Some new beers come from a hop catalog and some come from a genuine piece of local history, and Confluence Brewing Company's Reinbecker Amber Lager is very much the second kind. Reinbecker was originally the flagship beer of Broad Street Brewing Co. in Reinbeck, Iowa, poured from 2011 to 2018 before that brewery went quiet. According to Confluence, the original recipe is still locked away somewhere in the walls of the old building, which is the kind of detail that makes a beer feel like it comes with its own folklore.
Rather than try to recreate that lost recipe exactly, Confluence built a new Reinbecker Amber Lager as a tribute, timed to Reinbeck's 150th birthday. It comes in at a very sessionable 4.5% ABV, and the brewery describes it as crisp, clean and slightly malty, which is exactly what you want from an amber lager built for both nostalgia and easy drinking. This is not a beer trying to impress with a huge ABV or an unusual ingredient list. It is trying to honor something, and that is a fair trade.
There is something genuinely nice about a brewery using its own release calendar to mark a small town's sesquicentennial. It turns a can of beer into a little piece of local pride, and it gives longtime Iowans a reason to raise a glass to a brewery that no longer exists.
Reinbecker Amber Lager releases this Friday, July 3rd, pouring in the Confluence taproom with 4-packs available to bring home. If you have any connection to Reinbeck, Iowa, or you simply appreciate a clean, malty amber lager with a story behind it, this one is worth tracking down.
Cheers to 150 years, and to breweries willing to keep old flagships alive in spirit even when the original building has gone quiet.