Costco Brewer’s Advent Calendar Diary, Day 1: Flötzinger’s “Hell aus Rosenheim”

Being raised in two separate faith traditions (conservative Evangelical and witchily lapsed Catholic), I grew up unfamiliar with the Liturgical Year. When I married into a small family church I found out “advent” is more than just a word in that cool Emmanuel song! And we can celebrate it by doing something once a day, every day, until Christmas.

But when I punched the “1” tab of the Costco Brewer’s Advent Calendar and pulled out the corresponding 16 oz. can, I was very surprised to be ringing in the season of Christ’s birth with a beer that says “HELL” on it.

But so I am:

Glancing at the various beer-rating sites, all of the recent posts are dated from October or November and include a sentence like “I got this out of the Costco Brewer’s Advent Calendar.” I presume these folks are either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the advent tradition and are plowing through the box like it’s any old 24-pack sampler.

Now, the point of this series is not to replicate the same kind of generic tasting notes you’d see at the various beer-rating sites, so I’m going to try to avoid too much of the “thin body, coarse head, notes of corn and straw” stuff. This is a fine Bavarian lager in the Helles style — and as CraftBeer.com puts it, “The helles is a masterclass in restraint, subtly and drinkability which makes it an enduring style for true beer lovers and an elusive style for craft brewers to recreate.”

Hell aus Rosenheim is exactly this: restrained, subtle, drinkable, malty without being syrupy and hoppy enough to be floral without being hoppy by bombastic American standards.

“Brautradition seit 1543,” it says on the can, and the scope of such a statement is dizzying. Relentlessly pursuing and mastering fine shades of flavor across decades, generations, centuries. Improving consistency and increasing production without sacrificing quality. People whose entire life’s work is just to keep doing something the exact same way.

Imagine some stonemason sitting in a Rosenheim biergarten years before the first Germans would ever set foot in America, griping that the Helles hasn’t tasted right quite since Grandpa Flötzinger passed the brewery down to Flötzinger Jr. But of course it probably tasted then much the same as it does now, almost half a millenium later, as I’m drinking it out of a Costco variety pack and blogging about the experience.

I never fully accepted either my father’s absolutist Evangelicalism or my mother’s blend of intellectual curiosity and woo-woo whatever. I still struggle, all the time, with exactly how much of my beliefs I actually believe and whether I’m anywhere close to being the person I (and my creator) want me to be.

But one thing I do know: The strongest magic human beings can conjure is the magic that lives after death. Learning for ourselves that our ancestors learned from their time on this earth and honoring their ways — the way we hope, someday, our lives will be remembered and honored.

I rejoice at the coming of this Advent season, and I hope you do too (despite everything). Here’s to all of us making it back next year.

Prost!