On Friday, May 16, Hoster Brewing Company (653 N James Road) will be releasing a Lichtenhainer, a style of beer so unusual that it last appeared in Central Ohio more than eight years ago (Litany Against Fear a collaboration between Wolf’s Ridge and Little Fish) [1]. For most of you this opening sentence probably raises a few questions. What exactly is a Lichtenhainer? Why are they so rare? Why is Hoster, a brewery best known for European-style lagers, brewing this oddball style of beer? Fortunately, I’m here to answer your questions.
If you sit down and peruse the BJCP style guidelines, you’ll eventually come across Category 27: Historical Beers. This category is a hodgepodge of old beer styles that were once popular in some part of the world but eventually became extinct (at least on the commercial scale). Some of these styles, like the tart, salty Gose from Leipzig have been revived to the point where you can find a few examples on the shelves of a good beer store across the country. Others, like the Finnish Sahti or the Polish Grodziske, can be easily found in their homeland, but are limited to the occasional one-off release by craft breweries in these parts. Still others, like the London Brown Ale or Kentucky Common, are anything but common in any part of the world. Lichtenhainer, which takes its name from the German town of Lichtenhain, located south of Dresden near border with the Czech Republic, falls into the latter category.
If you were to depict the myriad styles of beer in a multidimensional Venn diagram, Lichtenhainer would occupy the region where three niche substyles of beer—wheat beer, sour beer, and smoked beer—overlap. That makes it a niche within a niche. Not only that but both sour beers and smoked beers can be off-putting to many people. As my friend Hans Gorsuch likes to say, it’s got all the acquired tastes rolled up into one package. Yet, against the odds, a well-made Lichtenhainer is a refreshing treat. It’s the kind of beer that you can enjoy one after another. The fruity acidic character harmonizes surprisingly well with the smoked malts, provided you keep both flavor elements restrained. The fact that it weighs in at a sessionable 4-4.5% abv doesn’t hurt.
At this point I should reveal the fact that I have a personal connection with this beer. It was inspired by one of my homebrews, a Lichtenhainer dubbed “Longing for Fire” [2]. In 2024, I entered this beer in the National Homebrew Competition (NHC) and was pleasantly surprised when it took 3rd place at the smoked beer table in the Indianapolis regional. As a top three finisher it qualified for the NHC finals, so I brewed another batch with no expectation that it would medal. I was completely surprised to learn that when it was pitted against the best beers from all nine regional competition (27 smoked beers in all), it received the bronze medal. Not too long after I took a few bottles to share with friends in the local SODZ homebrew club. This is where Hoster brewer, Victor Aume tried the beer. He must have liked it, because Victor suggested that I come out to Hoster and we brew a batch on their pilot system for release in the taproom. After all Hoster specializes in German-style beers and that means more than just lagers.
Barring an unexpected upturn in consumer tastes for sour, smoky beers the beer should be available in the Hoster taproom for some weeks, but there will be a release party this Friday (May 16). I’ll be there from 4:30 pm onward and I hope some of you will as well. It would be great to share a few pints with friends.
Speaking of gatherings celebrating homebrewers, this coming Sunday (May 18) is Barley’s annual Afternoon with the Brewers. The winner of this year’s Barley’s Homebrew Competition (the oldest competition in the city, probably in the state of Ohio) will be announced and they will be tapping last year’s winning beer, Bill Koeppen’s Sawtooth American Pale Ale. In addition the taps at Brewcadia will be filled with local beers and brewers from many of those breweries will be on hand. It’s one of the highlights of the Columbus beer calendar and I hope those of you residing in Central Ohio can support that event as well.
[1] If you want to learn more about Litany Against Fear and other smoked styles of beer check out the All Things Beer Podcast Episode 61 – Smoked Beers, where former Wolf’s Ridge Brewmaster Chris Davison talks about Litany Against Fear and we try my homebrewed Lichtenhainer, Longing for Fire.
[2] My system for naming beers involves finding appropriate song titles, preferably from the Scorpions catalog. Longing for Fire is the ninth track on their 1975 album “In Trance.”
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