Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

Thank you very much for the compliment. I spend a decent amount of time on these reviews. I think about an hour or more is usual. I simply have read a lot of other reviews and used ideas and words I saw. Also, I try to really taste the beer in different parts of the tongue, an exercise which allows me to really appreciate the subtleties of different flavors that I normLly don't notice when I drink it in one quick swallow. I find everyone has a different palate and I'm simply describing what I believe I taste. Now, some of the descriptions I use may be from having degrees in English & German Lit., and an active imagination, but also from my experience as a language teacher where I try to explain grammar in ways that are easily understandable intellectually and emotionally. I believe anyone can write good reviews if you take the time to swish the beer around in certain parts of the tongue for a long enough time until some idea of what the tongue is sensing pops into the mind. By doing the swishing thing and really searching for flavors, I believe I've begun to train my palate to be aware of subtle flavors I normally would miss or basically not register. Often, as we all well know, a beer can taste different depending on a million environmental or psychological factors; however, one thing I do is ALWAYS to the review with beer at room temperature. That way, you don't miss any of the subtle malt or other flavors that cold cover up. Also, a warmer beer can't hide any flaws. Also, I have certain prejudices, such as finding a complex flavor profile far more interesting that one note wonders, something I think many Amrican IPAs are guilty of. A complexly built flavor spectrum in a beer allows you to continue my discover new things in it every time you drink it, allowing maybe one flavor to come to fore depending on what you've eaten before, or what mood you're in. Anything you perceive with your senses, whether it's food, music, what we read or even the clothing we wear, all of that is filtered through the uniqueness of your experiences that what you perceive has as much to do with the thing being perceived as it does with the enjoyer. I just wish I had a better memory for what I've tasted before and were able to compare better past taste experience with present ones.

I hope this is a small insight in how I (and I believe anyone can do) do the reviews & why I enjoy writing these reviews. It's not only for the likes, or any praise I garner, though I really love and crave both; rather, I do it as a Buddhist-like exercise to really get to know and understand the beers I'm drinking. I learn so much about why I like or dislike certain beers, and that in itself is worth the effort.

 

I never got around to reviewing Pax Bräu's February beer, 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 Anderas Seufert at BrauKunstLive in exchange for giving him my home-brew.
First, here's a picture of the bottle and the beer side-by-side:


And a close up of the bottle:

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. Here's another picture as a close-up. 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.

 

I forgot to mention he calls this beer a DOPPEL-WIT on the Bierkalender.