The Germans are known for Oktoberfest, a jolly two weeks of beer, food, music and fun in the heart of Munich. Less known but every bit as important in the German beer year is a March event bluntly named Stark­bierzeit: that is, “strong beer time.”

Starkbierzeit is on the far side of a deep, central European winter: no festive fun and games, no parades, no hordes of tourists. It’s about drinking bock beer, the fat, malty lager that’s strong as an ox and smooth as glass. Good as German pilsners are, something more is needed for the depths of winter and the slow, wet struggle towards spring. Bock is how Germans make their way through the down cycle of the year.

“Spring in Bavaria is just warm enough to open the beer gardens, but it’s still cool,” explains Brian O’Reilly, the bock-crazy head brewer at the Sly Fox brewery in Phoenixville. “That’s one of the benefits of bock. It’s strong enough to give you an antifreeze effect.” You get the same cool springs here in southeast Pennsylvania, and luckily you’ll also find a rare clutch of American brewers making bock beer.

Bock and its range of variants — hellesbock, maibock, doublebock, eisbock — are the deep end of lager beers, the cold-aged family of beers that encompasses the more familiar pilsners, mainstream American beers, light beer and, of course, local favorite Yuengling Lager. Bock is the big, broad-shouldered brother of the lager family.

That’s why it’s called “bock.” The word bock is German for “buck,” like a male deer, or in Germany, a male goat. Butt heads with a few glasses of this goat, and you’ll be resetting your watch to Starkbierzeit.

“When I think about bock, I think lush and warming, in a soothing manner,” says Bill Covaleski, co-founder of Victory Brewing in Downingtown. “Bock is different from all the other lagers, as it needs to offer satisfying richness, but should not be cloying or too thick to offer refreshment.”

Covaleski expresses the conflict that makes a great bock one of the most difficult challenges for a brewer. Bocks are strong by nature; that strength is what makes a bock beer, not darkness or sweetness. But to make beer strong, you have to add more sugars for the yeast-feast that produces higher alcohol levels. Add too much, and you’ll stun the yeast, leaving a thick, syrupy brew that defeats the purpose of bock: that is, to be a strong but very drinkable beer.

All that runs contrary to a common fallacy about bock: The old story that it’s made once a year when brewers clean out their tanks. That’s why it’s dark, people will explain. The truth is, brewers are fanatically clean people; the tanks are thoroughly scoured every time a batch of beer is made. If a bock is dark, it’s because the brewer used dark-roasted malts to make it.

The “made once a year” part is closer to the truth. Bock is a solidly seasonal beer, grounded in the reliable turn of seasons in the German climate and the observation of Lent. If you’ve ever heard beer called “liquid bread,” this is where it came from: Hefty glasses of bock were an allowable dodge around fasting.

Still, if a beer’s that good, why not drink it all year? “If they were around all year, I don’t think I’d drink them as much,” O’Reilly says. “If you can only get it in season, it’s an excuse to let your hair down a bit, have a few glasses of a stronger beer.”

Covaleski agrees. “Both of our bocks are seasonal because we feel that they are best appreciated in the seasons they are offered. St. Victorious Doppelbock conveys the warmth of the home and hearth in the dead of winter, and St. Boisterous Hellerbock promises spring with a lighter color and body but is also full of cheer.”

But another Pennsylvania brewer, John Trogner of the Tröegs brewery in Harrisburg, doesn’t see it that way. Trogner makes his Troegenator Doublebock year-round. “Why would we restrict such a good beer to one season?” he asks.

He’s right: it is good beer. “I think anyone who likes Oktoberfest beers is ready for bock,” says Carol Stoudt, owner of Stoudt’s Brewing in Adamstown, Pennsylvania’s oldest microbrewery. They’ll like it “if they like the malt, the breadiness, and maybe want a bit more body, a bit more richness.”

O’Reilly does what he can to get the word out every spring. On the first Sunday of May, he puts on goat races at Sly Fox’s Phoenixville brew pub to celebrate the tapping of his maibock, which is then named for the winning goat. “We tap the maibock for the first time on the first Sunday of May,” O’Reilly says, “and the winner of the goat race, the goat’s owner, actually swings the hammer and knocks the tap into the barrel.” Beer flies, O’Reilly pours two glasses, and he and the owner toast the goat and the beer.

It’s a rare event that pulls together families (for the races and the German music and food) and beer lovers from miles around (for the five or six bock beer varieties O’Reilly will have available). “Having a maibock tapping is fun enough,” he says, “but to have a bunch of bocks makes it legitimate. There’s no excuse for a beer aficionado to not be there.” The event draws hundreds of people who evidently agree.

Don’t let Starkbierzeit pass you by this year. Get out and find some liquid bread, try a few strong glasses, and by the time the first Sunday in May comes around, you’ll be ready for the running of the bocks.

The Bock Family

Bock: A strong, dark lager (between 5.5 percent and 7 percent alcohol) that’s smooth and a bit sweet.

Maibock or Hellesbock: Beloved by beer geeks, maibock is the one member of the family that may show some hops. It’s the last bock of the season, traditionally tapped on May 1, which causes a lot of dancing around the Maypole.

Doublebock (or doppelbock): Call it bock-plus: it’s bigger in body, flavor and alcohol (7 percent to 9 percent), and it may be blonde or brunette in color. Names often end in -ator, so have a couple glasses and make up some fun ones.

Eisbock or Bockzilla: Take a strong lager. Chill it until it freezes. Remove the solid chunk of water. What’s left is concentrate of bock, smooth and sharp as a glass razor. Talk about brain-freeze.

Brews at the Beer Yard

“There’s not a huge demand for bock,” says Matt Guyer, the owner of the Beer Yard in Wayne, and you can tell he’s a bit annoyed by that. Guyer likes bock, and he carries quite a few, despite what he’d just said about the demand. Look at the cliffs of cases in his little store tucked in behind Starbucks, and you’ll see bocks of all kinds, from German brewers like Paulaner, Spaten, Ayinger, Einbecker, Augustin­er and Weltenburger, and Americans like Steg­maier, Victory, Samuel Adams, Tröegs, Sly Fox and Stoudt’s.

Why doesn’t bock sell? “It’s not hoppy,” Guyer says, “and hoppy is really big right now. I like hoppy beers, I like them a lot, but there’s more to beer than that! Maybe you have to spend a week in Germany, just drinking bock, to get an appreciation for it. You also don’t see it on tap that much, which means people aren’t getting a chance to sample it.”

Why does he have all those bocks if it doesn’t sell? “We’re fortunate in this area,” he says. “There are more brewers making bock right around here than in any other area of the country that I know of. Why not carry it? And if someone asks for a specific beer, I’ll go find it.”

That’s why Guyer’s Beer Yard carries over 1,200 different beers over the course of the year, including the seasonals, like bock, that come and go. “It just grew,” he says of the beer selection. “I was willing to find beers people asked about. People would e-mail brewers and say, ‘I want this beer; send it to the Beer Yard in Pennsylvania, and I’ll buy it.’ It snowballed.”

Guyer offers regular beer samplings, special glassware, and an outstanding selection of draft beers. “It’s a fun business,” he says, smiling. “Everyone comes in happy, and they all leave happy.”

Beer Yard, 218 E. Lancaster Ave., Wayne; 610-688-3431; beeryard.com

1. The Beer Yard of Wayne PA is about 100 degrees in the old auto garage during the summer. The beer at the Beer Yard boils and goes bad. Matt Guyer of the Beer Yard needs better air conditioning. Drive to Kunda in King of Prussia for better beer.

   Lew Bryson is a librarian and is not qualified to write about beer. Risking DUIs does not make you a beer expert.

   Posted by Peter Thomas | November 20, 2008, 1:02 pm