Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

Wow... lovely video. I especially love the meat curing in the lagerkeller.

 

Took me awhile to get around to answering. Was working until 10 pm each evening plus fighting off the onsets of a flu, which I beat back.
1) Yeah, why wouldn't it? I find it gives it more from the deep integrated flavors, where the sugars, vanilla, cocoa and hazelnuts mix together when cooking/boiling them for longer. The post-fermentation add to flavors also, but also more to the aroma.
2) It wasn't sweet enough. It was kinda chocolaty, but not enough sweetness backbone. Next time I brew I need to make it sweeter, maybe using more milk sugars? I don't want a malty sweetness, though. The molasses flavors didn't come through enough last year.
3) There was not a strong hop character, almost barely noticeable, but it was there, for you could feel a counterweight to the malt flavors, which I find comes from hops. I didn't want just hop bitterness, but also some of the flavor as the counterweight to all the other flavors mixing together.
4) I've yet to find a malt that imparts a hazelnut flavor, or at least one I'm aware of. If you know of one, please tell me. So why not just use hazelnuts?

 

First off, I'd like to apologize to all the others here for our little side discussion; i really should've gone the private message route, but now that's here...
Second, Victory malt is completely unavailable in Germany, so I can't use it. Basta. Or not... as this thread at hobbybrauer.de in German attests. One person states one make one's own Victory by

Another solution offered is to sub Melanoiden malt gives more a caramel sweetness found in Märzen.

I use biscuit malt often and find it has more of a cookie/biscuit and not very nutty flavor. The biscuit malt I get is Belgian, from Brewferm, and I've never seen it described as having a hazelnut flavor. Again, why not go for the extracts?

 

Enough talk for me about theoretical beers, how about some real live beer under my nose.
While cruising through a larger REWE supermarket with an semi-attached Getränkemarkt, 2 beers caught my eye. These are not expected to be wow- or mind-blowing-beers; rather, they're unusual enough to warrant their inclusion here, as you'll see why soon.

First, a caveat. I'm not a marketing expert, but I studied art in college and marketing is just a way of selling the art you produce, whether it's an Oreo or Picasso, so one is a more cynical extension of the other.

First, we have Pfungstädter Privatbrauerei, a local for me for it's just south of Darmstadt, and in the same town of the well known, to me at least, Mahrun Getränkemarkt, self-described as the world's largest.

I wrote up their Pils in the Fernsehbier thread the winner against 3 other actual Fernsehbier, but I don't think I've done any of their other products. So when I saw this:

I was instantly interested.

These 2 pics are both sides of a 0.335L can. Yes, a CAN. Beers from cans in Germany have the same horrible reputation for contain bland to putrid tasting beers as the do/did in America, only more so because no "traditional" brewer would use anything but glass to showcase and sell his precious cultural asset. I've had this beer before, so this isn't like I'm shooting the moon or hankering for a unique "taste experience," or Geschmackserlebnis, as German beer marketers justly and aptly put it. By putting it in a can, and a SMALL can to boot, I'm not sure of their marketing intentions here, but the can is well named, the 0,355l Sleek Dose, or "sleek can." [These could lead into the hilarious, disturbing yet fascinating topic of Denglish words.] Not that anyone in German other than marketers would know what "sleek" in English means, but if you run it through dict.cc, my fav. online dict, you get translations into German words that come closer to:

1. glatt (smooth, even, and slippery [like ice]),
2. geschmeidig (smooth, flexible, supple, malleable), and
3. schnittig (stemming from Schnitt or cut: snappy, smart, streamlined.)

These terms indicate the marketing direction here and their attempt to modernize the image through subtle but in Germany immensely noticeable packaging. Now where have I seen this can before...? Red Bull, anyone? And here's the marketing in a nutshell: teens and 20-somethings will identify this beer as part of their generation, the Red Bull and vodka crowd and all the cultural connotations that has. The more I analyze this, the more I imagine seeing the marketing geniuses handiwork here, and you know what, I think it really is a stroke of genius.

Besides, a smaller can is perfect to hold while on the go, at a party, and just allows connotations of movement and freedom from having to drink a full half liter of beer from each container, or being stuck sitting on a bar stool in a smokey, shabby Eckkneipe ("corner bar", a traditional bar where one went after finishing factory work, conjuring up images of stodgy grandfathers with well manicured beer bellies.)

The next thing to notice is the language of color here.
Above is their regular color palate: red, green and gold. The regular 1831 Schwarzbier does have some black in the label, naturally, what else for a "black beer," eh? Here's their regular bottled version.

Black and gold predominate, but still, the normal red and green grab center stage on the label.
Thus, by completely ditching their trademark colors, and relying solely on black, white and gold, they're going for a edgier, hipper crowd, but using gold to link it still to some of beer's tradition and nobility.

Also, no feel good, Opa images of nature, water, hops, malts, horses, or any other tradition laced image that surely will turn off any hipster teen or 20-something. In fact, Pfundstädter doesn't use images on any of their labels, but that's another topic.

Before getting down to drink this beer, the whole point here, and this is what yanked my attention to it in the supermarket, is that here is a real attempt at marketing solely to a segment the beer industry is losing horribly today and likely never to get back for life, and need to win over if they plan on any longevity after the 40+ crowd die off. I've seen other, wilder marketing attempts to achieve the same aims to the same marketing demographic, such as Becks, the "first 6 bag for the women's night":

Or to the artistic and goofy at heart, which came from graphic designer-, artist- and customer-driven contests:



Or these, designed by rock bands:


I showed Warsteiner's attempt before:

and using aluminum bottles at a marketing tool:

----continued in next post----

 

I'm tired after writing, editing that marketing exposé; think I deserve a beer after all that mental gymnastics... oh yeah, I got the Pfungstädter Privatbrauerei's 1831 Schwarzbier on deck.

Here it is free and in the wild:

I hope you enjoy the irony of drinking it in a 0.2L Pilsner glass, too, from my girlfriend's hometown brewery.

Here's their marketing speak from their website:

It seems the copywriters didn't get the memo to update and hipster-ize their vocabulary.

Appearance: Despite the pic, there was a decent amount of foam, dirty white which dissipated eventually. It sits under a dark beer, not a black beer. It's very very dark amber, blackish orange, but not "black as night" as reported above. It's not "Guinness"or stout-like black, for light still can pass through it. Still, a nice dark amber beer color.

Aroma: Very malty: Pils, München, Roasted malts all jump out of the glass. It reminds of a Dunkeles and doesn't disappoint. There's a hint of hops in the back, but I know it only because the malts are balanced out somewhat in the nose and don't overpower, so though almost absent in the aroma, they're there if you know what to smell for.

Flavor: In the front, a determined Noble hop bitterness, not overpowering, light on the front of the tongue, but still demanding attention, mixed with a roasted flavor and the burntness of a blackened cajun chicken....yum.
In the middle, more bitterness, roasted malts and some lingering hints of burntness, it mixed with the sides, which get sweet roasted malts and Münchner malts, licorice and surgery. In the back there's intense malt sweetness, bready, toasted, a licorice or molasses, and a umami of black malt burntness again, all mixed, yet the sweetness becomes the focus. The aftertaste is another adventure in bitter-sweetness of roasted malts. Lovely beer. Overall, I remembered really liking this beer, and in the can, this beer seems really fresh today. I love the bitter-sweetness, the intensity of flavors... problem is... I can't decide if it's wow beer or not. I really really like it, but, ah what the hell, it's a WOW beer, and here's why: many f the Festbier and Märzen from Franken and Bayern were so sweet that it was a challenge finishing the bottle, yet this gem, though it lays on the München malt sweetness, uses roasted and black malts and bitter hops to nail an umami feeling that really calls you to drink more and more on a cold, dark winter day, or relax on the lawn in summer. It's that bittersweetness I keep coming back to that gives me a warm gemütlich feeling and a süffig feeling that makes you want more.