I don't get up in the morning like I used to. I used to dread the alarm and sleep through it. Now I anticipate the alarm and wake up fully – ping! – about five minutes before it goes off. It's probably because these days, I only set my alarm when I have to go on a brewery trip. Can't wait to get out of my milk-crate-and-recycled-foam-rubber bed!

 

That's kind of the way I feel around this time of year. I told you about the beer clock back in September, how Oktoberfest beers were late afternoon on the beer clock. We've passed through that, on into the big mealtime of holiday beers and the sleepy time of imperial stouts. We're deep in winter now, snuggled in a warm bed of beer, and the snow's piling up against the window. But in another week or so...ping! I'm going to be wide awake, waiting for the beer alarm to go off.

 

It's Bock O'Clock, time to rise and shine and suck down the malt, brothers. This is what the Germans, in their blessedly blunt manner, call starkbierzeit..."strong beer time." They also refer to sucking down cool liter mugs of these wonderful bock beers as "taking the Beer Cure," a series of beers that move you from the depth of winter in February through late snow and early sun to the outdoor festivities of May Day – the drinker's decompression chamber.

 

How many of you are lost, wondering what the hell "bock" beer is? Don't feel too bad. Americans used to literally party in the streets with big barrels of bock beer, but most of us don't even know what the hell it is anymore. Time to fix that, because frankly, it's too good to miss.

 

What is bock? Bock beer is strong, lager beer that leans heavily towards the malt side of the malt/hops balance. I do hope that by now all of you know that bock is made dark – mostly – and is not "the beer from the bottom of the barrel."

 

(By the way, the next time some half-smart beer geek tells you "bock" means "billy goat" in German, let them know that it also means "buck rabbit," hardly an animal you'd pair with strong beer...although now that I think about it, a nice braised bunny would pair well with a bock. It is goats, however, that are symbolically entwined with bock, and you'll find pictures of them all over the bottles and taps.)

 

We start with double bock, the big one, for those cold mornings when you just won't turn over. Blow a snort of this brain ether down your intake, and you'll fire right up. Double bocks run up in the 8 percent alcohol neighborhood, and they're all about the malt. Might be a dry maltiness, with just a hint of licorice, might be fat and chocolatey, might be like a cookie with some weird fruit notes hanging around the edges, but it's not going to be bitter.

 

This beer was first brewed by the sly Paulaner monks of Munich, who revered it so much they called their beer Salvator: Savior. While it's reverent, it's also got a double meaning: they drank this during Lent to beat the rules. What? It's a fast day? Hey, Abbot, I'm not eating. This is beer!

 

Most brewers acknowledge the monks' genius with tongue-in-cheek respect, tagging their own double bocks with the same "ator" suffix: Celebrator, Maximator, Instigator, Inebriator. After you've had a few pints of this wonderful brain-wallop, you can make up some fun names of your own, if you can still hold the pencil. But it's only fair to warn you: Germans feel that the true mark of a good double bock is that you don't know how strong it is till you try to stand up.

 

Next come bock and heller bock as winter's last gasps peter out, strong beers for unpredictable, windy weather. The traditional bock is about 6 percent, dark amber to brown, a smooth, strong lager that was rolled out and tapped when Easter arrived. It is now the hardest bock to find, because we fickle fools have run off to find something different.

 

Heller bock, less familiar to most of us, is a blond bock and is often brewed stronger than the bock. Triumph, the award-winning brewpubs down here near Philly where I live, brews a mighty Blond Double Bock. Powerful as a double bock but golden in color, and without the chocolate overtones of the darker bocks, the Blond is a woozy favorite of Triumph regulars.

 

The golden final hour of bock comes in May, when the Germans get up and dance around the Maypole on May 1 – May Day. (They don't do that much anymore, not really, but it makes great tourist fodder.) It's time for Maibock, a golden rush, an icy skyrocket, the Fat Beer antithesis of Light Beer. Put on the lederhosen, head down to the goat races and hoist maibock to toast the coming summer.

 

You'll find bock beers at your local brewpub or at any good German restaurant. If you're looking for something for home, here are some suggestions:

The alarm's ringing on the Bock Clock – time to open wide and take your medicine.