Upcoming Beer Reviews

Here is a wee teaser for you, a selection of beers bought and gifted to me which I shall be reviewing over the next couple of weeks. Note the high frequency of various Weißbier from Schneider-Weisse, I bought a taster box that includes mix from their range. Being generally someone who does not drink Weißbier, this will be interesting indeed for me to judge each on its individual merits.

Meilenhofen Hop-farming in the Hallertau

This weekend I enjoyed an afternoon spent at one of Agriculture's most wonderful of gifts to human social advancement: A hop farm!

The farm is located in the mega-famous Hallertau Region, which is the area that lies between the Rivers Isar and the Danube, in central Bavaria. Landshut, where I live, is located just south of this region, so getting there is a small matter of a few minutes in the car. Specifically, this hop-farm was located just outside the village of Meilenhofen, near Mainburg.

We were hosted by the very knowledgeable and affable Hans who operates the hop farm.

Photo: Hans, our guide around the farm

Hans cultivates/grows (at least) two main types of hop, the early flowering "Hallertauer Perle" and the more common "Magnum". We had the opportunity to see these varieties side-by-side. The Perle already in Bud and the Magnum still flowering.

Photo: Perle variety with buds

A friend who has just completed his Masters in Biology, Stox, a man who appreciates all things a-growing, was with me for the visit (as well as our two girlfriends). Fortunately, Stox was able to ask all the questions being both a native speaker and a biologist, whilst I flittered about taking photos and enjoying the general glorious ambiance of the place - exhibiting my general ignorance of the rural life, looking like a proper townie and tourist at the same time. 

Photo: Stox asking all the right questions of Hans

Hops from this immediate area find their way into both the local smaller beers such as the Hohentanner brews (I recently tried an excellent beer from the Hallertauer which I reviewed here,). The local hops also find their way into some of the main Bavarian Beers for consumption in the cities, or sometimes in tacky Bavarian-beer themed pubs abroad. The Hallertau is considered to have the greatest concentration of Hops grown per Km2 in the world, however I have no method of verifying this claim.

Without rambling on too much, I decided to complete this blog with a series of photos taken during the visit. If you are ever in the Hallertau area, try to get yourself an invitation to visit a hop farm. On a sunny weekend it it well worth your time.

Bavarian Summer Heat- Beer recommendations

This week is hot. Scorching hot. Cracker-day-dad-let's-go-fishing Hot.

In the UK, folks are cramming themselves into tiny hatchbacks and crawling along the M2 to dip their toes in the turbid waters of the Channel at Ramsgate. Here in Bayern, a much more elegant solution has been developed. The Biergarten.

Below are my top three tips for beer drinking beneath the shade of a mature chestnut tree in full and glorious leaf. One of these I have reviewed already, and the other two are yet to be, but I thought it worthwhile to note them down now, whilst the weather is agreeable.

In no particular order:

1. Weissbierbrauer Kuchlbauer - Sportsfreund
This  beer is a delightful low-alchohol Weizen. Weißbier says summer like a couple of jerseys say "makeshift goalposts", that it, it says it well. Kuchlbauer have managed to keep this Weizen from going all sugary and heay, which just won't do in weather like this. The lower alchohol volume also significantly recudes the chances of dehydration induced headaches. It's a win-win situation.


2. Schlossbrauerei Herrngiersdorf - Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvée
A Champagne of beers. Chill this one down and pour it into a tall half-litre glass. Wait for the moiture to condense on the glass exterior then dream your way through the contents; I have recently reviewed this beer very favourably here.

3. Lösch-Zwerg Pils
This little champion is a great summer beer for taking out. It comes in a tiny bottle, a few of which can easily be squeezed into a small bag. It's ideal for taking on the bicycle or in a small coolie-bin. The small bottle means that you also don't end up with 20% of the beer going warm in the sun before you finish.

Schlossbrauerei Herrngiersdorf - Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvée

It has been a hot and sunny, which means that I took the opportunity to smuggle a couple of new beers home form the supermarket to try. One of them is the Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvée , by Schlossbrauerei Herrngiersdorf. I must admit to some nerves seeing "hopfen cuvee" on the bottle. But I thought that anything from the Hallertau area can't be that bad.

The brewery has advertised the beer with images such as this:

My own photo on the Balcony, complete with fingermarks on the glass came out like this:

This "helles" style beer is very pale yellow. It has a kind of glistening sheen to it and a light head. With the sun shining though it, I was reminded of those yellow-glass panels that people used to put next to their front door in the 1970s...

The nose is also light. It smells of an imaginary "summer dryness" if summer dryness had a smell.
To taste, this one is crisp and sweet at the same time. Perfectly balanced. The length gets drier and bitter, and fortunately there is none of that metallic aftertaste you often get from lager and pils style beers.

I smashed this bottle back pretty quick.There was, in fact, not as single problem I could find with this beer. Each mouthful was a pleasant treat. In the end, I have decided that this is probably as close to the Epitome of what I think a Helles should be like. For that reason, I am forced to award this a full 7 out of 7!

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Brauerei Reichgold - Hochstahl Lager

Last week I opened and tasted another of the Frankish beers that were given to me for my birthday. This time it was the Reichgold Hochstahl Lager.

The brewery has a nice promo image of this one, which of course I have to copy here:

My own photo of the bottle&glass combo came out like this:

The beer is a deep orange colour. On the nose, this "colour" comes out in a slightly malty and "fresh water" aroma. It's a little bit like the smell you get from a river (a clean one!), with a touch of metal-pipes about it.

The taste is clean, only lightly hopped and malted. There is a touch of sweetness in there, but this is not a sweet beer. At length, there is some toffee flavour, and the length stays around long enough to become savory, just crossing into the next mouthful, which makes it rather moreish. I drank this beer after work, in 30 degree sun, and it was a very pleasant experience indeed.

Overall a tasty beverage. I award this beer a 5 our of 7.

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Aufsesser Premium Zwickl

For my recent birthday, I had the pleasure of receiving a carton of Beer from Franken (Franconia). Included in this box was the beer that I am presenting here to you all, (yes, all of you) today.

This is the Premium Zwickl, from Aufsesser.

I'm not sure if this image of the Beer is from the brewer or not. I had a hard time finding a "marketty" image of this one, which is probably a good sign. Anyway, this is how someone else likes the beer to look:

And this is what it looks like when it is perched on the railing of my balcony:

As you can see, this one has a very tidy bottle and label combination. I've always been a fan of the swing-top bottle. the beer is a deep orange-amber. It produced a head with large bubbles which quickly settled. The liquid is slightly cloudy, suggesting less than full filtration.

I was surprised at how hoppy this one was. It is like a lightly-hopped American IPA. There's a touch of dry grass in there which hints at mid-summer consumption, but Spring will do just fine.

The aroma is mild, floral and bitter at once. There are good proportions of hops and malt, balanced by obvious but not overpowering sweetness, my sweet. This beer I found to be an excellent accompaniment to a Pasta-Arrabiata eaten el-fresco.

I give this beer a confident 6 out of 7

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Braumeister Edition No. 3: „Bockiger Bazi“

It's rare that I taste a beer from one of the large breweries in Munich, but this weekend I spotted a limited edition brew from Paulaner, and I was sufficiently curious to give it a whirl.

The style of this beer is "Bock", Google it if you don't know it. The advertising people have put out this little image of the beer, and glass:

I, on the other hand, am "putting out" this little image of the beer, and glass, and balcony table in-the-sun:

As you can see, the beer is a muddy reddish-brown. It's not very transparent, evidence of non-filtration. The head carries a little of the colour, just leaning towards a lighter shade of caramel.

The aroma is inviting. It has some sweetened coffee tones mingled with a touch of floral (there's that word again) hops. The long end of the aroma has the slightest toe-tap of sweet fresh lake water to it. Not in a clammy weedy sense, but like an alpine stream fed lake.

The flavours are at first tropical almost. Perhaps pineapple and passion-fruit. There's almost no bitterness at all. Then you get a nice waft of late-season apple or ripe banana.

This is a fruity beer, one of the fruitiest I have tasted in a long while. It could pass as a sweet Weizen without too much tinkering. I would say it is let down by the lack of bitterness, something a little more "herb" would give it a full and rounded finish.

I award 4 out of 7.

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