Camp Fire Puts Hickory Smoke in a German-Inspired Black Lager

A black lager built as a salute to Iowa's state and county parks, with roasted coffee and dark chocolate over a touch of hickory smoke - an American wood in a beer the brewery frames as German-inspired.

Style: German-Inspired Black Lager
Release Date: 2026-10-02
ABV: 6.6%
Confluence Brewing Company (Des Moines, IA)

Hickory is an American wood. It is what runs under barbecue across most of the United States, and it is not what Franconian brewers reach for when they smoke malt - that tradition is built on beechwood. So there is a small and deliberate crossing of borders in Confluence Brewing Company's Camp Fire Black Lager, which the brewery describes as German-inspired and finishes with just a touch of hickory smoke.

The 6.6% black lager arrives in the Des Moines taproom on Friday, October 2. Confluence describes it as full-bodied and rich, with subtle notes of roasted coffee, sweet caramel and dark chocolate alongside that hickory note. Those are the brewery's tasting notes rather than a verdict, and it is worth taking the brewery at its word on the word "touch" - this is framed as a suggestion of smoke, not a smoked beer in the rauchbier sense.

A beer about a park system

The name is not a seasonal gesture. Confluence built the beer around Iowa's public land specifically, citing 65 state parks plus what it calls scores of city and county parks as the reason there is so much of the outdoors within reach of an Iowan. The brewery frames Camp Fire as a salute to those areas, and says a sip is meant to conjure a crackling fire on a cool autumn evening with family and friends.

That is a more grounded origin than "autumn is here." Plenty of breweries release a campfire beer in October; fewer tie one to a particular state's parks department and then choose a smoking wood that matches the region rather than the style guide.

The dark-malt bill Confluence describes - coffee, caramel, chocolate - is doing recognizable black lager work. The style's appeal has always been that it reads much heavier than it drinks, since the roast character comes from malt that contributes color and flavor without much body. At 6.6% this one sits above the traditional range, which fits the full-bodied description. A beer in this register would go well with anything off a grill, which is a fair place for the hickory to land.

Camp Fire pours in the taproom on Friday with four-packs available to go. Distribution across Iowa begins Monday, October 5.

Editor’s Take

Hickory is not a German wood. The traditional smoked lagers of Franconia run on beechwood, which is why a Bamberg rauchbier tastes the way it does and not some other way. So when a Des Moines brewery describes a German-inspired black lager and then puts a touch of hickory in it, something quietly interesting has happened: the framework came from Bavaria and the smoke came from the backyard. Hickory is the wood of American barbecue, the smell of a smoker running all afternoon in somebody's driveway.

Which is, when you think about it, exactly the right call for a beer named after Iowa's park system. A campfire in a state park does not smell like Franconia. The style gave Confluence the dark malt, the restraint and the drinkability; the wood gave it a specific place. That is a more thoughtful piece of translation than most seasonal beers bother with, and it is sitting in the third sentence of a newsletter with no fanfare whatsoever.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.