German craft beer

its much better.
i dont know about the freshness of the pale ale though,since that was only produced last year afaik

 

really? I find it hard to believe, a pub near me just started offering it draught........

 

The Köstritzer Pale Ale was pretty good, hopefully it will more readily available in future.

 

Wow. The Beck's "craft" beers are now aviable in every supermarket in my city. wow.
I personally resisted buying them due to negative feedback from reviews and friends, and I really do NOT want to support AB Inbev when they are brewing bad stuff, since I can get a good locally made Pale Ale for nearly the same price.
What fascinated me though:
The amber lager and pils were all massively aviable, but everywhere I went, the Pale Ale was either sold out or there were only tiny amounts left.
Seems like the german beer landscape is changing, or moreso the mind of german drinkers.

A few years ago, I was asked why I am drinking Ale "freiwillig" while downing an IPA....
So come on Oettinger, what are you waiting for? Where are Oettinger Pale Ale, IPA and Stout?

 

You sure it isn't a novelty right now?

 

Hard to tell really. I'd say, and I hope, that more and more people are opening up to beers that aren't Pilsners or Weizens. It really started 2-3 years ago, only time will tell if it has a lasting effect or if 2-3 years from today, IPAs dissappeared from the german market.
But my gut and my experience with friends who i got hooked tell me, it won't go away so fast.

 

And that may depend on how well the IPAs are made... Beck's? Could be a self-inflicted wound for IPA.

 

Well-I see it more as a gateway-beer,like Blue Moon in the US probably. It doesn't need to be well made, hoppy and amazing. It just needs to be inoffensive while also a bit different from Pils and Weizen to catch interest and attention. Being from Beck's helps I guess, rather than coming from a brewery the average consumer has never heard of and therefore does not trust...(Crew??Camba Bavaria??What???) And "real",hop-forward Ales may be too much for their targett market...
Makes me wonder why the other big breweries hide behind new names for their Craft Beers...

 

This is what intrigues me the most - Beck's is putting out a Pale Ale under the Beck's brand. Radeberger uses Braufactum, Coors has Blue Moon and so on, but Beck's (and Köstritzer now that I think of it) is putting out craft under their own label.

 

Bitburger uses CraftWerk. And while Köstritzer uses the Köstritzer name, they dubb their craft line up "Köstritzer Meisterwerke",and the presentation differs a lot from their Schwarzbier,Pils and Kellerbier.
It reminds me of how Häffner Bräu useses the Hopfenstopfer name-still linked to the main brewery, but different. Or how Maisels Weisse has the "Maisel's and Friends" line for everything "craft" related.

 

I don't see the point of hiding behind a different name.

The average German beer drinker is more inclined to pick a familiar brand when trying a new style.

I'm waiting for Oettinger, Einbecker and Flensburger to put out some craft beer.

 

I always thought the idea behind it for Bitburger was that they were afraid of alienating their traditional costumers (which really might be an Issue in its homeland, the Eifel region), and for the Radeberger Gruppe that they wanted to seem more "international","craft" and "gourmet" with their Braufactum line,seeing that with those prices, the market is totally different from the others anyway.......

 

If I recall from back when, I believe Coors used the Blue Moon name so they could actually avoid the connection to Coors. Keeps the craft beer once-in-awhiles from knee-jerking to a product name. Sort of the same with their Killian's.

I don't know how many surprised and/or disbelieving looks I get when I tell someone that either product is brewed by Coors -- in the U.S.

 

I bought the Beck's 3-Pack last weekend. The Amber Lager was thin and uninteresting. The Pale Ale was a pretty decent German Pilsner. I found the 1873 Pils to be quite nice. It had a strong malt backbone with some solid German hop bitterness as well as aroma. In fact, I think it may be the best Imperial Pils I've ever had. In all fairness, I think I've had about 3 other Imperial Pils... but yeah, I'd buy it again.

 

Hah. Didn't the phrase "left-handed compliment" originate in Germany?

Matt, when you talk "Imperial Pilsner," how do you define the "style" compared with a very hoppy Heller Bock? Serious question because the first Imperial Pils I had (which I really can't recall at this point) was just that to me.

 

On the subject of Imperial Pilsner, did anyone have the Veldensteiner Imperial Pilsner?

Brewed by Kaiserbräu in Neuhaus an der Pegnitz, it was dry hopped with Green Bullet hops from New Zeeland and American Citra hops. At 6.3%abv it could also have been called a hoppy heller bock. I really enjoyed the bottles I had.

I haven't seen anyone on here posting their thoughts on it.

 

In my mind, a Bock (Heller, Dunkler, Doppel, Eis) is always a malt-centric beer. Can you point me to a good example of a hoppy Bock?

 

Sorry, you misunderstood my question; I agree that a Bock should be malt-centric, but I was saying that the Imperial Pilsners I've had carried the right amount of malt, but then just anted up the hops for the sake of hopping. In other words, they brewed a hopped-up Heller Bock, not really some "new" style, per se.

In answer to your question, the only "hoppy bock" I can point you to is the latest Imperial Pilsner.

 

There's a local brewer here in Bremen that brewed up a fairly hoppy bock recently.