On Sunday 22 August retired entrepreneur Frits Langeveld from the Dutch island of Texel where many a good beer comes from will be presenting a new beer called ‘Tessels Wrakhout’ (not the one shown here) with a real smoky taste. So smoky according to some smokers that they don’t feel like reaching for a cigarette. The key ingredient is smoked malt that is apparently not used by breweries much, although German ‘rauchbier’ has been around for ages.
The idea was that smokers now have to go outside the bar to have a smoke and that maybe smoked beer is the answer to keeping them indoors and not interrupting the fun. It’s surprising nobody in the Netherlands thought of it this way before.
I think it’s exaggerated to call it innovative, in fact doing so is symptomatic of the rampant short-sightedness in the business community. I’d call it resourceful: finally looking outside Dutch borders for answers.
(Links: bizz.nl, bier.blog.nl, Photo of Bamberg Rauchbier by David Fischer, some rights reserved)
