Boltens Ur-Alt
Bolten Brauerei

 

Fom the flip top bottle, it pours a clear caramel brown color with a light tan head that slowly reduces and leaves lacing. Light roasted malt scent with caramel. Taste follows nose with a touch of bitterness evident.

 

L:
-pours a slightly hazy copper-red with a small to medium,foamy,offwhite head
-medium carbonation visible
S:
-caramel,chocolate,milky,raisins,grainy
T:
-grassy,spicy,earthy,caramel,nutty
-medium bitterniss for the style
F:
-medium carbonation
-light to medium body
O:
Good Altbier, that can't quite match it's great Düsseldorf Counterparts from Uerige,Schlüssel,Schumacher & Füchschen.

Pours a beautiful hazy, nut brown color with a huge, slightly beige head.

Has aromas of bakers chocolate, gently toasted hazelnuts, toffee and dried peas.

Drinks supersoft with an effervescent finish, displaying a perfect balance between its malt foundation and a dryer, leaf defined finish.

Tastes of dry leafes from the very beginning, entangled into toffee malts, earth, whole grain bread, glazed toffee and toasty grain hulls. Its initial dryness maintains throughout but gets effectivly balanced by the complex malts till the finish, in which the beer appears a bit watery.

Awesomly balanced, quite tasty but too thin after mid palate to convince entirely.

Review from notes taken in Koln in March 2016:

33cl swingtop bottle purchased at BierMuseum in Koln, Germany. (Note: I do not recommend buying altbier in Koln, but at BierMuseum you can sneak it in with a bunch of other beers and they won't judge). Label is green and pale tan. 4.90% ABV. Best before: 12.07.16.

Served cold into a pilsner glass. Reviewed from notes as an altbier per the name and label.

HEAD: ~7cm wide. White head. Frothy, creamy, full, robust. Has a nice thick consistency and a good complexion. Retention is good as well - ~8-10 minutes. Leaves no lacing as it recedes.

BODY: Deep caramel-amber. Translucent and semitransparent. Clean; no yeast floats within.

It's a decent look for an altbier. Though the head is noticeably impressive, no characteristics stand out as unique or special.

AROMA: Slightly bready, but ultimately caramel-emphatic. A blip of sourdough. Amber malt sweetness. Seems more musty than most altbiere - possibly even stale?

Suggests a dry altbier with a shallow flavour profile. Doesn't seem like a great beer in its style, but maybe the taste is better...

TASTE: Artificial caramel flavouring, amber malt sweetness, some dry breadiness towards the finish...this isn't a great altbier at all. Maybe there's some Munich malt in there too to leaven it a bit, but it just isn't dialed in in terms of balance, and the build is underwhelming. I don't dislike it, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

TEXTURE: Oddly dry on the finish, with some mild coarseness throughout that gives it a bit of a dragging presence on the palate. Medium-bodied, overcarbonated, unrefreshing.

There's not an ideal harmony of texture and taste here, but the mouthfeel is decent.

OVERALL: A forgettable unremarkable altbier, but not bad as a beer outside of style conventions, generally speaking. There's not much to say about it given its shallowness and simplicity. Certainly drinkable, but those expecting a really authentic great-tasting altbier will be let down. I'm glad this comes in a swingtop, because I'm resealing it to throw back in the fridge. Not a bad beer brew by any means, just woefully below par for an altbier.

C (2.81) / AVERAGE

This is an unfiltered German Alt bier - fairly unique as far as I know.

Served cool from 500ml flip-top bottle into straight pilsner mug.

A) Copper-brown, very hazy with quite a lot of bubbles. Big white fluffy head with good retention.

S) Not a lot to be honest, slight flat malt. Not that promising.

T) Slightly bitter roasted fruity malts with long faintly bitter / liquorice aftertaste. Pleasant.

M) Slightly fizzier than the standard alt. Aftertaste has a slight cloying quality.

O) One to try for Alt fans.

 

 

 

bottled and bottle conditioned
Pours a brown body with a tan head. Aroma of malt, toffee, caramel, nutty notes and light woody notes. Flavour is moderate sweet and bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

 

Lumpy head that leaves a lattice of lace. The color is a dirty amber, meaning there's plenty of haze.

The smell comes across quite earthy, which I find odd for the style. The malt is sweet and caramelized. No notable hop.

The initial taste mimics the smell. Soon, the hop shows up mildly for the finish, but not the aftertaste. Lots of molasses/maple syrup flavor from the under-fermented darker malts. The body is very full, almost to the level of a barley wine. The carbonation is average. The aftertaste is like a blend of barley wine and a brown ale.

 

50cl bottle best before 27/02/2011, served 2 times into my Im Fuchschen Alt glass.

A- Fantastic tan creamy head with excellent retention and average lacing. Body is a deep copper with expected slight cloudiness due to it being unfiltered.

S- A touch of pepper, noble hop, no real malt note.

T- The light hop presence is there but the malt never really gets going. No real toffee/ nuttiness. More like the hop bite dying in an anticlimax to a mild maybe very light caramel like medium dry finish, but you really need to search for it

M- Moderate mouthfeel, light texture, but perhaps a bit lifeless.

D- Its certainly easily sessionable like any good altbier! I think this particular bottle is really just past its prime. Will search out a fresh bottle and retry.

While still in the bottle that has an unusual dusty cellar nose. Stern and unforgiving nose. Fluffy fluffy lightish head on top of a pale fade yellow brown. Mixture of largish bubbles and fierce headingy and a fizziness to the taste. Fullish flavour but you don't really get much intergrataion. The elements don't really come together. Herby end. A bit dull to be honest.

1L flip-top bottle, almost a growler really. Best by 3/11. Two pours into Willibechers.

Pours a hazy chestnut brown with a fantastic head. Pillowy and thick, with clumpy lacing.

Aroma is clean and pleasant, with woody, toasted malt notes.

The flavor is very smooth and clean. Biscuity, toasty malts are at the forefront, with an almost smoky note in the background. Lightly sweet and tangy, but with a dry, bitter finish. Just the right amount of hops. Mouthfeel is exceptionally smooth, with creamy low-carbonation, almost real ale style.

Eminently drinkable. Probably the best classic Alt that I've had.

Neither an expert nor necessary a lover of the style but this was the best i ve ever had.

Chestnut cloudy brown colour with off white slightly creamy head.

Smell is malty and nutty very clean but some notes of aleyness.

Mouthfeel was a medium body with refreshing carbbonation but not prickly or even sparkling.

This actually went down very well

From a swing-topped, one-liter bottle, this beer pours a rich mahogany color with a nice, tan, wispy head. Not bad looking at all. The aroma is mostly malty, with more than expected roast character. Dark, nutty and musty aroma. Some herbal hops as well. The taste is semi-sweet with lots of bitterness. The bitterness is lingering and enjoyable. Medium body with relatively low carbonation. Good brew.

50cl Brown flip-top bottle, with 5 months life left according to the rear label.

This is the beer that saved the brewery. They were going through a rough patch some years back (everyone around their area was drinking Hannan and Diebels Alt), so they re-introduced this original, unfiltered alt and it took off in a big way. I did a brewery trip back in the 90's and was told this while there.

I still have an original Bolten Ur-Alt glass and I used that when reviewing the beer.

Just as how I remembered it, a cloudy amber colour with a huge creammy coloured head, sparkling yet moody looking.

The aroma is a mix of hops, malts and peat fires rolled into a brown, toasted ham sandwich.

I think the suggestion of roasted/burnt malts take the beer to a higher plain than the aroma in the flavour stakes, and it has is a lovely rich log fire feel to it.

Very, very drinkable. The best Alt in the world? Could well be, I'll be ording some more, that's for sure.