German craft beer

Tony, that pictures was taken a couple of moths ago. The hop plant is German Nugget; it has tons of hop cones on it right now. In a few weeks I will be making a wet hopped Harvest Ale. Last year's Harvest Ale turned out awesome. I was boiling the wort as I picked the hops; it doesn't get fresher that that. Woo-Hoo!

Cheers!

 

I've had that a few times, although it's been a couple of years. It was okay as a lawnmower beer. Better than BMC.

 

They weather is warm, sunny and dry after a week of rain, cool and crappiness. So, fresh with a few hours to kill on a Friday lunchtime, I stopped by Naïv bar and thought I'd try a new (for me) German Craft Beer. The menu hadn't changed since my last venture there, and I'd already had all the Braukunstkeller range, already had the Hans Müller's (Backbone Splitter), but I really wanted an IPA, so I looked further down the menu and realized I'd never had any of the Crew Republic beers out of München. Here's their website, so you can see their line-up, all of which Naïv has on the menu save the Experimental 2.0. The webpage for each beer doesn't say anything more than what's on the back of the bottle labels; thus, a barebones copy-wise webpage that doesn't offer any more information on their beers.
I had the... Crew Republic Drunken Sailor IPA. 6.4%, 58 IBUs.


Nice looking label, clean, easy to read fonts and the top label distinguishes which beer of theirs you're getting. I also like they prominently put München on the bottom of the label. The top has an interesting rating system that carries over to their website, but it's noticeably only English.


Don't forget, using English in advertisements and commercials makes you and hence your product cool in Germany.

The back label is exactly what's on the website, and to me sounds hokey and full of market-speak; nevertheless, it does explain to the non-in-the-know German, who probably has no clue what Craft Beer is, what an IPA is, what it's origins are and since they're marine driven images they describe it, easily explains why they call it Drunken Sailor IPA, all in German.
The line that's either the best or worst, depending on my state of inebriation I guess, is the last sentence: "Drunken Sailor IPA brings this adventure and it's (IPA from old) powerful taste into the 21st century... ship ahoy!"
Props to them though for listing their ingredients.

Ingredients listed:
Malts: Pils, Münchner and Karamellmalz
Hops: Herkules, Citra, Cascade and Simcoe.

Appearance: Dirty, dark amber with tints of brown but closer to a deep, dark burnt orange, which is under a snow white head that dissipated quickly but is continually refreshed from bubbles below.

Aroma: A nice stiff initial whiff of C-hops, lemon, citrus, grapefruit, melon, and some underlying Pils and Münchner malts, which manifest themselves as toasty and caramel. Not bad, could be a tad stronger but it’s a wonderful aroma meeting the nose.

Flavor:
Front: mmmm… nice bitterness but more in the comfortable category. With Herkules listed, I expected it to punch me slightly more, yet you still feel it slightly, especially the more it sits on the front of the tongue. You also get citrus and a decent jab of tartness, a telltale sign of Pils malts. Also there’s tropical fruits floating around.

Mid: Here you get the punch of bitterness that Herkules brings, but again, subdued. Not sure if it was meant to be almost mild, but it’s verging towards that direction though it’s still noticeable. Here you get orange, grapefruit and some tartness. On the sides, there’s more caramel and lots of tropical fruits, though it’s not overpowering.

Back: More of what was in the Mid-section: a decent but not a super-noticeable threshold, C-hops and lots of caramel with tartness combined. Here it tastes like an West-coast version, but you still get the German malts coming through.

Aftertaste: Here is where the Herkules wakes up and says it’s there, for the grassy, earthy bitterness is heavy, but again not overpowering. Along with that, you get tartness and a slight caramel aftertaste.

Overall: It’s a really good IPA. Lots of C-hop goodness with some a little Herkules noticeable if you know to look for, but it’s almost too subdued for my taste. Herkules is a heavy, carpet-bomb of earthy, grassy bitterness at 17+% A.A. and it’s easy to go overboard with it, as I have in my homebrew, but it’s also a distinct new German hop and I feel it could’ve played a larger role in this beer. The German malts are also evident, though more the Pils malt and it’s tartness and underlying toasty and bready flavors, though again, though here the toasty and tart flavors are strongest. The caramel of this beer is also apparent but more or less balanced by tartness and toasty flavors. They work together well but the tartness is also too much at moments.

I really want to love this beer but it’s like something’s holding me back. It’s got all the pillars of what should make it a great beer, but something is shaking the foundation & keeping it unstable. I definitely tastes like a German IPA, but either it needs more of some of the flavors or to showcase one or more. This might be a case where “balanced” verges on a loss of excitement. It’s, nonetheless, just under the threshold of being a wow-beer, though the more I drink, the more lulled I get to its charms. Again, it’s a very good German IPA, and I’m happy it’s on the menu here at Naïv, but with Braukustkeller's Amarsi IPA and the Backbone Splitter IPA on the menu, it doesn’t compete. Next time I’m here I’ll try Crew Republic’s other beers and see how they are.

 

Tony (@boddhitree) it seems like you are registering some ambivalence about Drunken Sailor IPA. On occasion I find that a second drinking experience is helpful. I recently bought a case of the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp beers (beers collaboratively brewed between Sierra Nevada and a dozen other breweries). I drank one of the collaborative beers and I was uncertain about it. The next day I drank the second bottle and upon further pondering of the two experiences I concluded that I really liked that beer.

The majority of the time I am able to completely formulate my opinion of a beer with one beer (12 ounces or greater) but sometimes I need multiple drinking experiences to reach a final conclusion for me.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Tony ( @boddhitree ) we were up in FMM this past weekend and we hit up Naïv based on your recommendation. We were not disappointed by the 50+ beers on their menu. The food was a wee bit on the spendy side, but well prepared and tasty!

We finished out visit off with a couple Crew Republic Roundhouse Kicks (the wife loves her 9%+ abv stouts).

 

@boddhitree - Thanks for your great reporting on Naïv! I'll definitely have to hit that place up the next time I break away to Frankfurt (and Braustil as well...).

Full disclosure: I quite like Drunken Sailor. It came together nicely for me. Having said that, it was a shadow compared to their DIPA: "7:45 Escalation DIPA". Looking at the Naiv website, I notice that they don't have it (or it's not listed...), which is a shame, but I would definitely recommend giving it a try if you see it. I've had it a couple of times now, and for me (and obviously personal tastes vary), it's the best German DIPA I've run across: it hit my personal sweetspot for IPAs dead-on. Now I just need to find that Backbone Splitter IPA...

 

I can vouch for 7:45 Escalation DIPA - that is an excellent brew that will more than probably tickle your IPA taste buds.

 

Naïv



Rhein River sights:

 

@boddhitree Thanks for that review of Crew's Drunken Sailor. I just bought a bottle of it today and will try it over the weekend. It's been a while since I've had one of their's. That was before they changed their design and (slightly) name.

 

I will definitely hit up some of the Crew bier later this month. Also, Liebick Getrankmarkt posted on FB that they just got Backbone Splitter.... woohoo!

Prosit!

 

Nothing like fresh homebrewed beer!

Prost!

 

I really gotta hit up that Naiv pub in FFM at some point, possibly when I manage to get to the Musikmesse at some point. Been wanting to go for some time but either schedules or finances ruined it.

There's also going to be small local brewery in my new hometown (Trier) that goes by the name of Kraft Bräu which some people I met in Trier while I was looking at flats were vouching for, it's one of those brewpubs that locally distribute their stuff. Their core range consists of a Helles, Dunkles and a Weizen (which I think are all unfiltered) and a wide array of seasonals. I will definitely be checking out their stuff and repot back on it.

 

Amusing story:

A couple wks ago I was in Washington DC for work and one evening I happened to get over to ChurchKey (http://www.churchkeydc.com) for a few highly overpriced brews. Anyway, we were into our second round and a couple in their mid 50's comes in and sits next to us at the bar and I picked up their German accent immediately. So I asked where they were from and they said, Frankfurt. I mentioned I was up there a couple weeks ago for a weekend of site seeing along the Middle Rhein and asked if he liked (I hate this word) craft beer? He said he was trying it out. I asked if they had make it to Naïv in Frankfurt and they said they never heard about it but were very familiar with the area it is located in. I hope they make it there, just amusing they had to learn about it from someone in DC. heh.

Amusing side note: In talking to them, the husband kept correcting my German pronunciation of every German word I said - in typical German fashion. It is a particularly annoying trait I come across here in Germany all the time, but hey, I get it. So, I turned the table and started correcting his English - IPA was "India Pale Ale" and not "Indian Pale Ale" for example. Normally when I am corrected in Germany I let it slide and I don't bother to correct the local's English (like the butchering of the word clothes for example), but hey... turn about is fair play I say.

 

Well, to make a bit of case for us Germans: Native English speakers do have the tendency to butcher German pronunciation. When I was in Florida for two months I met one person who properly pronounced "Rammstein" (mostly the "stein" part)

 

Oh, I totally get it. I grew up in New Mexico (I'm a Burqueño) where Spanish words are used as place names everywhere and we love to correct "anglos" from back east every chance we get.

 

Haha, I can see that. I always had a good laugh when my buddy Wylie mispronounced "Kahlúa". I honestly also have to wonder how someone from New Mexico ends up living here.

I mean from a beer point of view there's lots of good stuff going on over there.

 

We still have out home there, but are here for a few years working and seeing the sites.But, there is truly no place like New Mexico. It has it all, from high mountains to desert.. and only 2 million people.

Photo taken about 10km from my house in ABQ:


Our back yard (makes a perfect backdrop for NM beer pix) :



... I love the view from the back of our house in ABQ:

 

Sweet digs.

Those pictures are just further fueling my desire to make cross country trip through the U.S. at some point, quite a few gorgeous places to see. (Plus I love travelling and meeting all kinds of different people with different attitudes/customs and seeing places)