Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

I'll tell you more about the other Camba Bavaria beers when I drink them.

I would skip buying the Braufactum beers. I've had a few of theirs, and though good, they make very expensive versions of beers you can get in the USA.

Pax, however, makes beers you can't get anywhere. If they still have them for sale, the Lakritz Oatmeal Stout, the Fasenöchter Doppelbock Hell, the Märzen and of course the Cissy IPA are all unique beers, for they mix both German and American ingredients. Pax's standard Vollbier is also a nice Amber slightly smoked beer. The Best Bitter is also a interesting take on a Märzen/English Bitter mix. But that all depends on what you can find in the store. Except for the Vollbier, he only brews 1000L batches for the "Bierkalender" series once a year.

 

I was thinking… how about setting up as a not-for-profit, giving away any profits to a charity, like teaching inner city kids, no… I mean men, how to brew beer? Come to think about it, they might be alcoholics already, so… maybe for breast cancer? Or move to Germany.

 

Yes, the last one, and this next one are both 0.5L.


Today's Camba Bavaria beer is the Nelson Weisse. On the bottle, no mention made of use of Nelson Sauvin hops, but it does on their website.
It states:

So...

• unfiltered Helles Weizenbier
• pure top fermenting yeast
• special NZ aroma hops
• Fruity aroma like grapes, gooseberry in the first sip, the taste is balanced, strong and spritzy, reminding you of white wine; aftertaste is clearly flowery hop notes.
• Brewed from the recipe of our brewmaster martin Maier from Bad Tolz.
• 5.2% ABV, 12.8 Plato
• Available all year.

They also mention that

Art first a aroma of flowers and freshly mowed glass to grapes, gooseberry and also a whiff of Kiwi in the nose. It consists of exciting opposites between flowery, fruity notes and malty, helbal impressions.
Now to drink it.
Aroma is indeed grassy, some gooseberry as advertised, or is it marakuja, a slight horse blanket thrown in too, almost like a Saison. WOW, this beer is really aromatic; I could sniff on this all day.

The front gives you prickliness like a champagne, but also a substantial foundation of bitterness,… yum! The middle is more bitterness, but not Noble hop-like, no, much a more fruity bitterness with slight orange and lemon thrown in. Yep, this has got good ol' Nelson Sauvin stamped all over the tongue. In the back, and going into the aftertaste, you get the dryness of a Weizen, the maltiness and sweetness of Pils and München malt quit strongly. The lovely thing for me is all the cloves and bubblegum isn't present at all! Yummy. Folks, it's a WOWOWOW beer.
I had the Sorachi Ace from Brooklyn, but this is a hundred times better. It's a mix of a Märzen, Wheat without the sweet bubble gummy or cloves spiciness, grassy, flowery, fruity, just bursting the flavors onto your tongue. Bierman9, if you see this in a shop, buy it, drink it and write if you like it as much as I do. I like it even more than Schneider Weisse's Mein Nelson Sauvin Tap X because it has a thicker, maltier flavor that envelops you in feelings of a Märzen, but also gives you a powerful burst from the Nelson Sauvin, yet it's not extreme, it's a humble mix that fits together perfectly.

 

Now to Camba Bavaria's version of a Dunkel.

Well, it's dark, deep amber in color, slightly cloudy from being bottle conditioned. The aroma is lots of Münchner malt and not much else. The flavor has some but not much bitterness up front. It's extremely roasty (no, NOT toasty) in flavor and very sweet in a caramel, Münchner malt fashion. In fact, it's almost too sweet at the end of the glass, but still, it's a very nice beer. Their website says it should have a slight coffee aftertaste, but the sweet caramel, malty, roasted flavors overpower that for me. The mouthfeel is typically thick and gemütlich for a Bayernbier. Overall, a nice beer, but not my favorite of their lineup.

 

mmmm... it was closer to a Schwarzbier, and if the alcohol were removed, you could've passed it off as a Malzbier. alcohol You can order the Mixpaket here. It's a good deal, I think, so that's what I did.

Now to Camba Bavaria's Märzen. Since the Dunkel had a lot of qualities of a Märzen, I thought I'd just jump into their Märzen to compare them.

On the website, they say the beer was fermented in open vats and lagered in flat tanks. It's also available only September to December, and they say:

Which I translate as:

First, notice they use Wies‘n-Märzen and second, that this is supposed to kind of a mix of older and modern versions of this style.

So... as you can see in the pic, it's quite dark, very deep amber with more orange tints.

The aroma is exactly the same as the Dunkel - München malt - yet this has hints of Noble hops lingering behind the malt smell. The flavor isn't as strongly tilted roasted malts as the Dunkel. In the front you get a tartness that is verges on containing bitterness but really doesn't hit you over the head. The middle is full bore caramel malts from Münchner malts mixed with a Pils malt dryness, thus restraining and not letting the sweetness overtake the senses. In the back, as to be expected in a Märzen, it's all malt but also a hint of bitterness. It's a very round sweetness, not cloying, not sugary, rather just like you're sucking on a roasted caramel bon bon. At 5.6%, this clocks in exactly within the range for this style. The mouthfeel is really thick, heavy but not vinous nor burdensome, instead, it's a nice blanket of Gemütlichkeit sliding around the mouth, thick enough that you feel the heft of a sublime serious while letting it slide around the mouth. You can literally feel a respect for and investment in quality ingredients. Finally, the aftertaste is even more sturdy malts but then you feel that tartness as a slight kick, almost forcing your arm to reach for the glass again. However, what I like best about it and makes me like it more is the mouthfeel. This beats a lot of Märzens I've had before simply on this point. "Sturdy" really is the best adjective here, like it's a long lost friend to depend on: not too flashy but hits all the right notes to relax you from all of life's stresses. Really, that's what this beer feels like. It's simply a balanced taste of malts and some tartness that verges on bitterness. This is a real October beer, for the times when the cool fall winds need a buffer from a thick blanket of beer to keep you warm.

For a Märzen, this is a top 10, maybe top 5. The flavor is near the best of them, heavily weighted to caramel but not overly sweet, being balanced by a small bit of tartness.

 

You're probably right. I looked it up in 3 different sources and it still didn't make sense. Yours makes better sense.

 

For a German bar/restaurant, that's a HUMONGOUS menu. Wish I knew a place with that kind of beer menu in FfM.

And... it's already on my agenda for BrauKunstLive in Feb. 2014.

 

Here's the next Camba Bavaria beer: Jager Weisse. First, notice it's not jÄger, as in Jägermeister. On their website, they call it both a "Die Jäger Weisse hat eine…" and "Jager Weißbier hell passt hervorragend…" Thus it's confusing, but only they know, eh? Jäger means hunter, hence the deer on front. The site also states it's available only from May to September, so a seasonal summer offering.



Well, the color is orange-yellow with hints of amber. It's cloudy, but it's not overly so, making it neither a Hefe- or Kristalweizen.

The aroma is typical Weizen: cloves, banana and bubblegum. The front of the tongue is slightly sour and a tad bitter… like that. No sweetness up front. The middle gives over to wheat flavor, again a slight sourness and bitterness, and an intense dryness, which is from the wheat. Yet the mouthfeel is also thick as a warm blanket… so dryness and thickness… again, what more could you want. So far, no banana or bubblegum or anything in this direction, but then in the back… whoa… it's all malt sweetness, LOTS of Pils malt flavors, with banana, little cloves, and lemon too. I'm getting almost zero bubblegum in the flavor except ever so slightly in the very back and aftertaste. The website claims to have apricot and yes, towards the back end I'm getting that. I doubt I would've noticed it had I hot read the website, but now that it's in my conscious awareness, I can really taste it.

So… what do we have? Overall, I love that it's got almost zero bubblegum flavor, for that's always a turn off for me. To me, they're using a yeast not typical of your big Fernsehbiere, maybe a proprietary yeast or one taken from a recipe of brewer Eckhard Kurbjuhn, who has an interesting article about him and a German brewery in Pittsburg. It's a above average Weizen, quite malty and great mouthfeel.

 

Got 2 more Camba Bavaria's side by side to compare and report on. The 1st is the Helles, which is 4.9%. Their site said what makes this beer special is that it's bronze, not typical for the style, it's fine yeast cloudiness, and its "angenehme Bittere," or "pleasant bitterness." The cloudiness is put down to "...bleiben ihm viele natürliche Eiweiß-, Hefe- und Hopfenbestandteile erhalten."
Or… "natural protein, yeast and hops-solids remain." Another thing is they mention it's fermented in open vats and lagered in flat tanks.

Now to the real thing. The color is a very light orange, not quite bronze as advertised, but hints of red, too. It's slightly cloudy, not crystal clear, but it's still virtually transparent. I actually expected more cloudiness with what a big deal the website made of it.

The aroma is very malty, mostly Pils malts but additionally lots Münchner or roasted malts, which is quite unusual in a Helles. It's thick, as you'd expect, lovely mouthfeel as all Camba beers have exhibited.

The front has a tad tartness, the middle dry and full of malt flavor and some bitterness, but not sweetness. In back is where all the fun starts. You basically getting a Märzen-light here, by which I mean a lower slightly lower alcohol (0.7% less) and toned down München malts with extra Pils malts thrown in for balance. If they'd called it a Märzen, I'd believe it. It'd be a really weak Märzen, lacking in the malt bon bon flavor, but I imagine if Warsteiner made a Märzen, this'd be it. Nonetheless, it's got more bitterness in the back, too. I taste a slight grassiness of Noble hops. Overall, it's either a VERY-Märzen-light or a Müchner-malt infused Helles. It's not at all like a normal Helles, IMO, though it has the dryness and slightly more bitterness up front and in the middle. It's really, really good, verging on WOW, but what holds it back is it's almost too similar to the Märzen style. I wish they'd kept the Müchner maltiness, added more Pils like they've done, but slightly amp the Noble hops to give it more of a Helles character.

 

Now to Camba Bavaria's Pils, which its website has a lot to say about the Pils style and why this one is special.
First the German:

My translation:

Ok… enough marketing speak. Basically, they're saying this is an old-style Pils brewed like it was in
Plzeň, Czech Rep. It's 5%. Again, they mention t's fermented in open vats and lagered in flat tanks. All old school brews, here. Also, unlike all the others, this is in 0.3L bottle, but it's priced at €2.10 instead of €2.50 or €2.70, as the 0.5L beers are at Biershop Bayern are.



The color is typically straw golden, almost light gold, a little lighter than the average German Pils. It's also cloudy, though all they say about this is that it's unfiltered.

The aroma is also typically Pils with sweet Pils malts overloading the senses. It's also thick as all get out but still dry and thirst quenching.

The front has both sweet Pils flavors and some bitterness with a hint of sourness thrown in,... quite pleasing! The middle is more Pils malts and some bitterness, and in the back an explosion of Pils sweetness of toasted tastiness. It's got lots of Tettnanger bitterness back there, too. The aftertaste is something that lingers and lingers. These is no weak example of a Pils. I think the water they're using doesn't give it the softness and mellowness a beer from Plzeň, but it's got all the other qualities. It's got more of German Pils dryness and feels consequently harder, though still a thick round feeling, in the mouth. Now near the end of the glass, it's feeling almost too sweet, especially if you skip the front of the tongue, which makes me realize that the full tongue is required if you want to get the best out of this beer.

Overall, one of the better Pils in Germany, but not the best, still doesn't beat Kneitinger's, and it doesn't beat some other Czech beers I've had, such as Platan's Helles.

Damn, 7 of 9 gone (no Star Trek jokes, please), only 2 more left.

 

Thanks. I knew that was the most likely possibility, but I didn't want to presume. After all, the difference between a dialect and a language is usually an army, and since Bayern decided to give up it's own army to be subsumed into "Germany," it's Bayerisch is dialect rather than what it properly should be called: it's own language.