Magritte's Pipe: Home-Smoked Helles

René François-Ghislain Magritte's groundbreaking 1929 painting "The Treachery of Images" is a popular and approachable piece of conceptual art. In it Magritte posits that this thing you are staring at is not a pipe, and the concept carries because it's equal parts humor, absurdity and philosophy (in the same proportion that makes the Marx Brothers timeless).

I had the conceit to brew a pale smoked beer in homage to the treachery of beer that is Aecht Schlenkerla Helles. Their Helles is a rauchbier that uses no smoked malt, yet has an obvious and persistent (and delicious) smoke character; the claim being that the smoke and mirrors is in the rauch saturated brewing equipment and the house yeast. The very idea of a blonde smoked beer is brilliant in it's treachery.  I also have to acknowledge Tom Baker of Earth Bread + Brewery, a fellow obscurist and wordsmith who made an awesome example of the style with his Terra Fume.

So my own treachery involves smoking malt with mesquite chunks and brewing a classic lager style (Helles) with an ale yeast .  I multi tasked my smoke day by also pastrami rubbing wild salmon fillets with Schwartz's house spice (that I used in a butternut squash and smoked salmon chowder (add bacon and smoked paprika if you don't mind your chowder being a bit sanguine)) and throwing them in the smoker. The smoked malt took on some nice Munich color and a relatively mellow smokiness.

Magritte's Pipe

OG 1.045 FG 1.012 ABV 4.3% IBU 26.5

63.2% Pilsen 

31.6% Home Smoked Pilsen

  5.3% Cara Pils

mashed at 153

1 oz Mt. Hood at 60 mins.

pitched White Labs Kolsch yeast and fermented low with temp control

Really loving this beer: smoke meets Weihenstephaner.