Brotzeit Singapore unveils new range of German beers

It’s a new year, and with new beginnings come new beer, German style. German beer bar and restaurant chain Brotzeit, the arbiter of German gastronomic culture here in Singapore, has unveiled a revamped beer menu with beers that hail from across much of Germany.

While Brotzeit has always offered a good slew of German beers, they were generally of the Bavarian variety – very well-made, but not truly indicative of the wide variety of styles produced across the length and breadth of the European country.

Its new menu is a step – however much a tentative one – towards that. Brotzeit now offers a number of different beers that are split across three different tiers: Bio, Historical, and Connoisseur. Under the Bio tier are two beers from Privatbrauerei Weninger, a Bavarian brewery that in believes sustainable practices to brew their beers. All ingredients they use are also certified bio and organic, and brews beer using pure spring water from their own springs. The Wieninger PD 1813 Naturtrüb Zwickl (from $9++ for 0.3L) and the Wieninger Dunkles Lager Naturtrüb (from $9 for 0.3L) are both unfiltered lagers, with the latter using roasted malts to attain a more rounded, maltier flavour, as well as use the more modern process of dry-hopping to give additional aromas to the beer.

The Historical tier consists of beers from breweries with long histories – Oktoberfest beer hounds would no doubt be familiar with Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, and Franziskaner, all three that are brewed within Munich’s city limits and can officially serve their beers during that massive food and beer festival. In fact Hofbräu München, which was founded in the year of 1589, was the royal brewery in the Kingdom of Bavaria while the other two breweries – owned by AB InBev – were established as far back as 1363. From Hofbräuhaus comes the refreshingly familiar Original Weissbier (from $10++ for 0.3L), offering that familiar banana and clove notes of a proper German wheat-based beer; the Löwenbräu Original Lager (from $10++ for 0.3L), gives the clean, mellow flavours of a traditional German helles lager, while the Franziskaner Dunkel (from $10++ for 0.3L) is that dark wheat-based beer cloudy with yeast (and all its attendant flavours.

For those who desire stronger and more unique flavours can look at Brotzeit’s Connoisseur beer tier. There’s Schneider Weisse, for example; while it could technically belong to the Historical tier as the second brewery in Bavaria to brew and sell weissbier since 1872, the brewery has kept to the traditional fermentation process of open vessel fermentation, followed by genuine bottle fermentation, to give beers more estery notes and stronger flavours.

Here you’ll find three beers from Schneider Weisse – the Tap 7 Meine Original (from $12.50++ for 0.3L), a richer version of the classic Bavarian wheat beer; the limited edition Tap X Nelson Sauvin ($29++ per 500ml bottle) that uses hops harvested from the famous New Zealand Nelson Bay wine region that gives the beer a strong fruit and white wine characteristics; and the strong Aventinus Eisbock ($18 per 330ml bottle), which uses a freeze distilling process to concentrate its flavours of plum, banana and cloves.

For something truly unique and different, try the Schlenkerla Helles Rauchbier ($14++ per 500ml bottle). Schlenkerla is based in Bamberg, which is famous for making savoury smoked rauchbier – beers made with smoked malts; think of Bamberg as the beer-making equivalent of Islay in the Scotch whisky world.

Oh yes, and those who miss the clean, crisp bitterness of German kölsch – the specific top-fermented beer that hails from Cologne – Brotzeit has brought in a batch from Gaffel as a seasonal special to celebrate Karnevale, while stocks last.

“My aim is to establish Brotzeit as the go-to place to enjoy German hospitality, food, and of course, beer. As such, I am constantly travelling across Germany sourcing for award-winning German beers by well-established breweries and rising artisans. I am very pleased to be able to share these discoveries, across our new beer tiers with the Brotzeit audience, which will be the new standard for all our beers,” says Claus Schwarzmann, Director of Procurement, F&B, Product Development at Brotzeit.

The beers at Brotzeit may largely be of the Bavarian variety, that’s slowly changing with the likes of Schlenkerla added.

You can find a list of Brotzeit outlets in Singapore here.