German craft beer

http://www.prenzlberger-stimme.de/?p=76352

Andreas Bogk posted this on Twitter today: an old brewery -the Bötzow-Brauerei- in Berlin is being revived. Among other things, Brooklyn Brewery is going to open a brewery in there brewing the new Bötzow-Bier.

 

Ahornla is having their beer contract brewed by one of the locals, so I doubt equipment is the reason. Also, the recipe is apparently from a brewery that used to exist in that building. So it is IMO a bit odd to have a obergaeriges beer being brewed.... Then again, maybe this another revived example of @Crusader's Braunbier from the old brewing books?

 

That's the first thing I thought when you said it was an old recipe -- be quite interesting!

 

Also want to review this beer: Riegele BierManufaktur's Simcoe 3. Previously reviewed by @JHDStein here.

This is the 0.66L bottle which I bought at BrauKunstLive 2014 in the end of February & have been saving it for a time when I was having a hankering for Simcoe hop flavors. After 10+ Pils, I think I deserve it.
Here's my picture of it.


Before I begin, I want to point out to those who've never LIVED in Germany what that thing on top of the bottle is. It's the handiest thing ever, keeping the beer fresh for at least 24 hours and possibly the whole day while you sip on it. Why don't they have things like that in USA? It doesn't seal it perfectly, and after 48 hours, the beer will be somewhat flat, but still, who keeps an opened beer that long? I know none of you tourie folks have ever seen such a thing, right?

Ok, the beer.
Appearance: Apricot is a good descriptor by @JHDStein under a really bright white, tight, fluffy and tiny bubbles that last a long time. Love it! The foam laces and clings to the glass when swirled. Nice.

Aroma: My god, hello. I get all the normal Simcoe hop aromas: citrus-lemon, maracuja, mango, a little apricot, a tad pine, all exploding out of the glass. Mixed under those fruit aromas is a nice base of Münchner malt caramel wafting up. Wow. After a few minutes, the aroma lets go and I really have to swirl the stuff to get any aroma.

Flavor:
Up front: A nice thwack of bitterness, but not too heavy, sets up on the front, and the bite of a citrus, nay lemon flavor pervades.
Mid: Much more bitterness, quite heavy here, though it never leaves the pleasant range. You get more orange, then grapefruit, then mango, finally a slight pine, I guess the usual Simcoe flavors here.
Back: Again, a lovely bitterness lays over the tongue, always just at the goldilocks level. Also all the same flavors of Simcoe I mentioned above are present in spades. Lovely. There's a backbone of German malts here, Pils, Münchner, oh this is wonderful, with a tiny bit of tartness.
Aftertaste: Wow.... it lingers... by that I mean the goldilocks bitterness and some mango.

Mouthfeel: Going by this alone, I'd say it was a typical German beer, very much a thick but quite dry feeling all over the mouth.

Overall: A WOW beer, and the best non-Pax Bräu German version of an IPA, but this is defiantly a German IPA. They mention on the back label using Hallertauer Perle and Opal with Simcoe (hence the 3 in the name). They also use Pils, Münchner and Steffi (?) and wheat (yeah, the dryness I got) malts. This is a goldilocks beer with a wonderful base of German Noble hop bitterness mixed with Simcoe fruit flavors. All that floats over the base malts and mix so well together, it makes this beer never too much of anything but just enough of everything popping all the right exotic, pregnant flavors that bear fruit in a wonderful flavor-mix. I love this beer, but the only thing I could nitpick with is to make it a real German IPA, I'd boost the Münchner and Pils flavors if possible. I give this a 4.6 of 5. Not a WOWOWOW beer, but still a WOW beer. At 5%, not an IPA, but I like that it's more like a Pils in this respect, allowing one to drink more than one would a stiff IPA. I'd call this an German Simcoe Ale.

 

@boddhitree , sounds like a tasty German Pale Ale to me!

Cheers!

 

Another "new" one from Greifenklau in Bamberg. From their FB page:

"Für einen schönen Kellerabend gibt es ab sofort wieder unser Laurenzi.

Ein dunkles naturtrübes Märzen"

 

The newest beer from Pax Bräu had it's debut yesterday on FB here.

Rhöner Pale Ale,
endlich da! (finally here!)
Cooles Lable, leckere Zutaten. (cool labal, delicious ingredients)
Schaut gut aus, riecht superlecker nach tropischen Früchten und schmeckt auch noch; also mir zumindest.
(Looks good, smell super delicious of tropical fruits and tastes tat way, too; at least to me.
Wem noch? (whom also?)
Grüße aus dem NEUEN Pale Ale Mekka Oberelsbach (Greeting from the NEW Pale Ale Mecca Oberelsbach)
der Bräu (The brew)

Zutaten: (ingredients)
Ökogerstenmalz hell (organic malt, pale)
Ökogerstenmalz dunkel (organic malt, dark)
Ökosauermalz (organic acid malt)
Hopfen: (hops)
Motueka NZ
Riwaka NZ
Bio Cascade aus Gräfenberg (Gruß an die Friedrichs)
Centennial USA
Hefe

Stammwürze 12,5%
Alc. 5,2 vol.%
IBU´s 50


I agree, I love the label! The name Rhöner refers to the area where Oberelsbach is located, the Rhön, an low mountainous area between Hessen, Bayern and Thüringen.


I hope to be getting mine any day in the mail now.

 

No, I haven't seen it in the REWE I frequent most, though I have spotted the Pale Ale from Kostritzer in Kaufhof Galleria's beer section. Need another paycheck next month to be able to justify the expenditure before I buy it.

So... got my 2 1L bottles of Pax Bräu's Rhöner Pale Ale this week, and I got a little free time to review it. I drank a little last night and I can already give the main conclusion.... WOWOWOW. Now to the details.


My pic of it in the beautiful Mort Subite glass I picked up in Brussels... yeah, gotta show it off.

Now a close up of the label:

Wild, isn't it? It's unique and wonderfully memorable, yet not silly, gimmicky, in your face or offensive like many American craft beer labels. First, the picture of a body with the innards showing is cool, though I can't tell you why right now. Second, there's hops or another leaf (maybe dill or celery?) coming out of the glass, and then beer in the mouth, down the gullet into the stomach, and then pictured coming out of head, a pineapple, flowers, a lemon, an orange, a litchi fruit maybe, and a fig nest to the P in Pax, as if these are the aromas and flavors you can be expecting your mind to enjoy while drinking it.

It's 5.2%, filled on June 6 and a best by date of September 6. Today being the 17th of June, it's only 10 days old.

Appearance: Cloudy beer, dark, burnt orange to bright amber with hints of black lurking around in the shadows, all over a slightly dirty white head that dissipates within a minute. Nice to look at. The cloudiness is due to being shipped and arriving at my door yesterday, it's being unfiltered and unpasteurized, and that it's still only 2 weeks old.

Aroma: OMG, wow..., it's gonna be a challenge to describe all the aromas going on here. Definate C-hop (what with Motueka, Riwaka, Centennial and Cascade [not listed on label but mentioned on Facebook, leading me to believe it was a late edition after the label was printed.]) punch in the nose, but so, so much more. Pineapple? Yes. Lemon? Yes. Mango? Yes. Lemon? Yes. Litchi? Yes. Sweet caramel? Yes. Damn, I love it and I haven't had a sip yet.

Flavor:
Up front: Nice, bracing bitterness, yet not overwhelming, with lemon an a nice amount of tartness/astringency. You get a burnt caramel sense here, though it's hidden in the back of the flavor, as well as a stab of super-sweet sugary caramel.

Mid: More of the same as above, only now more piney, flowery, earthy and lemon-drop sweet on the sides.

Back: All those same flavors as up front and the middle, now just intenser, stronger, and a heavy dose of bitterness, but through all this, you still get a decent caramel to balance all those fruit flavors and bitterness. My am I ever blown away.

Aftertaste: Mostly bitterness and sliver of sweetness hinting at caramel lingers for a long time after the last swallow.

Mouthfeel: WOW... thick, like you expect a Märzen to be, a hint of dryness to match the tartness, but overall it feels just wonderful, like rolling around in a thick carpet under a fire on a cold day: gemütlich und süffig!

Overall: WOW, and I mean WOW, WOW and WOW. I get the feeling I'm drinking a Märzen, yet with a pale ale twist, super fruity with a plump bitterness all across the tongue. The different hops really play well together to blend and subtly change the focus of the flavor, at once super caramel, then next lots of fruits, and then a pale malt backbone, all popping up and down tongue. This really does taste like a more Frankische version of a Pale Ale with the emphasis of the sweet caramel malts in synchronicity with the bitterness and fruitiness of the hops. If someone claims you either get hops or malt, I call bullshit yet again. This is the best beer I've had since being at BrauKunstLive in February, hands down. It doesn't have the smoke or the dryness that comes from the Pils malts that are in the Cissy IPA, but it's got so many other flavors in the fruit and bitterness areas instead. The longer I drink this, the more bitterness comes to the fore, but the other flavors don't go flat at all. Again. WOW.

 

Didn't pop on mine, but it's now bookmarked on my browser! Thanks.

 

Where BMC is the U.S. "craft" bogeyman, fruity flavors are the German RHG's bogeyman.

 

Craft Bier wurde speziell für Frauen kreiert. There you go, I knew it all along! Thanks RTL, for finally shedding some light on this!

 

A write-up, in German, of a beer I really enjoyed the last time I was in Munich, Höppe Bräu's Vogel Wuid IPA. I disagree with the author when she says it should be a little more bitter. It wasn't particularly bitter for me, either, but IMO this beer was perfect.

http://feinerhopfen.com/2014/07/10/hoppebrau-vogelwildes-hopfenspiel/

 

Speaking as a typography buff, that label is beautifully German.

 

The neck label was attached crooked.

 

It's what we call a happy accident in the business, hehe.

 

Heh, but I think it was intentional -- just poking fun (also from the business side).