German craft beer

Or my poor typing and proof reading skills these days.
Hope the little article helped.

 

While y'all have been debating the follies of young-uns vs. old farts... or as I say, "youth is sadly wasted on the young," I've been hard at work drinking and writing up reports on actual beer.

I was at Braustil over the past 2 days, and plan to go again today if possible. They have an all new lineup this week, well, except for the Helles, which Sascha said always will be on tap. They have a Dinkelweizen, a Export Dunkel, and an....
Abbey Ale.



I was told yesterday that they're also bringing back, by overwhelming popular demand, the Oak Wheat, the Dark Weizen with Rauchmalz.

Back to the Abbey Ale. 5.5%
Appearance: Dark amber with lots of orange under a snow white head that disappears quickly.

Aroma: Sweet malts explode into the nose, honey, pils malt, caramel,... wow.

Flavor:
Front: Tartness is noticeable, a little bit of bitterness is evident, mostly of Noble hop variety, though not terribly strong, it's still smooth enough to balance the beer. There's a sugary sweetness in the very front, not much, but still evident. You also get a subdued caramel.

Mid: Again, bitterness, though still smooth, quite evident of Noble hops along with a decent tartness. On the sides, you get pale malt, light honey and a little caramel.

Back: Lots & lots of sweetness, especially honey, biscuit, toast and some lingering roasted flavor. A wee bit of bitter and tart notes surface here too.

Aftertaste: A combo of honey and bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Nice prickly bubbles bounce all over the tongue, a nice süffig, thick feel sliding around, but also a quite dry finish. Overall, a nice combo.

Overall: A wonderful beer. Malts I'm pretty sure are in the beer: Abbey, which has a tell-tale honey flavor, biscuit malt, pale malt, maybe some Münchner, too, for the caramel. This is a lovely beer, not a Belgian dubble, but a wonderful mix of honey, caramel, sweet almost sugary flavors, but never cloying or overwhelming due to a bitterness that's just enough to balance the beer and play a supprting role. You can call thus beer a luxurious wallow in different honey and caramel, but also refreshing, though it leans more toward the malt-sicle area. It has some German character as well as Belgian, and a super blend of both traditions mixed into 1 beer.

The guy who was working as the server and is now the brewer's apprentice told me the beer is one of the fastest sellers ever for them, and they haven't even had a chance to bottle it yet. I'm happy that Germans have taken to a "Belgian" style beer and even happier that Sascha has gone ever deeper into beer adventurism by trying this. Even though brewing a 500L batch isn't a cheap proposition, it's still a nice size to be able to experiment with.

My German friend/drinking companion said of all the 4 beers on the menu, the Abbey Ale was by far his favorite and one he wanted to go back to after trying all of them. He works for the DFB (Deutsche Fußball Bund, the German FA) and he hopes to bring some colleagues there, and they are part of the movers and shakers of the sports world, so good for Braustil. We were also hungry and had the Wurstplatte, sausage plate, from next-door's Wild-Schmidt, which was delivered to our table. Here's evidence of it with a variety of fresh German breads and minus a few pieces. Hope you enjoy this pic as much as the beer one.

 

Welcome back, nice to have another report from you! You see what happens to this forum when you're not around, people start getting all serious...

 

Spent the afternoon in Naïv, the bar I reported on twice before. I spent a great evening last Friday with some friends who work as flight attendants for an airline and he's based out of Vancouver. I met him at Braustil, and I promised him to take him to Naïv and an Äppler. We had some really wonderful beers but I didn't have the time nor energy to write up a report on them, so today I decided to go back on a warm sunny but for once not humid Saturday afternoon to try them again and write up a real report for them.

First some pics of my dog Lucky.




The first beer was the naïve Kellerbier. I took a pic of the menu here, and I've never heard of the "Privatbrauerei unseres Vertrauens," or Private Brewery of our Trust. I can't find anything about it on the internet, so next time I'm there I need to ask the staff more about it where it was brewed. They say it's their own house beer, and from the taste of this one, I'm intrigued. Last week I had both naïv Kellerbier and the naïv Bio Landbier, and the Kellerbier was the winner of those 2, which is why I came back to try it again and write a review to do it justice.


Naïv Kellerbier
5.1%


Appearance: Mostly black with hints of brown coming through where light strikes it, all under a tan, foamy head that lasts forever, a few millimeters on top just won’t go away even 10 minutes after the pour. caused by lots of action bubbling up from nucleation points on the bottom ⅓ of the glass, keeping the head continually refreshed.

Aroma: Lots of roasted malts, pils malt and caramel sweetness waft up into the nose. Also a hint of flowery hops under all that.

Flavor:

Front: Some bitterness, which seems to strengthen the longer it’s on the tongue. A hint of tartness, but mostly here is a light burnt flavor. You also get bready and roasted coffee notes.

Mid: More roasted, toasted, light burnt notes and an umami flavor. Againn, a low bitterness but still noticeable and nicely present balance to the huge roasted tastes that predominate. On the sides I get tartness and a slight acidic twang combined with even more roasted malt flavor.

Back: Wow, here finally comes a wave of pils malt sweetness intermingled with a pleasant and nuanced bitterness. You get sweet malt flavors, probably Wiener malt that never really breaks too far into the caramel region. Also present is a yeasty character,… so, it’s definitely a Kellerbier. Farther back, I get more tartness and a Pils malt feeling, but still retaining the roast malt as forefront with more sweetness.

Aftertaste: A light bitterness but mostly roasted malts.

Overall: WOW… really wow. A complex mix of Pils malts, roasted malts and maybe another like Wiener malt. It’s quite sweet but in a dark, subdued manner with a light balance of bitterness All those together never overpower you but instead lull you with powerful waves of flavor. A good 4.6 out of 5.

There food is good, too, such as this Alsace inspired Flammenkuchen with feta and some vegetarian red stuff.

 

Haha! Privatbrauerei unseres Vertrauens - the brewery we trust. Just a way of not telling where your house beer comes from while at the same time telling your customers it must be good !

 

The second beer I had today was the Backbone Splitter Westcoast IPA by Hans Müller Sommelierbier. What I've learned a them about them since I tried their Bayrische Nizza Clubbier. I wasn't that excited about that one, but the IPA was a revelation. The beer is contract brewed at Glaabsbrau, a small independent brewery in Seligenstadt, and sometimes at Schlappe Seppel or Heyland Brauerei in the Aschaffenburg area. Hans Müller Sommelierbier is a gypsy brewer, and the only reason I ordered the beer is because the waiter said it was his favorite. I was bowled over and had to come back and try it again and write up a review worthy of it.

But first some pics to show you what the place looks like and the interesting placards in front.


I sat next to this olive tree. The shade was nice and I drank my beer and had the Flammenkuchen under the tree to the left in the pic below.


Below you can see that the word "Craft Beer" is starting to catch on in Germany.


Here's the entry on the menu:


Here's the bottle of the Backbone Splitter Westcoast IPA. Notice the 6-pointed star which signifies Zoigl and the lion is a stylized version of the Hessen crest.


Notice the ingredients are listed on the back.




6.6%, 60 IBUs. Best By on bottle: March 01, 2015.

Appearance: Burnt orange to deep amber with a brilliant snow white head on top.

Aroma: Lots and lots of C hops… yes, you can smell the Amarillo and Simcoe, piney, grapefruit, citrus, every so slightly grassy and some caramel notes under that. WOW, a huge explosion of aroma.

Flavor:

Front: First, tons of bitterness,… yep, it’s likely Centennial and Amarillo hops, no Noble hop grassiness or hay or floweriness here. A very light tartness, probably a sign of the pils malts. Also, here you get the pure sweetness of malts on the very front of the tongue, followed by a round malt sweetness just a little farther back combined with a smack of citrus.

Mid: More bitterness, but never overpowering. This is followed by lots of citrus, some grapefruit, some melons and lots of caramel sweetness, obviously from the Münchner malt. I get even more lemon, grapefruit, more tropical fruit flavor, and man it hits home.

Back: More of what was mentioned in the Mid-section, but here the beer could impersonate a Märzen, lots of sweetness, caramel, some light tartness tartness and a decent jab or 2 of bitterness across the tongue.

Aftertaste: My, you’re left with a super long lingering bitterness with slight waves of citrus and caramel.

Mouthfeel: Oh my, so süffig, verging on creamy and enveloping in cozy thickness of a Bayrische malt-blanket.

Overall: Oh my, I love this beer. If you told me this beer was really from the West Coast, I would've both believed you and not believed you. For the hops part, it absolutely nails the West Coast IPA character: super C-hoppy, huge amounts of tropical citrus and fruits, melons, and bitterness that though it bites you and doesn’t let go, it never overpowers. That part feels like Cali, but then you get loads of caramel and other malt sweetness that most West Coast IPAs can’t even touch because they mainly use (abuse?) Caramalts or crystal malts and haven’t discovered the wonderfully complex sweetness of of Münchner and Wiener malts. Add to that some Amber malt for color and light malt sweetening effect of a slight roastedness with caramel, and you could pass this beer as a Märzen, well, only if you ignored all the hop flavors. So what we got is a wonderful mix of IPA & Märzen. This is a WOWOWOW beer. I actually prefer this beer to a real West Coaster because the caramel and other malts balance the hops to give it a helluva lot more complexity and thus wonder to keep you coming back again and again. If it were like a Cali beer, I’m sure the hops would overpower all the other flavors and render them mute, whereas here this beer gives you an immense number of flavors to bounce around with. Most German attempts at an IPA either are too hoppy, too malty or just not enough of any of those. This beer nails the immense and intense hop experience while still allowing the Märzen character to shine through.

My ranking of German-made IPAs are now 1) Pax’s Cissy IPA, 2) Backbone Splitter IPA & 3) Braukunstkeller’s Amarsi IPA.

 

Tony (@boddhitree) I can certainly understand your love for Backbone Splitter IPA since that beer has what you seek from a mouthfeel and malt backbone perspective. This is a great ‘find’ for you!

I took note of: “Best By on bottle: March 01, 2015.” Do German craft breweries typically list such a long timeframe for their beers? A timeframe > 6 months for a hoppy beer is not appropriate IMO.

Cheers!

 

/////

That's I thought. The beer was awfully fresh tasting, though. I know they were out of stock just last week, and they're back in stock, so they must've got a fresh shipment.

 

Just a small correction: the 6-pointed-star doesn't necessarily signify a Zoigl. It's an old symbol of the German brewers' guild originating from the Middle Ages. You will still find it on many breweries' labels still even today, e.g. Maisel's or Pfungstädter. The same star hanging out from the Zoigl-Kommunbräus in the Oberpfalz just signifies an open brewery's bar just as a wreath of leaves (or the Bembel outside the bars in Hessen) signifies an open wine-bar at the vintner's.

 

And quite a few Zoigl-Stuben use other symbols to signify they are open.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to add the Hans Müller Sommelier beers to the BA list. I'm stumped. Any suggestions and help would be appreciated. Rate Beer has it, so why can't I register it here?

 

Great review. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Hoppebräu's Vogel Wuid. I know it's not easy to find, but hopefully you'll get down to München soon.

 

Looks like you had success getting the brewery added. Here's a link to instructions on adding beer. You may want to have all of the specifics on hand as you start adding beers.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-add-beers-on-beeradvocate.193134/

 

I added Backbone and Dreistern.... based on ratebeer info... let me know if anything is out of order...

Prosit!!

 

Ok, was successful in adding Naïv, but now how do I hard their house beers? Do they need to added separately?

 

You ought to be able to add them the same way you did with the others.

BTW -- based on your description (...there was no bubblegum, no cloves, nor spiciness.), I'm betting the Nizza ought to be listed as a Pale Wheat Ale, not a Hefeweizen.

 

I don't see a button to add a beer in Naïv, do you?

I sent a change request to take care of that.

 

Ahh -- I see what you did. You added Naïv as a "Place," not a brewery. I believe that, since they brew on premise (right?), you can add it into breweries as a brew-pub. If they are having beer brewed for them, I think you have to add those beers into that particular brewery's list.

 

They're not a brew pub nor do they brew on premise, so that's not possible, right? They are not a brewer, I think; they contract out the brewing. I need to stop by their place and ask about that, but it's still a mystery to me how to add their own beers. Should we simply make up a brewery so we fit into BA's classification system?

I informed Naïv that I added them here and on Rate Beer on FB, and they responded with a nice short note.