Pilsners!

Well he's a beer advocate that LIVED in Germany, I've only visited. And need to visit again, despite the lower hopping rate of pilsners. (I hate smileys).

 

I MUST go here...Thanks for the tip !
Not too far from the Heidelberg either....

 

...but, that's not a Pilsner.

(sure hope those weren't the half-liter bottles! )

 

Recently, I've been able to get some really fresh mini-kegs of Wurzburger Pils...very nice in this format.

 

But it's not even the bitterness in which I notice the biggest difference between German, Czech and US Pilsners, it's a malt character that the US brewers just can't seem to replicate.

 

Okay -- I'm lookin' for that.

 

ANy type of fres wuerzburger is my fav pils that makes it over. I think the minikegs can deteriorate pretty fast though, I need to find a fresh one.

 

Do you know if they are "best on" dated 6 months or 12 months out ?

Edit: Two of the bottle shops that I frequent have them in refrigerated storage

 

Interesting the love for Wuerzburger. Maybe it's some sort of bias, but most locals I talked to looked down on this beer. I always tended to avoid it for that reason. Need to give it a second look.

 

Many American breweries have access to and use, Durst, Best, or Weyermann malts. What many of them do not have is the abillity to decoct. You may be picking up on the flavors from the Maillard reactions in the decoction. Then again there are German breweries that have stopped decocting the mash to save energy which is very expensive in Germany.

Do you like Metropolitan? Do they use European malts? Do they do a decoction mash? Ask them and tell us what they do, might be good to know.

The new-ish local lager (mostly) brewery is Wolverine. Their brewing system is simple and they mainly do infusions from what I know. They do use imported malts for some of the beers. They made a fine Bo-Pils using Best malt, Saaz hops, the 833 Ayinger yeast, and distilled water that then had a CaCl2 added. Not Moravian malt with a trippel decoction, or one of the Czech yeasts, but I really liked this beer and it tasted like a Bo-Pils.

 

I can't remember their dating system, in Germany they always have the best before date in clear month then day style.

 

I think it is one of the better ones imported, and when I was in Bamberg actually my friends gave me a fresh bottle of it and we all enjoyed it.

 

Yea, in Germany you never know what kinds of weird biases you're going to come across. One of my students told me after drinking local Bamberg beers that I needed to try a "real German beer." He was from Bremen. What did he bring? 6 pack of Beck's.

 

Oh, most definitely it's that melanoidin character from the Malliard reaction I'm picking up on, but as point out, most barley malt doesn't need to be dococted these days -- in fact Spaten doesn't decocot anymore and their Helles and Oktoberfest really carry the malt character

I do like Metro, but you really only get a touch of that rich malt character in their Copper Lager, and even that becomes more "nutty" than bready.

I have a contact with Metro (who is a member here at BA...), I'll see if he has any input.

And New Glarus is using imported malts for their 2 Women lager, which has the most of that malt character of any US beer I've ever tried (except maybe a local brew-pub's Oktoberfest), but boy -- is it delicate. If you've had any different beer before that one, your palate won't get the malts cleanly from 2 Women.

 

For me it's nostalgic from trips to the beautiful city.

 

LOL!!! Typical.

 

The ones I've purchased indeed have a non-cryptic best on date...is that 6 or 12 months from bottling ?

 

One of the trickiest things about German beers in the US seems to be distribution.
Throwing freshness out the window, I run into "random" German beers constantly. Stuff that may or may not be good, but the odds are that I'll never see it again. Too often I find myself trying one and saying "I need to get some more of this!" only to find that it's long gone forever.
It's a little disheartening.

 

I have had 2 Women, as recently as late Feb. on a trip to see my sister in WI. On the trip to Gemany I had a beer at Drie Kronen that reminded me of the 2 Women. Then the next day at Faessla I had another that reminded me of 2 Women. Both were fine lagers.

 

Funny story about this...I have a friend here from Köln. Every time I told him I wanted to go to Düsseldorf to try Altbier he'd make a face and tell me it "tastes like its name" ("alt" meaning "old" but also "stale" in reference to bread/food). He kept encouraging me to go to Köln instead for some "real" beer. Well I went to Düsseldorf much to his chagrin and brought him back a bottle of Uerige for a laugh. To my surprise, he not only drank it but said he liked it. I asked him what differentiated Uerige from the other alts in his opinion and he said he wasn't sure, he'd never had an alt beer before.