Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

Back to the STAHLSTURM STASH. Another beer from Eichhofener. It's the Eichhofener Festbier. On their website, it's described as a beer

[with a pleasant/enjoyable, well-rounded bitterness. For beer connoisseurs, a true Märzen. For a special occasion.]



The color is deep amber with an orange glow under a pearl white foam. 5.5% ABV. The aroma is like almost every beer from this region: Münchner malt-malty with hints of hops in the background with maybe some caramel, too. The initial taste is full-bore sweet maltiness, but in a good way. No bitterness up front, sweet malts with caramel flavors. As it flows over the tongue, the sweet caramel maltiness gives way slowly to a slight sourness and just a little bitterness in the back. It's mouthfeel is thicker than Pils but not as thick as an Oatmeal Stout, another beer in that Goldilocks zone where you feel the distinct weight of the beer going over and around the tongue as a pleasurable sensation. Overall, this is like drinking a caramel/malt candy, though having just enough bitterness and that hint of tartness to not let it become sickly or cloyingly sweet. If this is what a Märzen should taste like, I'm all for it. I have to agree with Stahlsturm, this Märzen is close to one of my favorite styles now. Nonetheless, now that I'm finishing off the bottle, I feel myself wishing it had just a tad more bitterness from a Czech Saaz or German Tettnanger, for the malty sweetness is starting to get too much for me. In fact, I couldn't finish the bottle due to it's over-maltiness. Still, it's great how they managed to give you the taste in a finished beer of a sweet wort before it's fermented.

 

Guess what, y'all? Look what came in the mail today!!! This is the IPA that Andreas Seufert mentioned in the Facebook post as the IPA with the one with the

Click on the link to see again what he said. Now I can tell you what it truly tastes like! By the way, on the bottom right of the label the meanings of Sissy in English are described. So, not a beer for Sissies? But the picture of a woman may allude to a famous German movie the 50s, Sissi, who is an Austrian princess. Spelling it with a C might allude to Cascade hops, right?

Ok... I opened it to mainly win points with my g/f. The color is pale ale-ish, light brown and tints of orange in it... telling me he used some München, Melanoinden or other German malt normally used in Märzens or Bocks... or Rauchmalz, which also has darker color but I'm not sure if it has that signature red or orange tint. It's quite cloudy, though, a sign of being unfiltered. (At the bottom of the bottle I found settled yeast, so I'm sure it's also bottle conditioned.) Also, if you see the above pic on the right, it was filled Abgefüllt am: Tag [24], Monate [3], so March 24th. Today is April 6th, so it was conditioned for only 2 weeks or so. The foam is sparse, just a couple mm with large pearl-while bubbles which disappear quite quickly.
The aroma is bready, some caramel/Münchener malt, and lots of citrusy hops. It smells wonderful, but not like an American IPA, rather a German Bock/Märzen mixed with a Pale Ale and a Cascade mini-bomb. Again, the label above states it contains Cascade, Saphir (a new German hop) and Perle, a more traditional German Noble hop. A nice blend, I say.
The ABV says 7.2%, but you don't even notice the alcohol. It's masked so well, you'd think it were a 5% or less beer. It's a lot better than the Starkbier from München that almost burned from the alcohol.
The flavor... WOW WOW..... WOW. This is a fun beer. In the front, lime, citrus flavors, almost a typical Cascade flavor with some bitterness but not lots. Then the middle flavors... smoke, and lots of it! At first it feels almost too much, as if it doesn't fit, then after the tongue learns to expect it, the smoke and citrus meld perfectly together in kind like Chinese sweet/sour sauce does. In the middle of the tongue, you get sweet, Münchner malt flavors. In the back, as aftertaste, you get a good bit of hop bitterness, not Noble hops or a Pils bitterness, but more like an IPA, but all that dissipates quickly and you're left with the sweet malt/smoke/citrus mix staying on the tongue. All these powerful flavors might cancel each other out or not mix well, but they don't. They mix almost like a cocktail.
Overall, I've never had a beer like this... and now I plan on ordering some Smoked malt to try and emulate this beer myself. Again, WOWOWOWOWOW! The art of getting all these diverse flavors not only to play nice, but to all complement each other, I'm just in awe. And my g/f loves this beer even more than I do.

 

I didn't find it when I searched, but you're welcome to do it. All of these beers, other than his regular Vollbier and Weizen, are one-offs released monthly. He only produces 1,000L (250Gal) of each on the "Bierkalender Edition" and since I get 2L per month mailed to me , that leaves 998 for the rest of the world, right?

Personally, I'd rather put my thoughts on these beers here on this forum.

 

I'm not sure any beer will be able to do it for after the Sissy IPA, but here goes another from STAHLSURM's STASH, a Goss Bräu from the town of Deuerling, which is just east of Regensburg. I can't find a website for them, though Stahlsturm warned me I might not. But a little googling got me that they won the Silver in 2004 and Gold in 2008 at the World Beer Cup Silver for this beer, their Märzen. I saw that Bierman9 reviewed it here, too.


I found a pic of the bottle cap online, but only one, really out-of-focus shot of the bottle, so here's mine:

Color is bright, bright clear amber lots of with orange hues. It has a strong dirty white foam top, in fact, it squirted out the bottle even after sitting for 1 day without movement.

Aroma is typical Münchner, toasty malts, very aromatic even 20 minutes after sitting neglected while type this up. I smell a hint of hop bitterness, Noble hops like Tettnanger or Hersbrücke.

The flavor is sweet, quite sweet Caramunich or simply Münchner malt maltiness, toasted, roasted caramel malts and other flavors such, neither figs nor dates but something similar with such intense sweetness. I feel like Vienna malts are highly present, and a search on Hobbybrauer.de shows that truly it's a major part of a typical Märzen recipe. The front has a light sourness, but the sides and middle are all syrupy malt flavors. Unlike yesterday's Märzen, Eichhofener Festbier, it's sweetness is more balanced out with some bitterness around the center and back of the tongue. The aftertaste is all sweet malts, kind of like sucking on a malt-sicle with a slight hop floral flavor instead of chocolate on top. It's also not a tad less sickly sweet as Eichhofener's Festbier. I can see why this beer won Gold and Silver, though I might have upped the IBUs just a wee bit. Nonetheless, in order to drink more and finish the bottle, I find myself forcing the beer over the front of the tongue to get more of the sour/tart notes and swirl it over the center of the tongue to find more bitterness; otherwise, it's just too sweet. It would taste great with a Torte or other cake, and to give respect for Bayern München wrapping up the BuLi (Bundesliga) championship yesterday, thought I'd leave you with these images:

 

Basically, you could freeze a Malzbier (almost non-alcohic malt drink, basically wort), and that would be it.

 

Have an hour's time to kill at home and thought I'd hit the STAHLSTURM STASH again. I saw mention of Bischhofshof on another thread here, so I thought that's the one I should review for you.

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It's the Original 1649, which the front label says as the motto above: "The beer that makes us into friends." On the back, they say its RHG, blah blah, from a recipe handed down from 1649, brewed for their 350 year anniversary, a fein-würzige Festbier. Würzig means literally "spicy. Fein here means "delicately"... so delicately spiced/tangy/full-flavored or delicately aromatic. On their site, they call it an Export-Bier.


I'm sure Stahlsturm can fill us in on any details of the brewery, if any are interesting.

The beer pours with a snow white head with tightly packed bubbles under a deep golden beer. By snow, I mean bright, fresh-snow-reflecting-the-sun-into-your-eyes white.

The aroma is pure Pilsner malt with a German Noble hop mixed in, giving it both a sweet Pils and spicy hop smell simultaneously. The flavor is typical Pils, quite bitter at first with sweeter Pilsner malt flavors mixed in. It does taste more like a Dortmunder Export, though, with the heavy dose of sweeter toasted bread/Pilsner malt flavors being the giveaway. What makes it Bayrisch, however, is the thicker, rounder mouthfeel and lack of dryness that I remember from the 80s when I had a DAB or DUB. This feels smoother but has a Noble hop punch in the front and sides of the tongue with the sweeter malts near the back. It's also what the aftertaste is like: a Pils malt sweetness of bread. Overall, quite süffig and easy drinking, despite the bitterness. I alternate on sips thinking it's first bitter, no, next sip, sweet Pils malt, and back and forth. It's a beer that would stand up to a whole Maß and not lose my interest. It's good, not world beating, but really good, savory and fulfilling. I imagine it would be a great beer to drink outside in the sun after a hike in the forest.

The only quibble is that I find it hard to believe a bottom-fermenting, clear golden beer like this was produced in 1649. I thought that didn't occur until the 1800s, so is it pure marketing hype that this was brewed from a recipe from 1649?

 

This thread got pushed so far down the list; it must be because I've been slacking on reporting on beers from STAHLSURM's STASH. I finally found the time this evening to drink the 2nd beer from Bischhofshof, their Zoigl. The back label states it's an unflitered Kellerbier, and the bottom of the bottle contains yeast sediment, leading me to believe there's bottle conditioning at work.


The color is amber, dark orange and a slightly brown haze from the yeast sediment. It's completely unclear and sits under a snow-white head of foam that dissipated rather quickly.
Aroma is very Pilsner/Münchner malty with a backbone of some Noble hops mixed, a distinct lemony aroma lingering in the background.

The flavor is typical for a south German Helles. Thick mouthfeel but not too thick, it's malty again. It's sweet, Münchner malt or Amber or Melanoindin malts, in high quantities as I guess from the flavor and the tell-tale orange/reddish hue of the beer. The flavor is similar to the Original 1649 above but lacking the spiciness. Instead, I get some lemony notes in the front and back from the hops, but that's just a hint and only when I concentrate on it. When drinking it quickly, I get almost only toasty/bready malt, yet it's not overpowering, sickly sweet like the Goss-Bräu Märzen was. There are notable hops on the side and center of my tongue but that flavor disappears as soon as it's swallowed. I'm left with a slightly lemony aftertaste that in fact is quite pleasant.

Overall, it's a very good beer but the distinct flavors are really subtle. I doubt if I hadn't sat down to write this review I would've ever discerned those different tastes. They certainly didn't come through in the top half of the bottle, yet once I poured the yeast sediment (oops) in the glass, I got a much more complex, interesting beer. I'm glad I took the time to write up a review of this beer; otherwise, I don't think I would've caught half the subtleties. What does that tell me? If I were allowed to brew this beer, I would push the different flavors out a little, make them a little more pronounced, especially the hops and lemony notes, but keep the malt bill roughly the same. Overall, a very good beer, very süffig and one I'd like to drink more of.

 

Please repeat tomorrow and tell us why!