Smoke me a kipper . . . .

Smoked beer is an offshoot of German beer that began life as a pleasant oversight or minor mistake. Dating from the 1600's onwards, these beers smokey flavour came from the smoke wafting about from the fires used to dry the ingredients, particularly the malt.

In Germany the beer is called Rauchbier, and is brewed to this day. Beers in England dating back to the same time period had smokey flavours too, and it all came from the wood burning used to dry the malt. Sometimes the fires burned too high and some batches were particularly pungent, adding to the "good batch/bad batch" lore of the time. Although quite mechanized by then, beer making in the 1600's still held a component of chance.

As beer making got more sophisticated the process became more generic and the grains used to make beer were being dried in temperature controlled kilns, not over fires, so the smokey beer started to dissappear from the table.

While Germany has several smoked beers still being made, other countries as diverse as Brazil and Japan make some too. The Japanese brewery makes smoked sausages too.