Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

Wouldn't shock me. The last time I was in Munich (3 years ago), a lot of the places we went to were featuring Lowenbrau lagers + Franziskaner weiss rather than Spaten's lagers. Somewhere I read that they were considering making the Spaten side of the house export-only like St. Pauli Girl.

 

Date on mine is June 2016. Fresh enough for me and tasting great. We only see it seasonally in my area.

 

I could say the same about a lot of traditional german breweries that often get frowned upon. Still, I'm not too fond of Franziskaner or Spaten. I mean, Maisel's. Schneider etc aren't small either and make excellent and way better Weizens. Augustiner isn't small and does the same for Lagers in my opinion..

 

I certainly don't disagree. I just think that Spaten is pretty solid for brand that's usually considered one of the "lesser" Munich beers. I like the direction that Franziskaner heads (very fruity) compared to Schneider and Maisel, but I get what you mean. Augustiner is still dwarfed by Spaten isn't it?

 

Wait -- the date on the bottle says 2016? Now I can't remember if Spaten uses best by or bottled on... I'll have to check my bottles at home this afternoon.

Yeah, we usually only see it seasonally around here too -- but I know there are places on the East Coast that carry it.

 

I only wish I could find Augustiner over here for the same prices I find Spaten, HB, Paulaner and H-P. They've priced themselves right out of most markets when you can buy a 12-pack of Spaten for the same price as a 6-pack of Augustiner.

 

Whoops, typo! June 2017.

 

I THINK it's a best by. But there's also a Julian code on the back, if I recall correctly.

 

Whew -- Yeah, I just looked at mine and they are the same.

I think the Julian code is the bottling date, but the 2 correspond.

 

Plastic case, no cardboard. My post was poorly worded, I meant to say that they seemed to me to have been left out in direct sunlight.

 

Brown bottles are best for warding off ultraviolet light, but they aren't infallible -- especially over long periods of time.

 

Just saw someone on FB post about 5L mini-keg of Hofbrau Oktoberfest beer for $17...anyone try it yet?

 

Seen 'em in the past, but only ever bought Paulaner Okto (Wies'n Fest) in the mini-keg... which, FWIW, was very good.

 

The Oktoberfest beers are here once again. I had a few bottles of Löwenbräu on friday and it reinforced my impression of the beer as being noticably sweet, yet super clean and fresh tasting. There was also some nice mild hop notes, particularly in the aroma. My impression of Spaten also follows last year's impression, of being less sweet, with a distinct bready maltiness that I'm guessing comes from Munich malt, and again clean and fresh tasting (though as can be seen it's a little over 2 months old by now, the Löwenbräu had a Julian date indicating it was bottled on july 18th). There's also a nice balancing bitterness I find in the Spaten. Two rather different beers, from the same company, which is nice to see. My preference is for the Spaten.

 

I found this video to be rather interesting and thought I would share it.

 

"Kornmalt" in the Spaten - what?...any conspiracy theories? :-)

On a completely different note, this article about Mahr's just came out in All About Beer, I'm sure @herrburgess will enjoy what he has to say.

Prost!

 

Korn is simply barley in Swedish. The English word corn harkens back to the words barley corn and indian corn I guess.

 

Douglas (@einhorn), thanks for that link!!

I took note of:

“Which brings us back to Koch and his new brewery in Berlin. “I think he needs help for the stuff he wants to do in Germany,” Michel says. “I think he thought it would be way easier! It’s good for him to be close to Scandinavia, but I think [he’ll find it] hard to sell his beer in Germany. We have 5 [million] craft beer fans out of 81 [million] people living here—it’s a tough market.”

It will be interesting to see how much that value of “5 [million] craft beer fans” expands in Germany over the next 5-10 years.

Cheers!

 

Im sure the proximity of Stone Berlin to the Scandinavian markets was intentional -- as is the aligning with that type of hipster mentality. And I think it was a wise move on Stone's part. But I have always agreed with what Stephan says here regarding the German market. Its extremely tough and often, frankly, baffling to US sensibilities and expectations.

 

I was reminded by this post (by myself, of a pdf file no longer available) where SABMiller presented some statistics on the perception of various European nationalities towards their own country's beer. The results read thusly:

I'm not sure whether these numbers could be extrapolated to the Scandinavian/Nordic countries in their entirety, and I don't think the decision by Stone to invest millions of dollars on a brewery venture in Europe hinged on the prejudices of Scandinavians, but I would say that their fortunes might very well rest on the acceptance and purchases of the beer buyers of north western Europeans outside of Germany in a larger sense. It's a pan-European project in my view, aided by a common European market and a budding craft beer market in many European countries. Scandinavia might offer a high margin market whilst the brewery is in its infancy (due to higher taxation and the presence of brand neutral monopolies), requiring lower volumes to hit profitability. But in the long run I think they are betting on a larger market for American style craft beer across Europe as a whole.