From Asia With Love
Pax Bräu
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Reviewed by boddhitree from Germany
4.6/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.75
4.6/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.75
REVIEWED March 27, 2014.
Pax Bräu's February beer from the Bierkalender, the From Asia with Love, Szechuan Style beer.
I've already drunk two of the 1 L bottles, and I was lucky enough to get a third from Andreas Seufert (owner and brewer) at BrauKunstLive 2014 in exchange for giving him my home-brew.
Notice the ingredients. First, the only hop was Cascade... nice. Emmer wheat, Bitter-orange peel, ginger, Szechuan pepper, Lemon grass and coriander. Very interesting, eh? Now, for malts, I'll tell you more while `i write this review.
I really like the artwork, which looks like it was done by the same Manga artist as all the other cool labels. I don't know why more German beer companies don't make more interesting labels, especially the new craft brewers. To me, they seem to go for boring labels in a quest to achieve some respectability and levity or being taken super seriously. There's lots more going on here, like the words Kampai (cheers) in Chinese and the exploding glass of beer. Very light and playful.
Notice the orange, chili pepper, and probably coriander and lemmon grass in the top right corner of the label.
Now to the beer itself. It's 7.7%.
Appearance: It's almost bright orange, the color of a Märzen, with some tints of red and verging on amber, all of that under a white head which dissipates quickly.
Aroma: Already.... WOW! I get a huge shot of peppery and chill smells, some huge grassy note that almost verge of medicinal or detergent-like... some sniffs make it good, some sniffs make it feel bad, but overall, quite a lot of complexity. Under that powerhouse of aroma, there's a lurking caramel malt, the signature of Münchnermalz. The aroma is just by itself a WOW moment to breathe in again and again, every time finding new armons that you just can't place.
Flavor: Again, simply WOW.
In the front: peppery flavors bite the tongue with a little chili, reminding me of a Thai food extravaganza over the front of my tongue. There's also some hop bitterness, but not much, and in fact, allow it linger on the front and you get a slight burning sensation much like eating red Thai chili.
Middle: Finally it's starting to taste like beer with some caramel flavors on the side of the tongue and some lemon in the center of the tongue, too, but still lots of pepper and chili notes. You can also notice the alcohol here, feeling a slightly warming and also burning. Even though this beer is at least 2 months old, it's got a lot more flavours today than it did those two months ago! WOW.
Back: Here comes some malts, caramel and such, quite sweet, but intermingled with pricks of peppery and chili feelings and flavours on the back of the tongue, too. It's almost a tie between sweet and spicy with which dominate. Together, these flavours are sublime. Instead of "sweet and sour," we have caramel sweet and spicy/piquante.
Aftertaste: Mostly pepper and something burning slightly from spice's lingering in the background like an echo from the other parts of the tongue. Maybe that's the ginger there.
Overall: WOW. WOW. WOW! It tastes like a Märzen beer dipped in spices and hot sauces, then squeezed out on the tongue with all flavours intermingling, coming to the fore, then fading in the background, again and again. Except for the aroma, the lemongrass wasn't noticeable, and Cascade hops were either blended so well or were simply flavours I found almost imperceptible. Nonetheless, it's a super-WOW beer that makes you want to come back for more and more. I wish I had a lot more of this beer unhand. I love this beer.
What's even more amazing is that beer tastes much spicier, much more peppery, much more everything 2 months after it was brewed. In fact, it tastes twice as good and when I first got it in the beginning of February.
May 14, 2014Pax Bräu's February beer from the Bierkalender, the From Asia with Love, Szechuan Style beer.
I've already drunk two of the 1 L bottles, and I was lucky enough to get a third from Andreas Seufert (owner and brewer) at BrauKunstLive 2014 in exchange for giving him my home-brew.
Notice the ingredients. First, the only hop was Cascade... nice. Emmer wheat, Bitter-orange peel, ginger, Szechuan pepper, Lemon grass and coriander. Very interesting, eh? Now, for malts, I'll tell you more while `i write this review.
I really like the artwork, which looks like it was done by the same Manga artist as all the other cool labels. I don't know why more German beer companies don't make more interesting labels, especially the new craft brewers. To me, they seem to go for boring labels in a quest to achieve some respectability and levity or being taken super seriously. There's lots more going on here, like the words Kampai (cheers) in Chinese and the exploding glass of beer. Very light and playful.
Notice the orange, chili pepper, and probably coriander and lemmon grass in the top right corner of the label.
Now to the beer itself. It's 7.7%.
Appearance: It's almost bright orange, the color of a Märzen, with some tints of red and verging on amber, all of that under a white head which dissipates quickly.
Aroma: Already.... WOW! I get a huge shot of peppery and chill smells, some huge grassy note that almost verge of medicinal or detergent-like... some sniffs make it good, some sniffs make it feel bad, but overall, quite a lot of complexity. Under that powerhouse of aroma, there's a lurking caramel malt, the signature of Münchnermalz. The aroma is just by itself a WOW moment to breathe in again and again, every time finding new armons that you just can't place.
Flavor: Again, simply WOW.
In the front: peppery flavors bite the tongue with a little chili, reminding me of a Thai food extravaganza over the front of my tongue. There's also some hop bitterness, but not much, and in fact, allow it linger on the front and you get a slight burning sensation much like eating red Thai chili.
Middle: Finally it's starting to taste like beer with some caramel flavors on the side of the tongue and some lemon in the center of the tongue, too, but still lots of pepper and chili notes. You can also notice the alcohol here, feeling a slightly warming and also burning. Even though this beer is at least 2 months old, it's got a lot more flavours today than it did those two months ago! WOW.
Back: Here comes some malts, caramel and such, quite sweet, but intermingled with pricks of peppery and chili feelings and flavours on the back of the tongue, too. It's almost a tie between sweet and spicy with which dominate. Together, these flavours are sublime. Instead of "sweet and sour," we have caramel sweet and spicy/piquante.
Aftertaste: Mostly pepper and something burning slightly from spice's lingering in the background like an echo from the other parts of the tongue. Maybe that's the ginger there.
Overall: WOW. WOW. WOW! It tastes like a Märzen beer dipped in spices and hot sauces, then squeezed out on the tongue with all flavours intermingling, coming to the fore, then fading in the background, again and again. Except for the aroma, the lemongrass wasn't noticeable, and Cascade hops were either blended so well or were simply flavours I found almost imperceptible. Nonetheless, it's a super-WOW beer that makes you want to come back for more and more. I wish I had a lot more of this beer unhand. I love this beer.
What's even more amazing is that beer tastes much spicier, much more peppery, much more everything 2 months after it was brewed. In fact, it tastes twice as good and when I first got it in the beginning of February.
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