Is German beer really THAT good?

The flavored ones didn't really impress me, the regular one is ok and drinkable in my opinion, but it certainly made me pine for Bruery Hottenroth and Bayerisch Bahnhof

 

This must be the per liter price and not per bottle, which costs about half that.

Yeah, Ayinger is a hard one to find. I think it has to do with the distributors being owned by the conglomerate brewers, none of whom really want to give Ayinger a shot at competing with them, or so it seems. Ayinger and other delicious beers can be ordered online via various outlets, Biershop-Bayern being one of them.

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/345/1010/ is the first one that comes to mind...

 

Joke/irony? If so well played sir.

If serious - no I'm afraid that's not really helpful at all.

And I'm curious - why do Scottish beers come out ahead of English beers? I'm Scottish so am grateful for the praise bestowed upon my country, but I prefer think more collectively in terms of "British" beers. Do you prefer certain Scottish breweries after travelling there, or is this based on the "Scottish styles" according to BA? Because if you walked into my village local back in Scotland asking for a Wee Heavy or a Gruit, people would probably be rolling around on the floor crying with laughter. Is your flow chart of "best beers" really something like:

American beers > Westy & Cantillon & 3F & Rochefort > Mikkeller & Evil twin > De Molen & Emelisse > Orkney Skullsplitter and Dark Island Reserve & Founders Dirty/Backwoods Bastard (this one is from an American brewery fyi) > Dieu de Ciel & Unibroue > English beers (usual suspects available in bottle shop)> German beers (usual suspects available in bottle shop) > Mexican beers (just because).

 

Most bottles, with the largest being the 50cl where in the 1.20 - 1.50 range at just a local getrankes that I saw. They might have been cheaper at the grocery store, but I can't recall, but a bottle was normally a Euro something.

The only cheapest beer I bought was a .90 euro cent bottle of Spreewalder pils outside Lubbenau which of course was smaller..

at least that's what I remember seeing and buying. It sure is a heck of a lot cheaper than here!

Interesting that it's easier to find Ayinger here stateside than some places in Germany.

 

When I first came here in 2007, I was definitely guilty of this. How wrong I was....

 

“Interesting that it's easier to find Ayinger here stateside than some places in Germany.”

Based upon posts in the Germany forum threads you could replace “Ayinger” with a myriad of other German brewery names (e.g., Mahr’s, Schlenkerla, etc.).

The ‘work around’ that some of the German forum folks use is to order beers online and have them delivered to their homes.

Cheers!

 

Not to harp on this, but are you sure you weren't looking at the per liter price? Many, if not all, places will show the cost per liter so I'm wondering if you maybe looked at the wrong price. "Standard pils" like Beck's would be around €0,90 per 500 ml at a Getränkemarkt and cheaper in a grocery store. Something like Hasseroder ("industrial swill", so to speak) would be maybe €0,60-€0,65 per 500 ml bottle. Unless things have drastically changed in the two months since I've been in Germany. Although I haven't been to Berlin in maybe over a year, I did get to Berlin several times in my four years and found their beer prices to be about on par with HD.

Ha, yes, well it also depends on your definition of "easy". Once you know how to find it, you can have fresh Ayinger delivered straight to your door by the box-full. That's pretty easy to me!

 

yeah exactly... come to think of it the same applies for Heller - Trum here stateside too

It all makes sense now...

 

It's kind of hard for me now to say since it's not as fresh in my mind as it was a week ago, cause I definitely remember seeing at least at say a kiosk, or small store with the Euro 1 in front of the prices for the big bottles (500ml), I grabbed a Rothaus and a Volbier and it was about 3 something at the till I am pretty sure...

hmmm I am really curious now and think I need to go back to get my change!

 

Doing so is not only convenient, cheap, and quick, but also all but guarantees that you are getting product that is exceedingly fresh. No more wondering how long the stuff sat in transit or on the store shelves.

 

Sorry, but i I'm just stating my experiences.

Depends very,very much on where you live. My local Getränkemarkt where I used to live, in Bayreuth,Franconia, had .besides a huge Braufactum display , one display dedicated to "craft"stuff, like Pyraser Herzblut,Schneider TAPX, Veldensteiner Bierwerkstatt, Maisel&Friends, and so on. Maisel&Friends you can get EVERYWHERE there-at Rewe/Edeka, in all better Getränkemärkte, i even found it at a GASS STATION!!! And the the Maisel&Friends Line consits of a Weizenbock, a Stout and an IPA. Plus they had stuff like Mainseidla Porter and so on.

Ok, i have to admit, were I now live, it is not THAT great. its mainly a place for excellent wines, but still: Some Getränkemärkte have Kraft Bräu IPA from time to time. A Getränkemarkt a 15min trainride has Vulkan IPA und Pale Ale.
In every Biomarkt I've been in the last 2 years or so, there was Doldensud IPA (which includes places like cologne,berlin,leipzig, dresden,munich,but even some laid back towns...).
I Even can remember going to a small wine botique in Mainz, where they had some locally produced craft ales I havent seen bevore.

And things have allso changed a lot in normal stores!! Very often you see for instance the Köstritzer Meisterwerke Serie pop up in REWES! And they include a Pale Ale and a witbier!

In cologne and sorroundings,you can get Gaffel Sonnenhopfen (which in my eyes is a perfectly good Lawn Mower kinda Pale Ale) nearly everywhere- Rewes,Getränkemärkte,Kiosk, you name it.

And many breweries follow. In Berlin, you can get the CREW Ales at certain Rewes.
Maybe Frankfurt is especially behind the trend, i can't tell. Haven't been there for 4 years except for changing trains or getting flights. I adore properlymade Ebellwoi though

I never been to the USA I have to admit,I drank several US ales, but how the distribution of them is- no Idea.
I still remember a time when no one in Germany produced an IPA. Now a lot of breweries, small and big, do, and as I said, there are getting more widely aviable every day when you look at the bigger picture. Would you have told me back in 2006 i would one day be aviable to go to german Bierfestivals or get IPA at a Biosupermarkt everyhwere, I would not have believed you.

 

I've had Pilsners in Germany and Prima Pils over here. I'll take the German Pilsners first.

On the other hand, there is this one, @herrburgess: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/11017/12679/

 

So, let me get this straight -- you put Danish and Dutch beers ahead of Scottish, English, and German beer? Yeah, I'm gonna take that seriously.

 

Everything I post is largely sarcastic. But your brewery flowchart is largely correct.

Scottish beers being Brewdog. I've been impressed with most of the stuff Ive had from them. I think besides Brewdog, I've only had Ola Duba. Havent traveled there and sampled the local flavor.

And yes, usual stuff in amercan bottle shops for England - meantime, fullers, courage. Although I have had a Good King Henry Special Reserve, which was amazing.

 

Ive only had a handful of Danish and Dutch beers, but I'll put Mikkeller and De Molen above anything from Britain or Germany.

 

Yeah that's what I was afraid of - all great breweries no doubt, but also all breweries that brew either US style "craft" beer, and/or are part of the prerequisite "list of international breweries that must be shown respect due to the fact they make styles that US beer geeks lap up"

Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

 

I haven't been keeping up with the thread, but it feels like the conversation went from "is German beer really that good" to "do German breweries produce as wide a variety of beers as U.S. breweries," which are two different questions, although I see the relation.

I've only been to Germany twice, and each time I was so overwhelmingly overjoyed to be drinking such amazing, traditional beers from the the source (dear gawd, I just can't imagine any experience here in the U.S. matching the experience of enjoying Schlenkerla at the source in Bamberg) that I didn't go too much out of my way to find anything else. Why? I was in beer ecstasy. But in this spirit...:

...I definitely noticed that there were small craft breweries popping up. The only one I remember off the top of my head was Hops and Barley in Berlin, which at the time was okay, nothing overwhelmingly good, but seemed promising. And the owner was so excited about beer and the then-barely-nascent craft beer scene in Germany that he passed the excitement on to all of his customers. It was super cool to watch.

Anyways, all that is just to say that, to this outsider, yes, German beer really is that good, and that it seems like a small but growing, exciting craft scene is on the rise in Germany.

 

This is definitely good to hear. In the end, though, I don't think it should be judged on how well they pull off the IPAs and such, but how the interest in these styles will eventually be used as a springboard to something uniquely German in nature.

 

I believe there's a bit of a strawman here. I haven't gone through every thread here on Beeradvocate, but those BA's that love German beer (especially those posting on here who typically post on the Germany forum) fully acknowledge there is a lot of subpar beer in the country.

I'd take a fresh Bitburger over almost all but the very best American pilsners. And even then it's close. Admittedly I need to try beers from Olde Mecklenburg, Devil's Backbone, New Glarus, and Live Oak first. I fully realize these breweries have great reputations for brewing German styles. That being said....

That's not a bad list compared to.....

1. Bud Light
2. Coors Light
3. Budweiser
4. Miller Lite
5. Corona Extra
6. Natural Light
7. Busch Light
8. Michelob Ultra Light
9. Busch
10. Heineken