Shiner Bock, Spoetzl Brewery

I recently watched a short documentary called “How Beer Saved the World.”  This film contained a lot of interesting information, but it wrapped it all in the overly dramatic cliches of adult educational programming.  Every piece of trivia was shockingly revealed to you between three and five times by a host of experts causing you more to question their academic professionalism than to better absorb the lesson.  The music made each event in the history of beer sound on par with man learning to walk upright.  One speaker even suggested abandoning BC and AD for BB (Before Beer) and AB (After Beer).  That AB was the closest it ever came to mentioning a company other than MillerCoors (corporate sponsorship anyone?).  Of course the biggest cliche was all the secularised “sunday school questions” where the answer was invariably “beer.”  Come on, at least the little church going kindergarteners have to choose between “Jesus” and “God.”  As painful as it was to watch, this film was produced for a syndicated cable channel.  So obviously there’s money to be made here.  Maybe I should give it shot…

Texas is well known for cowboys, steak houses and capital punishment, but it also has a long history of something else.  Something liquid.  Something alcoholic.  Beer.  In the small town of Shiner, mere hours from the Mexican border, the brave men of Spoetzl Brewery create a famous bock.  But bock is a German style.  Yes that’s right.  This part of Texas was settled by Germans.  Germans who brought something with them.  Something bubbly.  Something very valuable.  Beer.  These industrious men and women built a society from nothing in a strange land surrounded by foreign people.  But they could never forget where they came from.  They sowed barley and transplanted hops so they could make something better than water.  Something older than the wheel.  Something with the power to save millions of lives.  Beer.  Their descendants have continued the legacy.  They have courageously toiled for over a century in back breaking labor to produce something delicious.  Something malty.  Something that saves a baby from a burning house every week as a warm up before flying all over the world to fight crime and drop jobs down people’s chimneys.  Spoetzl Brewery’s Shiner Bock.

Lovely ruby hues.

Okay, so we’ve got one of those quickly dissipating heads here.  Within about a minute it’s pretty much gone.  Noisy little guy too.  Kind of like rice crispies right after you add the milk to the bowl.  I love the color and clarity.  It’s simplicity seems like a visual approximation of the aroma.  The flavor quickly follows suit leading me to question why this has been labelled as a bock.  It tastes more like a pilsner with just enough darker grain to affect the appearance.  Bock may be an odd choice to describe this brew, but bock is an odd choice for a hot climate such as Southeast Texas.  If you approach it from the direction of the standard American Pilsner, it becomes a pretty tasty alternative to the big boys.  It also helps you feel better about the thin, highly carbonated mouthfeel and faintly acetic tones.  Bottom line, save this one for those hot summer days when you’re not particularly in the mood for sweets.

Oh yeah, I stopped writing in the superlative infotainment style.  I just couldn’t keep it going.  I guess I’m just too deadly serious about my passion.  Not able to crack jokes about this momentous invention.  This magical, life giving, evil defeating beverage.  This stepping stone from neolithic cave men to masters of nature, the universe and everything!

I mean beer!