There’s a lot more to Bamberg than just Rauchbier — the town is said to produce brews in some 50 different styles, including the buzz-worthy U, aka Ungespundetes, an “uncorked” or “unbunged” style of Kellerbier best-known in the versions from Mahr’s and Spezial, as well as very good wheats from places like Kaiserdom. If you’re tempted to take something home with you, the very last chance before you leave town is a small shop in the train station with bottles of Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier as well as one of the local oddballs: Zwergla from Brauerei Fässla.

The Fässla pub was one of my favorites on my first trip to Bamberg, if only for the atmosphere, as I got caught up in conversations with the Stammgäste there. And while Zwergla’s “Lil’ Dwarf” moniker is fairly distinctive, I couldn’t remember ever trying it. Grabbing a bottle in the Bahnhof, I figured I’d check out what I missed and compare it to some beers from back home.

On the brewery’s home page, Zwergla is listed as a Dunkles, but there’s quite a bit of red glinting through (especially if you backlight the glass with a tea candle, as in the shot above). In normal light it is a clear deep amber with very moderate carbonation and a loose tan head. The nose is honey with light ginger notes; in the mouth, it has a rich, full mouthfeel with moderate sweetness followed by a surprisingly bitter finish.

That’s pretty good, I thought. And then I made a big mistake: I opened a bottle of Herold’s Bohemian Granát from the Czech Republic. I’m not sure if it says more about Fässla or Herold, but after sampling Bohemian Granát’s rich, sweet-and-sour caramel bite and even stronger bitter finish, I wouldn’t recommend going to Bamberg just for the Lil’ Dwarf.

Of course Beeropolis has much more to try, like the newish brewpub Ambräusianum. Although we missed the Fastenbier at Schlenkerla and Spezial by a matter of days, Ambräusianum’s version, the perfectly named Ambräusiator, was ready to go. It’s the same very dark amber as their normal Dunkles, though clear instead of cloudy, with a thin, short-half-life head, due to the consciousness-altering ABV of around 7.5%. It has a malty, peppery and peach-scented nose, with a filling rich flatness in the mouth followed by tannic notes in the finish. Additional sips bring out tastes of stewed forest fruits and jam. It’s chewy, thick and unctuous, though probably not something most people would order twice, if only because of the kick.

I don’t think the same can be said of Mahr’s Ungespundet-hefetrüb, probably the closest thing in Bamberg to a Czech-style brew, and served on site in an earthenware Krug, my favorite type of drinking vessel. (More on drinking vessels soon.) As I raised the glass, I thought of Alan, who seems to like Mahr’s pretty OK. Maybe even more than just OK.

This particularly gratuitous shot is for him.

Otherwise known as Březňák, Pivovar Velké Březno has one of the strangest and most tragic histories in the Czech lands. Located in the Czech-German border region that was once called the Sudetenland, for most of its early existence the brewery had a pronouncedly German clientele. Now, returning to its roots, the brewery has launched an excellent new beer for the German market: the so-called Doppel-Doppel Bock.

Of course, it’s never quite that simple when the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Holocaust are concerned, and Březňák is so weirdly mixed up in the situation that as you hear the story it’s hard to remember which level of irony you’ve reached. For example, this brewery proudly supplied beer to Rommel’s Afrikakorps throughout the war. But the man who posed for the picture on the label, Victor Cibich, aka Zippich — the very image of a once-Nazi brewery — was actually a German-speaking Czech Jew. And yes, it gets even weirder from there.

But first: the beer. I found this one at Pivní galerie, where owner Petr Vaněk said he thought it was one of the last such bottles in the country. (Though afterwards, I saw a few more at the new “Beer Gallery” bottle shop on Nerudova, which I’ll write about another time.) It is a German 500-milliliter bottle, and virtually everything on the label is in German, claiming that this is perhaps the first Doppel-Doppel Bock in the world, and noting that it was brewed at 21° and that it contains 10% alcohol by volume. Unlike most beers of this strength in the Czech Republic, it does not list added sugar as an ingredient: just water, malt, hops, hop extract and yeast.

Doppel-Doppel Bock (10% ABV) Clear amber with a thick, sandy head that makes a good effort to stick around, despite the high-alcohol odds. Very light carbonation. A nose of straw and nutty sweetness hinting at candied walnuts. In the mouth it is vinous, sweet and full without being cloying, lacking the saccharine aftertaste of most added-sugar strong beers. Instead, there is a lasting natural syrup with maple and honey notes that finishes with a pleasant hop tang. Additional sips bring out notes of almonds and baked apples. Remarkably well-incorporated alcohol for 10%. This is definitely a sipper, a winter warmer, and probably the best beer brewed at this strength in the country.

Tasting it, I was definitely impressed, and at several moments it struck me less like a beer than like something I would pour on pancakes — it is that syrupy. It is apparently not very well-known, as it was not listed on Březňák’s beers at Ratebeer.com. It seems a pity that this beer is not more widely available, but perhaps things will change. I’ve given a bottle to Max Bahnson, who’s planning to write about it soon.

Oh, and the rest of the story: so Pivovar Velké Březno supplied beer to the Afrikakorps, despite having adopted a Jewish man’s face for its logo as early as 1906. Victor Cibich himself died in 1916; his wife, Auguste, passed away in 1938. They left behind two grown-up sons, Bruno and Paul, who, as Jews, were sent to concentration camps during the war. Against all odds, the two Cibich boys survived and returned to Velké Březno after the war. But after a scant few months at home, they were forced to leave in the anti-German purges of 1946. That is to say: they were first expelled by the Germans for being Jews, and then they were expelled by the Czechs for being Germans. Bruno and Paul Cibich settled in Nuremberg, Germany, where they died within a few days of each other, in 1967.