Räuberchen Blond
Spessart Brauerei GmbH

 

0,33l bottle, 'Frische- und Qualitätsgarantie Mindestens haltbar bis: 12.03.10' (basically, best by March 12th - good thing it's March 1st...). Poured to a pilsner glass. Danke sehr, meine BierFreunden Jeff und Tanja.

Fun label, a cartoon-ish 'hillbilly' not so slyly ogling the blond fräulein, both her fistful of beer steins and her bountiful bosom...

A: Golden, the finest hint of haziness cut by plenty of carbonation. Capped with a snow-white foam, a little over a finger high; five minutes of quiet fading and patchy lacing is left behind. Slim rings of seafoam after each sip.

S: Crisp, clean and dry - a crackery malt and honey fragrance. What briefly hinted at a 'skunky' sting at first whiff all but disappeared in the second and brightened into a floral perfume by the third.

T: Full-on 'biscuits', a malty and dry cake (lightly buttery oyster crackers?), yeasty with a cascade of balancing hop bitterness. At times, this seemed more pilsner-like - crisp and bright spice, dry bread crust - then more honey and doughy sweetness would relax things a bit.

M: Fizzy - not too carbonated, just a springy buoyancy. Light-medium body with a fine silty/velvet finish. Solid finish, spicy/clean hops end sharply.

D: Drinkability is through the roof - completely refreshing, light alcohol but plentiful flavor. A beer that seems to define 'springtime', and a fine example of the style. Dortmunders/blonds are rather tough to find out here on the West Coast; this came all the way from Germany and is highly appreciated, crave-worthy. Excellent stuff!

My wife just returned from Germany bearing gifts. Wotta gal. This beer's a regional favorite from Spessart (brewing since 1887) and elsewhere a rarity. The label is super old-school: busty blond frau serving mugs to a haggard mountain man, perhaps the "robber" noted in the name (Rauber means Robber), and rendered by a nine-year-old apparently!

Pours an extremely washed-out yellow, super-clear with a foamy bone-white head that leaves trickles of lace on the glass instantly.

Aroma is flowery hops, lemon, honey, fresh-baked white bread, earth. Crisp and clean.

Flavor gives a clean shot of all the aroma promises. The hops are crisp and vibrant, light honey isn't too sweet, lemon is mellow, the overall thing is bready and very much Marzen-like, with a healthy bit of earthy malt wrapped around all that, plus a fine hit of sulfur-like character. Finishes fairly dry and with flowery hops and bready malt balanced nicely and delicately on the tongue.

Ample carbonation makes room for a creamy roundness, and the carb-bubbles keep the mouth awake long after the swallow with a subtle fizz and pop here and there in the mouth.

Stupid drinkability here...this went down in about 5 minutes (a fraction of the time I usually take to drink any given beer), the alcohol level is almost negligible, and the flavor hits the spot. Solid, solid, solid...it's amazing how the Germans excel at seemingly simple flavors like this where the rest of the world usually totally f*cks it up, or goes for something more exotic.