Admit it, back in 2013, when you saw the name Thunder from Dortmunder, it elicited at minimum a smile, or perhaps straight-out laughter.

Then you tasted the delicious lager from Marble Brewery, saw that it won a bronze medal at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival, and truly appreciated every aspect of what would soon become an excellent annual specialty release.

Well, for the first time since that stellar debut, Thunder from Dortmunder captured another medal, this time a silver at the 2023 GABF awards ceremony held this past Saturday. Once he returned from Denver, I caught up with Marble brewmaster Josh Trujillo to learn more about this award-winning pale lager.

“Yeah, it took a decade to get the second one,” he said. “Personally, I think that given our hard water in the Heights, we don’t have an RO (reverse osmosis) system or anything like that, so I think that this particular style lends itself really well to our minerality. I’ve never been to Dortmund, so I can’t speak from experience in having a true Dortmund lager, but through my research and tasting many American versions, along with winning a medal in the category in the past, I think that’s really what it is, a balance of sweetness, a balance of hops, and a balance of minerality.”

A lot can happen over the course of the decade besides just changing the location of where Thunder was brewed, Trujillo added.

“Some of the malts have changed a little bit, so we’ve definitely leaned back the sweetness and the character malts, and targeted more of a festbier-like profile, rather than a sweet, high-proof export lager,” he said. “Malts change. We work with agricultural products. One thing that we have experience with this beer, is we’ve been making it since 2013, and didn’t have the Heights location up and running back then. Scaling it from a production brewhouse to the Heights brewhouse, we’ve been getting a little bit more character out of the Munich and Vienna malts on that beer. We really didn’t change too much (else) about it.”

As anyone who has ever spoken to Trujillo about beer knows, he is a huge fan of lagers, both in terms of brewing and drinking them. Thus, one is aware that he puts a lot of love into every batch, whether they go on to win medals or not.

“Obviously, you have to use good products,” Trujillo said. “So it’s 100 percent Weyerman malt, German Mittlefruh (hops), German tradition. We did a little late hopping on it, boost that floral aspect up. In many ways it’s a really straight-forward beer. In many circles that’s considered a pilsner.”

There is only one slight downside, which can happen when a non-regular beer wins a medal.

“We don’t have it on tap right now,” Trujillo said. “We (just) ran out. There was a little bit left. It went quickly, which was a good sign. The beers in the past that have medaled for us, they tend to have that sweet spot of drinkability that people are excited about on the board, that the staff has been drinking. That’s our first indicator that the recipe is dialed in.”

Fear not, though, as Thunder is now back on the docket of beers to be brewed in the near future.

“We’ll probably brew another batch out of the Heights,” Trujillo said. “We have a lot of pale lagers in the pipeline. People like that one, I like that one. It’s nice to keep a good mix of pale lagers on the board. I definitely think that we have the most eclectic list of beers, as well as possibly the largest list of lagers, too.”

Trujillo did acknowledge that Quarter Celtic and Ex Novo are also usually deep in lagers, and that Boxing Bear might be as well. I noted that Justin Hamilton and company are still focused on the tail end of IPA season, but that the lagers and darker beers should be out soon at the four Boxing Bear locations.

“We switch to maltier beers, too, as winter progresses, they’re just lagers,” Trujillo said. “You know I love my lagers, Chris. They’re very, very versatile, a lot of range. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a traditional lager style to pitch a lager yeast to it, but I definitely like to tackle the simpler recipe, right? To me, Dortmunder falls into that category. It’s just a super straight-forward (lager). The majority of it is pilsner malt for a 10-barrel batch, and then there’s a bag of Munich malt, there’s a bag of Vienna malt, a little bit of acidulated (malt) to adjust the pH, Mittlefruh tradition.”

Since the Crew could not attend GABF this year (we had a wedding to celebrate), I also asked Trujillo about the general vibe around the annual event. We had heard whispers that things were not quite what they used to be, and that many of the more well-known craft breweries skipped having booths inside.

“GABF was not nearly as busy this year,” Trujillo said. “There was a lot of breweries that did not participate this year, and though the vibe on the floor was very much beer, there wasn’t nearly as many people. I don’t know if that was … I really don’t know what it was. I was speaking with some breweries that didn’t attend, and financially they couldn’t make it out, and I know that some people were disappointed that it was no longer the Great American Beer Festival, it was the Great American Beverage Festival. I think the addition of seltzers and ciders and alternative beverages have really changed people’s perception about participating.

“Those were probably two of the biggest things, finance and (other beverages). They didn’t give the brewers glass cups this year, only the paid attendance got glass cups, which I thought was odd. I had some really nice beers on the floor. There was a lot of first-time attendees. There were a lot of first-time winners, too.”

The times, they are a changing, but at least a great traditional lager with a whimsical name was still rewarded by the judges. A big thanks to Josh for taking time out for an interview in the middle of his workday.

We will catch up with the other 2023 medal winner, Flix Brewhouse, later this week.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister