Forty Liters a Week

Onward and upward.  Today's transcript, the scholarly and funny Matthias Trum, the young, sixth-generation owner of Schlenkerla.  The quote speaks for itself:

“In the Bavarian constitution, beer is still regarded as food and part of the tariff agreement with the brewery workers is that part of the payment is made in beer. Even today.” Me: “So you pay your workers with beer?” Matthias: “Yeah, yeah. They have a certain amount per week—I think it’s something like 40 liters per week, so it’s fairly large—and they get it tax-free, and they get it as part of their pay. Of course these days they sell at least part of it or supply their families with it”

I will leave the math to you.  "Fairly large" is right.

Schlenkerla

BAMBERG. We arrived in Bamberg yesterday, zipping immediately to Schlenkerla to meet with Matthias Trum. He's a youthful 37, but Trums have been running the brewery for five generations before him.

Probably a lot of people are familiar with Schlenkerla, the most well-known of the rauchbier producers. Trum brews on a "new" system (1930s) from barley he malts himself in a smoky beechwood kiln--from which comes the characteristic smoky flavor. The pub is an extraordinary 600-year-old place and the site of the original brewery. Now Trum brews at a location a few blocks away that sits atop a warren of old cellars; that's where the beer is lagered now.

As I have discovered time and again on this trip, freshness is key. Schlenkerla is great in the bottle, but I have never apprciated the nutty, plummy nuances of the malt until having a fresh-from-the-cask "seidla" half liter.

More Bamberg today, with stops at Spezial and Mahr's in the offing. (Next to Schlenkerla, incidentally, is Bamberg'a newest brewery, Ambräusianum, which has an excellent helles.)