Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

I personally love cans as a medium for alcoholic drinks. One of my favorite drinks right now for outside is "bembel with are",which is just canned Apfelwein...So, I would love a canned franconian lager.
But having lived long enoughin franconia- I can't see this going well with the locals.
And.......as for size,
I personally.......would enjoy the smaller size. But I would still think the size is weird..

 

Weird because of tradition, or weird because you're accustomed to twice (or three times) as much? And if the latter, couldn't you just drink two -- or pour 2 into a Becher or Krug?

 

Because of the tradition, or moreso,the drinking culture. There exist breweries in franconia that put there beers in 0.33l bottles,sure,but the obligatory bottle is the 0.5l "Maurer"Euro bottle- everything else seems atypical.

The same an be said for other regions, there are typical serving formats in which certain beers just "belong"......

 

"Das haben wir immer so gemacht weil es sich so gehört"...you are so German @Lurchus !!

He's right, no one really buys 0.33 liter bottles in Bayern, no one buys 0.5 liter bottles north of the Weisswurstäquator.

 

0.33l Weissbier bottles seem so surreal.

 

Got a vom Faß pour (Hacker-Pschorr) that size at my hotel on my first trip to Munich. Was a nice in-between as I waited for my friends to gather for our next excursion.

Oh, and H-P and Paulaner sell 12-packs of their Weizen in 11.2 ounce bottles over here. Not recommended to drink from the bottle.

 

maybe im just a massive boozer or something but franken bier in particular being a real social beer i just cant get my head around having it in less than half a litre. (except of course if someone was selling these mahrs cans fresh near me then id snap them up, ha) Its kind of like where i live, in a pub if youre having some drinking beer you have a pint and thats that, any other size would just seem weird

 

Smaller cans are a good way to disguise a higher price per liter. A lower price per package unit can make it seem a better price than it actually is. I would imagine that in a market largely based on case sales, and pricing pressures, it's a good way to achieve better pricing. If the consumer can get over the choice of packaging material of course .

 

Drinking a new beer from the monopoly which is a collaboration between a Swedish importer/craft brewer Galatea and their brand St. Eriks, and Weihenstephan. I thought that was a curious sounding basis for a collaboration. The big selling point is a supposedly unused (though released in 1989 from what I gather) hop by the name Hüll 89/02/25, which has both Styrian Aurora and Spalter in its pedigree. Aside from that hop they use Mittelfrüh and Saphir. They call it an Export Hell, and at 5.6% abv and 12.7% plato that's a good description I guess. It's 90% pilsnermalt and 10% carahell malt. 35 IBUs. It also uses the Weihenstephaner W34/70 yeast.

It is quite amber looking for using only a pale caramel malt aside from pilsner malt. The aroma is interesting, to start with it doesn't smell the least bit German. It reminds me more of certain Swedish craft lager beers I've had. Some fresh herbals hops to start with but there's an aroma there also which I can't tell where it's from, if it is the yeast or the hops or a combination thereof. It is not a clean aroma, but at the same time not a particularly bad aroma, just unusual. It's an aroma I've only had from certain Swedish craft lager beers which makes me think it's fermentation related. The aroma carries over to the flavor with some hop flavor and that unidentified aroma/flavor. It is quite dry and crisp which I think is helped by the elevated bitterness, which builds as you drink it. I'm trying to search for that "new" hop in the flavor but I really can't distinguish anything out of the ordinary here. The overall flavor profile is balanced towards the hops and could be described as a hoppy Export beer I guess, but not a very clean tasting one.

Aside from the Weihenstephan logo on the label I don't really see the influence of them in this beer which is a shame. I appreciate the level of information provided by the brewery about the beer, which is rare for a Swedish craft beer, but the resulting beer needs some work I would say.

Then again if a brewer from Weihenstephan has given this beer his seal of approval (one of them has at least taken part in the promotion of this beer), what do I know?

 

Patrik,

I did a quick web search (with accompanying Google translation) to find:

“The scent is clearly stronger than what you are used to from a warehouse beer. The brewer describes the scent as meadow flowers, citrus and red berries. It is probably possible to connect the scent to flowers, but our fragrance lean more to overripe fruit (fall fruit, apples). It is difficult to feel any clear malt in the scent, probably because the previously described scent takes over.”

The verbiage of “meadow flowers, citrus, red berries, fall fruit, apples” is not something I would normally associate with a Pale Lager (Export Helles).

Cheers!

https://www.eftersmak.se/2019/05/olnyhet-steriks-x-weihenstephan-bsf.html

 

I could see it being a kind of yeasty fruitiness, like the reviewer was saying with overripe fruit (fallfrukt is the Swedish term for fruit that has fallen from the tree, I can see where he's going with that). That might be a good description. So yeah, not a clean tasting beer, but as I'm sipping on another bottle of it it's also not a bad taste. It's just not what you expect or want from a lager beer. Especially not with the price I paid.

 

Drinking Urban Chestnut Zwickel from their German brewery which was released as a year round product at the monopoly June first. 5% abv. 12% plato. 20 IBUs. The color is pretty much golden. The aroma is somewhat malty sweet with a mild and bright hop note, it is very clean smelling. The hop note smells familiar, I'm reminded of Rehbier Zwickl and also Nya Carnegiebryggeriet Kellerbier (which uses both Mittelfrüh and Saaz). The taste is malt forward, mildly sweet and lightly bready, with a mouthfeel that is as expected for the gravity: more full than a typical pilsner but less full than beers of a higher gravity. As per the current websites they use pilsner and caramel malt, if one goes back a couple of years they were listing pilsner, carapale and carafoam. I really don't get a caramel malt taste in this beer, it tastes like pilsner malt to me.

The hops are mild yet at the same time they do taste bright, the bitterness is mild but provides a balancing flavor to the malt sweetness. This brings me to the question of the best before date, which is 18th of january 2020. Is this beer over four months old upon its release date or do they use a shorter shelf life than one year? I've tried getting an answer from Urban Chestnut about when it was bottled but have had no luck so far. Seeing as how Ayinger didn't use a one year shelf life for their unfiltered Dunkel makes me think that this beer doesn't either, but if I hear back from them I'll report back with the answer. It doesn't taste stale at least.

I think it's a good tasting pale lager beer.

 

Patrik, FWIW this would not be unusual for German beers exported in the US. Last year:

“Hofbrauhaus Freising to Begin US Distribution - Jul. 8, 2018”

Those beers were several months old by the time my local beer retailers had them. I discussed two Hofbrauhaus Freising beers in a past NBS thread:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-722.600217/#post-6318816

The good news is that I personally did not pick up any staleness in either of these two beers.

Cheers!

 

That's true, though I'm hoping this beer is an exception. DAB was released in 33cl cans this month also (the 50cl cans are already on shelves and are selling well). They are using a 15 month shelf life as can be seen by the best before date, yet the cans were only a month old when they were put on shelves.

 

Patrik, when it comes to imports I too "hope" quite often as well but more often than not I just purchase a US craft brewed version of a European beer instead.

I am somewhat reminded of an old President Reagan quote about dealing with the Soviet Union on nuclear arms deals:

"Trust, but verify".

Hopefully the Urban Chestnut folks will get back to you.

Cheers!

 

I typically stay away from imports where they don't have a bottled on date as well as a best before date, or at least a best before date that is at least a year into the future (after a while you start to notice which brands move and which don't, if a beer starts getting shorter best before dates that's a give away it's selling poorly and is just sitting there). I make an exception for new imports since I figure if they don't sell well this is the freshest I will get to taste them.

 

In the recent past I would purchase Jever beers that had a best before date which I assumed was a 12 month (1 year) duration. I came to find out that they were actually 15 months! That duration is super-insane!!

Imported Jever now (this happened about a year ago?) has both packaged on and best by dates.

It is nice to have this information. The 'challenge' is to find Jever that is less than 6 months old (my personal criteria for this beer). Or just buy Sly Fox PIkeland Pils which is less than a month old instead.

Cheers!

 

I guess the brewery figures if someone is willing to buy and drink our beer at 12 months old what difference does three more months do? As long as the beer is served ice cold, is crystal clear and forms a head the drinker is none the wiser.

Several years ago my parents bought a case of beer which was left sitting in the basement for over a year with most of the beer still left. The following summer my parents were having a cook out with my brother in law and the same beer was being served. I didn't say anything but I knew it had been in the basement all this time. My brother in law had a couple of cans and proclaimed that this was his new favorite beer. So it's obviously consumers like him that these 12 month or 15 month best before dates are meant for. Cold, clear and foaming is all that matters.

 

And some consumers seem to enjoy skunked beer (e.g., Corona, Heineken). And some consumers enjoy beers with perceptible DMS such as Rolling Rock - I will admit for transparency I drank a lot (and I do mean a lot) of Rolling Rock 'back in the day'. We beer geek BAs are a minority portion of the beer consumer market.

Cheers!

 

Great find back home after a couple of weeks in France. I didn´t know this beauty even existed but it seems to hit all the marks zwickl/kellerbier related, in such a nice balance. After a third tasting session involving three bottles (tonight) i think i am sold.