Grindelwald sits beneath the north face of the Eiger, where legend says a monk stands guard between the ogre and the maiden. Our Bavarian-style dark wheat pours hazy chestnut under a tall, fluffy head. German wheat and Munich malt bring banana bread, clove, and toasted crust, with a little dark toffee underneath. Full in the glass, light on its feet. Prost!
Three peaks stand over the village of Grindelwald, and the people below them have been telling the same story for a long time. The Eiger is the ogre. The Jungfrau is the maiden. The Mönch, the monk, stands between them and has not moved. That is all the legend asks of him. Hold the line. Stay in the cold.
The north face of the Eiger drops more than a mile of rock and ice toward the valley floor. Climbers took the German word for north wall and bent it into Mordwand, the murder wall, and the name was earned. In the village the lights come on early and the mountain goes pink for a few minutes at the end of the day, and then it goes back to being what it is.
The winter story is older and worse. Across the German-speaking Alps and most of northern Europe, people once kept indoors on the long nights when the Wild Hunt rode, a host of riders and hounds crossing the sky with the storm behind them. You did not go out to watch. You stayed by the fire with something dark in your cup.
Dunkelweizen is the beer for that fire. It comes out of the same Bavarian tradition as the pale wheat beers of summer, pulled darker with Munich malt until it reads like winter bread: banana, clove, toasted crust, a little toffee underneath. Full in the glass and light on its feet, which is more than anyone ever said for the ogre.
