the Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes (BFM), and he was quite right in his defence of Switzerland's brewing scene. As I discovered during my recent trip, the fact that Samichlaus is now brewed in Austria doesn't mean Switzerland now lacks laudable beer. In fact, there's plenty of reason to raise a pint.
My Swiss beer tasting began aboard Swiss Air, where I was offered a can of Original Quöllfrische, an organic lager from the Brauerei Locher in Appenzell, a town better known for cheese (Appenzeller) and herbal bitters (Appenzeller Alpenbitter). I later learned from the brewer that this one brand accounts for an impressive 50% of all the beer served on Swiss Air flights. While it wasn't exactly what I would call an assertively flavourful beer, the Quöllfrische's dryish, moderately hoppy flavour suited well my mood and circumstances. I was not about to complain.
A scant couple of days later, I found myself at the Brauerei Locher, a fifth generation, family-owned brewing company. There, my impression of German-style Swiss brewing took it in the ear as I sampled a citrusy, Belgian-style Calvinus Bière Blanche, the crisp, faintly toasty, oak-aged Holzfass-Bier and the mildly chestnut-flavoured Castégna, in addition to the most hemp-ish hemp beer to ever cross my path, Original Hanfblüte, which I swear had an aroma reminiscent of blonde hashish.
Over the course of the following week-and-a-half, I tried numerous other Swiss beers, some very mainstream-oriented and others every bit as impressive as those of a veteran North American craft brewery. A few of the highlights:
At the Altes Tramdepot brewpub in Bern, near the famous bear pit, I tasted an excellent märzen with a whiff of roast and dry caramel on the nose and a dry, well-developed body holding a note of Brazil nut;
While attending a massive spring exposition in St. Gallen, I had a chance to sample a delicious, mildly roasty Dunkel Lagerbier, accented with just a whisper of licorice, from Stadt Bühler in Gossau;
Staying the night at the Karthaüs Ittinger, a nearly self-sufficient resort and conference centre built in a former monastery, I sampled a splendid, contract-brewed lager named Ittinger. Hops grown right on the premises provide the beer with its lightly floral nose, while a light sweetness on the front of the palate precedes a dry body with some nutty notes;
And I delighted in the quartet of beers from the Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes, which I featured in May's Taste of the Month (http://www.worldofbeer.com/totm/totm-200105.html) and, for those of you in the United States, in the current issue of The Celebrator Beer News.
Which goes to prove that while the Swiss beer scene might not be at its peak -- which of the world's nations has a brewing industry that is? -- news of its demise has been greatly exaggerated.
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