This style sounds very intriguing to me. I may try and brew it if I can locate a recipe. Has anyone here tried a commercial example? Looks like it hasn't been brewed in a while but may be making a comeback.
Brewed in the now Polish town of Grodzisk (Grätz in German) , this smoked wheat beer is one of the brewing world's most recent style extinctions. The last Grodziskie was brewed in the mid-1990s. Though I've heard a rumour that production is about to restart. It's another of my obsessions. You can read more about Grätzer/Grodziskie
here.
"Grätzer Bier, a rough, bitter beer, brewed from 100% wheat malt with an intense smoke and hop flavour. The green malt undergoes smoking during virtually the whole drying process, is highly dried and has a strong aroma in addition to the smoked flavour. An infusion mash is employed. Hopping rate: for 1 Zentner (100 kg) of malt, 3 kg hops. Gravity just 7º [Balling]. Fermentation is carried out in tuns at a temperature of 15 to 20º C. Since the beer in the tun, as a result of the expulsion of great quantities protein and resin, doesn't break, it is mixed with isinglass and pumped into barrels. After two or three days it is completely clear and ready to be filled into delivery casks or bottles with the addition of 2 to 5% Krausen."
“Bierbrauerei" by M. Krandauer, 1914, page 301.
According to this description, Grätzer had an unusual combination of 100%, very smoky wheat malt and heavy hopping. The gravity - approximately 1028º - was very low by modern standards, but fairly typical of German top-fermenting styles of the period.
Anyone familiar with Grodziskie (Grätzer Bier)?
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