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AlpenGlow

Fat Head’s Brewery | www.fatheadsbeer.com

Fat Head’s Brewery

Production brewery/tasting room:

17450 Engle Lake Drive

Middleburg Heights, Ohio 44130*

(216) 898-0242

Brewpub:

24581 Lorain Road

North Olmsted, Ohio 44070

(440) 801–1001

First brewed: 2010

Style: Weizenbock

Alcohol content: 8.5 percent

IBUs: 22

Awards: Gold medals in 2014 and 2016 and a silver medal in 2012 at the Great American Beer Festival

Available: Year-round, but availability varies

IF YOU LIKE THIS BEER, here are five other Ohio craft beers to try:

• Great Lakes Glockenspiel

• Willoughby St. Otto

• Market Garden Big Wheat

• Blank Slate Tank Bottoms

• Christian Moerlein Emancipator Doppelbock

QUICK, NAME THE FAT HEAD’S BEER that has been the biggest winner at the Great American Beer Festival. Be honest. Your answer was Hop JuJu (two golds and a bronze) or Head Hunter (a silver and a bronze), wasn’t it? Well, both of those are great guesses, given the brewery’s reputation for hoppy beers, but wrong—at least as of 2016.

AlpenGlow, a weizenbock, has taken home two gold medals and a silver.

“Has it won three times?” Fat Head’s co-owner and brewer Matt Cole says with a laugh. “I knew it was at least twice but I didn’t know it was three times. It’s a damn good beer.”

Weizenbocks are strong, dark Bavarian wheat beers. AlpenGlow was inspired by Schneider Weisse Aventinus, Pennsylvania Brewing Co.’s weizenbock, and a doppelbock that Cole made while working at Baltimore Brewing Co. He also gives heavy credit to Fat Head’s brewpub brewer Mike Zoscak for rounding the beer into award-winning shape.

Fat Head’s uses a variety of malts, including a bitter chocolate malt and Munich malt, which help mask the higher alcohol level.

“We like it to have a rich malt profile but also a lot of character of dried fruit and some subdued chocolate,” Cole says. “It’s really modeled after the classic Bavarian weizenbock beers.”

The real magic, though, happens when the brewery ferments AlpenGlow with a blend of German yeast strains. The blending adds a layer of complexity to the flavor and provides the banana, bubblegum, and clove characteristics that wheat beer fans crave. Fat Head’s also uses a process called free rise fermentation, allowing AlpenGlow to ferment as the temperature rises naturally over a period of time.

“It’s probably one of the most complex beers that we make,” Cole says. “We have a lot of pretty complicated beers. But it’s one of those beers that there are a lot of extra steps we do in the process.”

As for the name, AlpenGlow stems from a phenomenon experienced by many skiers. “When the sun sets on the backside of a mountain, you get this little bit of a glow, and it has these really deep mahogany ruby highlights,” Cole says. “It’s a really pretty beer.”

Note

*Opening November 2017