Authenticity on Tap

Yes, there really is a Karl Strauss--and he makes a couple of outstanding and even surprising beers.

Ever since the Karl Strauss Brewery Garden opened last summer at Universal CityWalk, customers have been overheard announcing that the jolly fellow pictured on the label was obviously hired by a casting director. He looks too much like a master brewer.

It turns out the 87-year-old Wunderkind is a legend of the beer industry. Karl Strauss spent decades as brewer-in-chief at Pabst Blue Ribbon; now he’s a respected elder statesman of the California craft movement.

“In craft brewing, we’re not just dealing with people who drink beer but people who enjoy beer,” Strauss said one morning recently when he dropped by to check on his gleaming little brewery, greet customers--and prove again that he exists.

“We hear people all the time saying there’s no such person as Karl,” chuckled Marjean Strauss, his frau of 21 years.

Beer lovers who enjoy discussing the mystique and folklore of their favorite brew--that is, almost every beer lover--will be pleased to learn that the guy raising the frosty glass on a bottle of Karl Strauss cuts a memorable figure.

Strauss was literally born to the beer business--he drew his first breath in a brewery in Westphalia, Germany, where his father resided as manager.

After he studied brewing at a technical institute in Bavaria, he emigrated to Milwaukee in 1939 and went right to work for Pabst.

He spent 44 years with Pabst during its mid-to-late-century heyday as one of the leading national brands, then nimbly switched career tracks after retirement.

He was drafted in 1989 into craft brewing--making beer in small batches with expensive ingredients--by a cousin who was launching a San Diego-based firm that now runs a chain of five microbreweries plus tap outlets at Los Angeles International Airport and Disney’s California Adventure.

The CityWalk brewery is displayed behind glass, packed into a tidy 500 square feet. It can turn out batches of 217 gallons a week, most recently of weissbier, a light and golden lager from a 50-50 blend of barley and wheat malt.

It’s fresh enough--piped from lagering tanks direct to the taps.

Strauss looks at his new role with the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy story. He created the entire Strauss line--dozens of brews ranging from a sturdy take on today’s popular light beers to hearty traditional midnight-black stouts.

He tries new recipes all the time, for special occasions such as employees’ and relatives’ birthdays and weddings.

“Give me any beer and I can match it,” he boasts. The twinkly-eyed brewer has more than an echo of the Black Forest in his rich baritone, and he still calls it bier--hanging with that nearly two-syllable Old World inflection.

Strauss was once something of a Hollywood celebrity in his own right, hosting movie stars and appearing in newspaper gossip columns from 1948 to 1956 while running Pabst’s long departed North Main Street brewery.

In those days, he recalls, the national brands Pabst, Bud and Schlitz competed with local brews such as Eastside and Brew 102.

The western foams built strong loyalties among stubborn local customers with lower prices--the benefit of using cheaper but lower-enzymatic western barley that lent a distinctive, if coarser, finish. Mention a brand and a year and Strauss rattles off recipes and production quotas.

A walking example of the salubriousness of his life’s work, Strauss is a hale octogenarian. With more than 60 years in the business, he lends his beers plenty of mystique. But how do they sit on the palate?

We put them to a test one recent Saturday evening--not an apt time for quiet reflection, it turned out, since the Garden’s lively weekend crowd enjoys televised sports with high-pitched enthusiasm.

But back to the matter at hand.

Strauss offers a literally staggering $6.95 sampler of eight brews in 5-ounce servings. Once you settle on a favorite, you can get a pint for $4.50 or a 1-liter mug for $7.95. Be sure to bring a designated driver. A tasting of those eight reveals two that we judged above average and two judged outstanding.

Most outstanding is the master brewer’s signature amber lager. That was found to be a notably well-crafted Continental lager that’s full-bodied and richly balanced all the way through.

It starts fully fruited with a timeless hint of date and fig at the front, then rich and round in its amber barley, balanced with a pronounced and pleasant hops bite in the mid-mouth. It finishes with an invitingly maple aftertaste.

We also rated the pale ale as outstanding. It’s bold and hoppy in the nose, full in the mouth with intriguing citrus notes, and it lingers with an expertly balanced Saaz hops afterglow.

The two brews rated above average are the Karl Strauss Light, which is notably wheaty and full-flavored for the golden-colored brew of the kind aficionados often sniff at as “next to water.”

Also judged a notch above average is the quite interesting oatmeal stout, which comes down surprisingly on the sweet side, with plenty of oaty roundness and very delicate in the nose for a chocolate malt beverage.

The other four brews in the sampler were judged average at best. As a whole you can say that the pilsener, the Gaslamp Gold Ale, the extra special bitter and the Red Trolley Ale were noteworthy for roundness favoring the malt, inoffensiveness in the hopping and crisp to sudden in the finish.

Hops and especially ale fans will hardly be blown away by Strauss’ sampling, but beer lovers of any stripe will find enough surprises in the maltings to make a full tasting worthwhile--and, yes, that includes paying the $7 parking fee and wedging through the packed crowds of entertainment-seekers to reach a soothing portion of a frosty, expertly crafted glass.

BE THERE

Karl Strauss Brewery Garden, 1000 Universal Center Drive, Universal City. Hours: 11 a.m.-midnight Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Saturday. (818) 753-2739.