German craft beer

I like a good IPA as much as the next guy. In fact, I don't mind most American style spins as long as they're well made and involve some thought.
If Augustiner's beers are so boring or bad or whatever that you can't finish them - that honestly has to be pretty lousy.
That's like not being able to enjoy the Godfather or ET because Armageddon and Transformers ruined them for you.

 

I see what you did there.....

Prosit!!

 

Augustiner shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. It starts off as very good beer but is over-attenuated and too heavily filtered. I bet if you got the brewers drunk enough they'd admit that.

 

Not sure what that means. How do you 'too heavily filter' a beer? Also, I find the pilsner malt sweetness in Augustiner quite pronounced...especially in contrast to a northern [or even a southern] German pils -- or even a crisper Helles like HB or Hacker pschorr. Really not quite sure where you are coming from here.

 

Lots of discussion concerning Augustiner.

I figured some past posts from @MattRiggs may be worth a consideration at this point in time:

“The funny thing I've noticed is that Augusitner's Edelstoff and Tegernseer's Spezial are consistently much better than their Helles. They are both regularly awesome. These beers are very similar to their lighter counterparts (just a bit more pilsner malt), which leads me to believe that the slight increase in flavor and alcohol from the Eledstoff/Spezial acts very effectively as a cover to what I perceive as a slight green character.”

And:

“On Augustiner…. they make a beer that is based around a light sulfur note. In the winter I find it quite a nice way to round out the flavor profile. It’s unique and very enjoyable. In the summer, however, they lack lager capacity and the beer is a bit too farty and green for my tastes. Tegernseer has the same seasonal capacity problem, and it’s obvious.”

Cheers!

 

What is your point?

 

I only make it to Munich every couple years or so -- my heart lies a bit farther to the north...

A couple of trips ago it was a standalone trip to Munich around Thanksgiving and I quite enjoyed many an Augustiner -- by far my favorite beer of the trip.

The last trip two years ago was after spending a couple of weeks in Bamberg. Augustiner was still my favorite among the big breweries (Forschungsbrauerei was open that time) but it just didn't generate the interest that it did before. I say this not re-open the Franken vs Bayern wars, but sometimes your palate is calibrated one way or the other and that certainly effects things. Another example I use is on our annual trips to Düsseldorf we usually do a day trip to Köln. We had fallen into a pretty much standard walk thru the Altstadt, starting at Früh and ending up at Malzmühle and then working our way back picking up places we passed on our way to the Heumarkt. A couple of times we have varied the order and it does make a difference to our informal rankings.

That being said, I agree you can recognize the skill (I was going to say "craft") of the brewery/beer even it you don't personally like. Somebody (long forgotten who) once told me "that is not to my taste but it is a well made beer" -- I have adopted the phrase (and its counterpart "That is not a well made beer" )

 

I think Augustiner Dunkles does not get enough attention. It is a very nice brew, and the thing that really made me love the style. Sadly, it commonly is not served from bayerischer Anstich, unlike Edelstoff and Helles.
The thing is, personal taste changes, craftsmanship remains craftsmanship, wether I personally enjoy the beer in question or not.

 

My favorite beers made in and around Munich are from Ayinger, Weihenstephaner, Kloster Andechs, Augustiner, and Hofbrau. The instant I think I have a particular favorite nailed down, one of the other places surprises me. The key is that I don't think I've ever had a bad beer from any of them...not even really close. They all make beers that I'm not a fan of, but I think they're still well made. Each also has a bit of "house character" that I can understand might affect someone's opinion. That's one of those situations where I think I separate "bad" vs. something that simply isn't to my personal tastes.
With Dusseldorf, things are compounded a bit with the larger brands tasting worlds apart from the places in the Altstadt. Schlosser and Schumacher might as well be making different styles of beer. I don't think any of the brands in/around Munich are even close to being that far apart. The biggest difference I can think of would be Lowenbrau vs. Augustiner, which isn't that big of a stylistic difference.

 

Bingo -- on the nose.

 

We're getting our first taste of Berlin brewed Stone beers here in Sweden.

 

The last time I was in Düsseldorf, I decided I needed to try Schlosser. One was enough. Pretty looking beer, though.

 

That was my experience as well. It isn't horrible or anything, but it's unbelievably sweet. To me it tasted more or less like Grape Nuts that someone put sugar on. I can think of worse things (and beers) but it's a far cry from the beers being produced by the smaller alt brewers.
A fair comparison would be something like normal Michelob vs. Pikeland Pils.

 

When we had it, it had diacetyl.

 

OH! Very different story in that case. Mine was technically fine...it was just extremely unbalanced.
I had a glass at a place just called the "Altstadt Restaurant." Pretty decent food, actually. It was on the way to Uerige (only maybe 2 blocks away) so it really put things into perspective.

 

On the first part....well.....I'd say Augustiner for instance is also pretty much above Spaten,Paulaner.Löwenbräu,Hacker, similar to the situation in Düsseldorf. Take a Paulaner Dunkel and Augustiner Dunkel side by side. It puts it also in perspective for me.
That being said..
Between the Düsseldorf Altstadt Alts, I think I'd never be able to name a favourite, it depends a lot on my mood and changes from visit to visit.But yeah they are all excellent Except maybe Kürzer(which is still ok)...
The situation between Düsseldorf and cologne is different though I feel, I mean you have Päffgen and Mühlen in the city itself which make awesome stuff on a smaller scale, you have Reissdorf, Gaffel, Früh and Sünner, all still privately owned, which still make decent stuff on a bigger scale. And then you have the Oetker Kölsch beers, all from one brewery.....

 

I was at BrewDog Södermalm in March and they had Stone Arrogant Bastard on draft. I asked if that was from California or Berlin and the bar man said "Berlin." I asked for a taste and thought "man, they nailed it!"

So I was at the Gesundbrewing Summer festival in Berlin a couple weeks ago and Stone had a booth and was pouring Arrogant Bastard. I had one and while it wasn't at all bad it was different than California AB. I smiled at the Stone guy and said "Not quite there yet" -- he replied that on paper it should be the same but they hadn't figured out the issue yet.

So it looks like somebody was blowing smoke in Stockholm

 

I live in the backwoods of Sweden so I really can't say what goes on in Stockholm as far as draft beer is concerned, they seem to have access to alot of different stuff these days. But as far as packaged beer sold via the monopoly this is the first batch of Berlin brewed Stone beer afaik. Did you visit Nya Carnegiebryggeriet while in Stockholm?

 

Do Swedes pay a deposit on cans? If so, how much was total price?

 

Including deposit it was 33.9 crowns, or about 3.7 USD.