Weltenburger Klosterbrauerei - Hell

Weltenberger’s Hell (which means “bright”) presents a crystal clear light golden hue topped by a head of bright white foam. On the nose, look for underlying lightly bready and biscuity pale malt notes overlaid by some earthy, grassy, and spicy-herbal hop tones with just a dash of fruitiness. This quintessential helles lager delivers a super round and smooth feel on the palate, offering a delicious core maltiness with plenty of bready pale malt character. While helles lagers tend to be a bit fuller on the palate and a bit more restrained with the hops when compared to pilsners, there’s still a good deal of grassy-spicy hop flavor here, and enough bitterness to counter the touch of malt sweetness. We loved the way this brew really showed the superb balance for which this style of Bavarian lager is known. For pairing options, the brewery recommends soups, pizza, and pasta dishes. We think it’s hard to go wrong with bready or fried foods, as well. Prost!

Here in the U.S. we really have no conception of a truly old institution. We tend to think of anything over a couple centuries of age as being almost ancient, but things are a bit different in Europe. A prime example is the extreme age of some of the breweries in Germany, including the monastic brewery in Weltenburg, Bavaria. The monastery dates back to 617 when it was founded by two monks named Eustasius and Agilus. The monastery joined the Benedictine Order in 800, and a brewery was founded around the year 1050. Weltenburger claims to be the oldest working brewery in the world, though another Bavarian brewery, Weihenstephan, disputes this, claiming the year 1040 for their own founding. Apparently Weltenburg’s monastic documents mention a 1035 death of the monastery’s master brewer, so we may never really know which brewery began first, but it doesn’t truly matter. No matter how one slices it, Weltenburg has a very, very long brewing history.

For a few hundred years, between the 14th and early 19th century, the monastery, which by that time was a full abbey under the rule of an abbot, was subjected to the sort of problems many other such institutions faced back then: poor administration, economic hardship, plundering during multiple regional wars and conflicts, and ultimately dissolution during a wave of secularization in the early 1800s. Brewing ceased at the Weltenburg abbey from 1803 to 1846, when the abbey was finally restored.

Currently, the abbey is home to over a dozen monks under the leadership of Abbot Thomas Maria Freihart, and the brewery itself has about 85 employees. Weltenburger produces about nine core year-round beers along with various seasonal offerings, and their lagers are cold-conditioned for up to three months in a rocky underground cellar—which you can tour if you’re ever in the area. If you read German and would like more info about this historic Bavarian brewery, visit www.weltenburger.de.