German Beer Appreciation 2025

BTW -- if this beer is force carbonated for bottling, Spaten is doing something different and better than a lot of breweries. The head is very dense with miniscule bubbles and very resilient.

 

Just had this one recently, so good. Really like the Tucher brews!
Cheers!

 

Cross post from New Beer Weekend.

Getting into a Sünner Kölsch for the first beer of the day. Onto the review.

4.17/5 rDev +10.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Picked up a 500 ml bottle from the Appalachian Vintner in Asheville 6-20-25 for $4.99. Cryptic bottle notching of 148; best before 1-2026; consumed for review 8-23-26. Cold stored since purchase.

Beer poured gold with a very nice white head.

Nose has notes of honey malts, fruity esters, and grassy hops.

Taste is honey on white bread, apple esters, grassy hops that leave a touch of lemon. Finishes with a trace of balancing bitterness.

Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied and refreshing.

I have not had a ton of experience with the style from the old country, but it seems this is not as estery as some of the other leading German brands. Still a nice brew.



Cheers!
Tom

 

Cross post from New Beer Weekend:

Onto today's new beer review, this one is a Dunkel from Brauerei Göller.

4.21/5 rDev +5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Picked up a 500 ml bottle from the Appalachian Vintner in Asheville 6-20-25 for $4.99. Best before 4-21-2026; consumed for review 8-24-25. Cold stored since purchase.

Beer poured brown with a beautiful tan head.

Nose is toasted malts forward with a touch of earthy hops.

Taste is pumpernickel bread with a touch of chocolate. Hopping brings an earthiness quality, definitely there to balance, yet leaving a style appropriate sweetness.

Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied, so soft and smooth, yet refreshing.

Overall, this is a really nice representation of the style, glad i was able to try!

 

I have seen that many of the breweries here change both names and labels here for exports. Like with Andechs. Some even have completly different beers for export.

 

I noticed around 2012 when Paulaner opened the new second brewery outsde of Munich that the beer changed. For me it was to the worse side. I would even avoid resturants that servered it, but this year I have seen another change for the better.

They also brew serperately at the Brauhaus and Nockerberg if you don't want mass produced stuff.

 

Paulaner sends two beers to the US: Oktoberfest Märzen and Festbier (once called Wiesn).

I only ever saw the Märzen at the Fest in the early 90s and at the Seehaus in the mid-90s.

 

This is an interesting little place: Anton's Garden, a Biergarten located in downtown Waterloo, IA. I visited it for the first time a couple of days ago. Beer, brats, and hot dogs. Macros, canned and on tap, plus a few local craft brews. They do offer a handful of canned Paulaner beers: Hefe, Helles, and Radler. I went with the Münchner Lager, a very tasty Helles. We'll see how the beer menu shakes out when Oktoberfest rolls around.

 

The reason it is not called "Oktoberfest" is the rule that in Bavaria only beers servered at the Oktoberfest are allowed to be called that. Exports don't have to follow this rule. The beers must also be brewered in Munich using Munich water. There are even more rules that Griesinger is now facing. Schneider has not been brewed in Munich since after WW2.

 

It's a Weißbier brewed for festivals, not really a rendition of a Wiesn Festbier.

Erdinger makes one too.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/703/11485/

 

Trust me if they could they would call it Oktoberfest Beer

 

You didn't look at the Erdinger link, did'ja?

(https://erdinger.de/en-US/beers/oktoberfest)

But yeah, that's probably an export label.

But to @mactrail 's observations, he's just wondering about the distinct differences between the pale, lager, Wiesn Festbier and what Schneider is calling their festbier.

 

Export for sure. The rest is marketing.

 

It's all the same auf Deutsch except for adhering to the local labeling laws.

https://erdinger.de/de-DE/biersorten/festweisse

 

Very rarely do i see Fatherland based beers refrigerated as not too many beer stores have an all cooler store. The Kensington Calgary beer cave side of the state liquor store i visited in July was totally refrigerated. Can’t remember the last time prior.
Enjoyed an outstanding German Pilsner from Notch. This was really well done despite being 4+ months old. Round 2 is the last of my DAB, such an easy sipper, so refreshing!
Cheers!
Tom

 

Plank is a nice little brewery hidden in the hills of the Oberpfalz. Very oldshool and the fresh beers are little known.