As previously noted at F&D, you can “goat” for broke at the annual NuLu Bock and Wurst Fest, which takes up most of the day on Saturday, March 23. Meanwhile, your beer columnist’s favorite locally-brewed, fundamentally honest, old-school Bock comes from Falls City. Accordingly, brewer Cameron Finnis tells me that he has sent a few kegs of Bock out for distribution, and of course it’s also on tap at the newest location of Parlour Pizza (Falls City’s ex-taproom), adjacent to the brewery at 901 E. Liberty. The following is a lightly edited repeat, and remember: You might dye a Maibock green, but why on earth would you want to?
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Is Bock the G.O.A.T.? This question has been nagging me since Jimmy Carter was in office.
All I knew for sure at the time was that Bock beers were dark, and they appeared each year in spring.
It was the 1970s, the decade when America’s beer scene reached its very nadir, increasingly awash in ever-lighter oceans of Pilsner pretenders, and with fewer than 100 independent breweries still operational in the entire country (in 2024, the number approaches 10,000).
On the coasts and in a handful of other locales nationally (Denver and environs, and to an extent the Upper Midwest), the stage was being set for a revival, although it took a while for this future hope to become tangible — and for us to get a bit older in order to properly appreciate it.
But even as an underaged beer scrounger (at least until 3 August 1981), I was well aware of the customary springtime Bock release schedule, as upheld by a few of the remaining breweries of German descent. Only three of these brands stick in my palate: Huber and Augsburger (Wisconsin) and Stroh’s (Detroit). There were others, but my beer recall isn’t total any longer.
The old guys drinking lunch referred to Bock as a tradition, which seemed plausible, even if the exact reason largely eluded beer drinkers in my neck of the Hoosier woods. Reliable knowledge about beer styles and seasonal brewing was scant, and Bock’s coppery brown color engendered even more confusion, because most beers were golden — pale as Bunny Bread, canned, ice-cold, and available year-round for plucking from the cooler at the nearest package store.
Bock definitely was different. Why was that, anyway?
Just as ancient cultures conjured supernatural explanations for otherwise inexplicable natural phenomena, our befuddled elders labored to...Read more
