Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

I've been out of action and haven't been able to write up some of the beers I've been meaning to. I've been drinking them but haven't been able to write them up. So here's our latest contestant: Streck's Brauhaus Ostheimer Dunkel. Bought it through Biershop Bayern.

Color is dark amber, almost fully brown with hints of red under bright vanilla-colored head. Aroma is pretty typical German: roasted malts, Münchner malts, but additionally is a wonderful sweetness with light chocolate/licorice mix.

The flavor is slightly bitter, noble hops like Tettnanger, Hersbrücke or Spalte with a sour tang. In the back there's lots of roasted malt flavor, tasting very much like the aroma. It's more like a Pils with lots of roasted malts. It's a nice beer, malty sweet and some bitterness together, as if a Pils and Märzen were blended together.

 

Good question. It's NOT a black malt flavor, which gives Dunkels and Stouts their color, but a toasty, sweet flavor from roasted malt (Röstmalz)...it's commonly used in Bocks. What I found most interesting was that the aroma was practically only this sweet roasted malt but flavor was bitterer, with some sour, strangely…with a sweet roasted flavor. Also interesting, neither this beer nor the brewery are listed in BA.

 

I agree with you. I feel they added some black malt with lots of Roasted Malt and a good amount of Sauermalz (Acid Malt), which might explain the sourness, but actually simply lowers the pH. It's a highly complex beer, which is what I was trying to get at, unlike most Dunkles, which are simply a darkened Pils.

No time and too lazy, maybe someone else will volunteer?

 

Lovely. And now I have to add the individual beers, right? Seems fair.

 

Breitenlesau from Krug Bräu

[I've had this beer before, but only at this one particular Italian restaurant in Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt: La Traviata. The pasta is hand made fresh daily, and the pizza's are baked in wood-burning ovens. And, for as long as I've been in FfM, since 2008, they serve this beer on tap. I eat here only about twice a year, but not because I don't like the beer/food; rather, I rarely have time to eat anything at a sit-down place. I usually grab a Döner or a pizza at a couple of stand-up places to save time between my lessons, if I have any.]

I've never seen this beer anywhere else, so I thought I'd review it, though I've heard they have it on tap at Fichte Kränzi in Sachsenhausen, a Apfelweinlokal (or Äppelwoi - Äpfelwein - Äppelwein - Appelwein - Eppelwei) or Applewine restaurant, but I didn't see it when I was there because I go there only for the Apfelwein. Their website lists all the pubs/restaurants where it can be found in Germany.

Krug Bräu seems to be from a Kaff in a tiny town between Bamberg and Bayreuth: Waischenfeld, Ortsteil (village) Breitlesau in Franken. The Brewery-Inn also doubles as a dance hall that focuses on live rock bands.

Their website calls it a Dunkeles Lagerbier. 5% ABV, "a special lager beer, brewed with a particular/special mashing technique and different special malts. The recipe for success: the beer is brewed to a taste that not too sweet nor too bitter and tastes great to all guests from the North Sea to the south."
So, here's what my beer looked like:


Color: dark amber, orange tints, signs of Melanoiden or Münchner malt.
Aroma: malty, sweet, typical German malty aroma for a Fränkisches beer.
Taste: malty sweet, slightly sour on the front of the tongue; bitter on the sides, slightly sweet - a definable Münchner malt addition, maybe some black malt, but overall, a huge typical Pilsen malt flavor, slightly dry finish of Pils yeast. I expected a little more sweetness after getting the aroma. Bitterness of hops comes through clear on 2nd 0.5L glass. It's not very different from the Fürst Wallerstein's Landsknecht-Bier,which I reviewed here.


A mix of Pils with a little sweet component of a Bayerisches Märzen. However, if you taste only from the front, you get too much sourness, so to enjoy this beer, put the glass on top of the front of tongue and wash it over the middle and back for the sweetness to register at all. That's also when you'll notice the hops. But why do I need to do this simply to enjoy this beer?

Ate with orecchiette noodles with salsiccia and turnip greens.

 

Just a tease of what arrived in the mail this week. Cost me a pretty penny, but I hope it'll be worth every cent. I'm not sure you can enlarge these pics and see the labels, but the amount of hops in these beers looks staggering, as well as the other ingredients. Yes, I'm living large.