Category Archives: Tasting Notes

These are my thoughts about various beers that I taste. Not as thorough as a review, but more than just casual drinking.

Hacker-Pschorr Hubertus Bock and Sternweisse

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I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Barbara Degnan, the international director of sales for the Paulaner brewery in Munich. Paulaner is also the brewer of the Hacker-Pschorr brand. Over a delightful breakfast at The Freehouse she filled me in on some of the things Paulaner has been up to, including the release of four new-to-the-US beers.

Like so many breweries in the United States, Paulaner is having a hard time keeping up with demand. Work on a new and larger brewery in Munich is nearly complete. It was important that the brewery be situated within the city limits so that the beer could still be served at Oktoberfest. The new brewery is a testament to the importance of water in the brewing process. Paulaner is laying pipe beneath the streets of Munich to bring water from the old location to the new. This might say something about the importance of beer to the Bavarians as well.

Import brands are also not immune to the vagaries of the current US beer market. Just like with American brewers, constant innovation is a must to keep brands front and center in the minds of consumers. With this in mind, Paulaner is bringing in four new, limited-release, Hacker-Pschorr brands spread seasonally through the year. Only 320 kegs of each will be available nationwide. Packaged beer will come in eye-catching, half-liter, swing-top bottles. While these beers aren’t new to the brewery, they are new to the US. The first, Hubertus Bock will be available in March. This will be followed by Sternweisse, Festbier, and Animator Doppelbock.

Hubertus Bock is a blond bock beer that comes in at 6.3% ABV. It’s described by the brewery as having a “robust maltiness, and a well-balanced, slightly sweet hoppy finish.” Sternweisse – which translates as “wheat star” – is a full-bodied, unfiltered, hefeweizen that is a bit darker than the well known Hacker-Pschorr wheat. I had the opportunity to sample both.

Here’s my notes:

Hubertus BockHubertus Bock
Hacker-Pschorr Bräu GmbH, Munich, Germany
Style: Blond Bock
Serving Style: 16.9 oz. bottle

Aroma: Bread and lightly toasted bread crust come even before I raise the glass to my nose. Malt dominates, but spicy hops nearly balance – licorice, mint, lemon, hints of currant and cat. Brisk and refreshing.

Appearance: Deep gold and brilliantly clear. Full head of just off-white foam. Excellent retention. Falls slowly into a dense, creamy cap.

Flavor: Like the aroma, malt is on top. Rich, with medium-low sweetness. Bread and light bread-crust flavors. Hints of honey. Hops bring spicy edge of black pepper, with undertones of blackberry. Bitterness is medium to medium-high and is accentuated by the high degree of attenuation. Finishes dry and crisp. Some alcohol is noticeable and lingers into finish along with honeyed bread and spices.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Mouth filling. Warming. Medium carbonation. Creamy.

Overall Impression: Big, but still delicate. Has the feel of a beer slightly bigger than its 6.3% ABV, and yet remains light and refreshing. This would be equally at home with roasted game hens or honey-dripping baklava. Why is my bottle empty?!!?

SternweisseSternweisse
Hacker-Pschorr Bräu GmbH, Munich, Germany
Style: Hefeweizen
Serving Style: 16.9 oz bottle

Aroma: Sharp, wheaty malt. Orange/lemony citrus acidity. Yeast. Bread dough. Banana and clove yeast character is subtle overall, but leans more to the spicy than the fruity. Light floral hops.

Appearance: Medium amber/orange. Nearly to dunkelweizen darkness. Quite cloudy. Opaque. Full stand of mousse-like, off white foam. Excellent retention.

Flavor: Flavor follows on the aroma. Bread crust carries over and is delightfully prominent. Subtle caramel. Yeast character is again subtle and leans to clove and spice, with banana in a supporting role. Bright, lemony acidity grabs the middle of the tongue and stays into the finish. Bitterness is medium-low, but high attenuation gives the beer a sharpness. Refreshing and crisp. Finish is very dry and lingers on lemon, wheat, and clove.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-light body. Pillowy and mouth filling. Some puckering acidity. Very high carbonation – effervescent.

Overall Impression: Outstanding! Delightful, citrusy wheat. I love the bright, lemony overtones. This falls somewhere between a hefeweizen and a dunkelweizen. Nice summer patio beer, but enough dark depth to be pretty darn good on a winter evening as well. Wish I had another bottle.

Traveler Beer Co. Chocolate Covered Strawberry

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Blended beer drinks have been around forever. The American colonists did it. The Brits do it. Even the purist Germans do it. One such blend of stout with hefeweizen is sometimes called Cream of Wheat. Shandy makers Traveler Beer Co. are recommending a twist on this drink – a blend of Irish stout and shandy. In particular, for Valentine’s Day they are pushing what they are calling a Chocolate Covered Strawberry – a blend of Irish stout with their Time Traveler strawberry shandy.

Like a black and tan, the lighter stout floats on top of the denser shandy, creating that black over gold layering. The mix of sturdy, wheat-beer foam with creamy, nitro-stout foam gives it a head that just won’t quit. And who doesn’t love chocolate covered strawberries?

I gave it a whirl. Here’s my notes.

Chocolate Covered StrawberryChocolate Covered Strawberry
The Traveler Beer Co., Burlington, Vermont
Style: Black & Tan made with dry stout and strawberry shandy
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle & 16 oz. can

Aroma: The strawberry very much dominates. Low, wheaty grain. Faint notes of coffee roast. Don’t see how it can be so low since the stout is floating on top, but there it is.

Appearance: Full stand of creamy, white foam. Nitro-foam cascade halfway down the glass. Excellent retention. Top layer is black and opaque – appears clear. Bottom layer is pale straw and quite cloudy.

Flavor: Strawberry fruit hits first with a bit of dry roast coming a second later. The roast gradually takes over from the strawberry with a dry bite at the top of the mouth, but that strawberry is very persistent. Bitterness is medium-low, coming mostly from the stout. The stout’s dry, bitter roastiness emphasizes and clashes with a tart acidity in the shandy. Other impressions include bitter chocolate, acrid black-malt roast, low wheat malt, and Lemon. Finish lingers on chocolate and strawberry.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Medium-high carbonation. Acidity grabs at and dries out the tongue.

Overall Impression: I don’t mind either the stout or the shandy by themselves. Together they are a bit of a sledgehammer of flavors. Mostly a murky mish-mash. The promo material from Traveler recommends a 50/50 split of Time Traveler shandy with a dry, Irish stout. I recommend something more like a 70/30 stout to shandy ratio. The strawberry is much subtler, making the chocolate/strawberry effect clearer. This was interesting to try once, but I’m not sure I would do it again. Nor would I necessarily recommend that you do it once. Some things just aren’t meant to be.

Magic Hat Heart of Darkness Stout

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It’s winter. It’s been really cold outside. It’s good stout-drinking weather. That’s all I’ve got to say.

Here’s my notes:

Magic Hat Heart of Darkness StoutHeart of Darkness Stout
Magic Hat Brewing Company, South Burlington, Vermont
Style: Stout
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle

Aroma: Medium-level, dry, black-malt roastiness. Licorice and black coffee. Some light-molasses and brown sugar sweetness balances the roast. Low, toasted-bread notes fill in the background. No hops.

Appearance: Black, nearly opaque with ruby-red highlights. Appears clear. Moderate head of creamy, beige foam with larger bubbles interspersed. Moderate retention.

Flavor: Creamy dark chocolate kicks things off with some black-malt, dry roastiness that comes in midway. A touch of caramel sweetness tempers the roast. Bitterness is medium-low from both hops and roasted malt. Low earthy hop flavors with light citrus overtones. Secondary notes of coffee grounds, licorice, dark fruits, and berries. A hint of roasted malt acidity. The dry finish lingers on roast.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Medium carbonation. Low creaminess.

Overall Impression: A smooth stout that falls somewhere between BJCP styles. It’s not quite sweet, not quite dry, and not hoppy enough to be called American. I like the light, background toasty-bread notes of Munich malt. I’m munching on some cheese as I drink this. What I’m missing though is a good, mild, blue cheese. It would be very good with this beer.

Pour Decisions Maroon and Bold

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I’m going to make a confession. I’m getting tired of beer. Not the beverage itself, but the current hype surrounding it. I’m tired of the Facebook pages on which people post gloating pictures of the hyper-rare beer they are drinking in order to make others feel envious. I’m not really all that interested in this or that brewery’s new release. Beer festivals hold less and less appeal. The rate of brewery openings has become exhausting. I long for the day when drinking a beer was just that, and not some monumental event that had to be contemplated, documented, and elevated to the status of “experience.”

It was in this mindset that I pulled a bottle of Pour Decisions Brewing Company’s Maroon and Bold from my refrigerator. My intent was to just drink it while watching episodes of Green Acres on Hulu. Indeed, episode 17 of season 2 had already begun when I took the first sip. This was not a typical imperial IPA. Pour Decisions claims to “innovate tradition.” That’s just what was going on here. The flavor was so familiar, and then again not. Damn! I was going to have to contemplate.

Here’s my notes:

Maroon and BoldMaroon and Bold
Pour Decisions Brewing Company, Roseville, Minnesota
Style: Imperial IPA
Serving Style: 22 oz. bottle

Aroma: Malt plays a big role. Toffee and a bit of toasted biscuit. Caramel, but more dry than sweet. Next to that and in almost equal balance (but not quite) are citrusy hops. Estery – oranges and maybe even raisins. It has an English kind of funk.

Appearance: Dark amber with a reddish cast. It is actually kind of maroon. Brilliant. Moderate, rocky, just-off-white foam with good persistence.

Flavor: There’s that malt again. Toast, toffee, caramel, biscuit. Malty, but not sweet. Like the aroma, the malt is in near equal balance with the hops – citrus, pineapple and pine resin. Super-high attenuation accentuates the bitterness, which has a sharp, stony character. That English yeasty funk carries over from the aroma, leaving nice orange marmalade overtones.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-full body. Medium-high carbonation. Crisp, not creamy.

Overall Impression: I wasn’t going to write this beer up, but drinking it made me want to take some notes. It’s unique for a DIPA, not typically my favorite style. Malt has clearly been given equal attention with the hops. That’s my kind of DIPA. This would be a great hoppy beer to pair with desert. I could see drinking this with raisin spice cake.

Schell’s Stag Series #8: August’s Bock

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The folks at August Schell Brewing Company have been busy little brewers. They’ve released a bevy of new bevis in the last little bit. I’m having a hard time keeping up. Seems I totally missed out on the fresh-hop brew this year. I did manage to snatch a couple bottles of the Stag Series #8 and Snowstorm. Now if I could just stay home a night or two so that I could taste all this beer.

Schell’s Stag Series #8: August’s Bock is a collaboration brew with the Brauerei Gold-Ochsen (Golden Ox Brewery) in Ulm, Germany. There some interesting commonalities between these two breweries. Both are family owned by fifth generation decedents of men named August. Then there is the obvious Ulm/New Ulm connection. Between them they have nearly 570 years of brewing experience. Gold-Ochsen was founded in 1597 and Schell’s in 1860.

The beer is brewed in the Heller Doppelbock style. The recipe was worked out collaboratively by the brewmasters at each brewery. Each one brewed the beer using their local base malts, but the same specialty malts from Weyermann Malting in Germany. The hop bills were the same – Tettnang, Saphire and Smaragd hops from the Tettnang region of Germany located near the Gold Ochsen Brewery – except for the dry-hop additions. Gold Ochsen dry hopped their version with Mandarina Bavaria hops and the Schell’s Brewery used a German variety, Polaris.

Here’s my notes:

Schell's Stag Series #8: August's BockSchell’s Stag Series #8: August’s Bock
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota & Gold Ochsen Brewery, Ulm, Germany
Style: Helles Bock
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Thick pilsner malt sweetness with tones of honeyed bread and faint stone fruits. Medium hop aromas – spicy and floral. Cinnamon and fancy soap. A bit of marijuana. Alcohol is apparent.

Appearance: Deep gold with an orange tint. Brilliantly clear. Moderate head of creamy, off-white foam with moderate retention.

Flavor: Very balanced between malt and hops. Malt leads slightly – again with honeyed bread character. Light red apple notes. Hop bitterness is medium, with a sharpness that catches on the way out. Floral and spicy hops flavors offer contrast that cuts the sweetness of the malt – cinnamon and flowers. Maybe a tad catty. A hint of alcohol. Finish is off-dry with lingering floral and honey flavors.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Medium-high carbonation. Some alcohol warming.

Overall Impression: A lovely balance of rich, honey-like malt and flowers. So much floral hop flavor. Almost too much for me. Almost, but not quite. I want that malt to come through. Big and yet still light and refreshing. The enhanced hop bitterness and flavor cuts the sweet to keep it that way.

Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale

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Ten Hills Pale Ale is the first of a three-beer series from Goose Island that will celebrate hops. The materials that I received from the brewery give no clue as to what the other two will be.

Ten Hills Pale Ale gets its name from the ten hills of hops originally planted for the brewery two years ago by Elk Mountain Farms in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. The relationship between the brewery and the hop farm has grown since that planting. 200,000 hills are now grown exclusively for Goose Island.

Say what you will about the sale to AB-InBev, the relationship has allowed Goose Island to do things like this; things it likely wouldn’t have been able to do before. As brewmaster Brett Porter put it in the press release for Ten Hills, “More than ever before in our brewing history, we’re innovating at Goose Island,” Porter said. “Whether we’re creating a new hop-focused series of beers or further developing our barrel aging program. It’s an incredibly exciting time at Goose Island.”

Here’s my notes:

Goose Island Ten Hils Pale AleTen Hills Pale Ale
Goose Island Beer Company, Baldwinsville, New York
Style: American Pale Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle

Aroma: Hops and malt are in nearly equal balance. Sweet-ish maltiness is almost like a double IPA. Hints of biscuit. Hops still narrowly take the day. Thick, stone fruit and tropical fruit aromas – pineapple, mangoes, apricots – like a roll of Lifesavers or canned-fruit syrup. Tropical enough that I swear I smell coconut, but I don’t think I really do. Underlying notes flowers and spice.

Appearance: Medium copper color and slightly hazy. Good stand of persistent, off-white foam.

Flavor: Stoney bitterness that bites the back of the throat on the way out. Buckets of fruit – blood oranges, pineapple, especially pineapple, mango, peach or apricot. So much fruit. The flowers and spice carry over from the aroma, offering a counterpoint to the fruit. Surprisingly high level of malt again gives it a moderately sweet profile. The sugar melds with caramel and biscuit flavors that start small and then pop mid-palate. Finish is dry with lingering bitterness and fruit.

Mouthfeel: Medium body, but with a sugary thickness. Medium-high carbonation. Sticky.

Overall Impression: At 6.2% ABV it’s definitely on the high-test and full-bodied end of the pale ale spectrum; really more IPA-like, but with a low IBU of 48. It’s almost got the syrupy fruitiness of a double IPA, but without the alcohol or abrasive bitterness. Is this the long-awaited session imperial IPA? The dry finish says that attenuation was high, but the impression is still of a beer with a good deal of residual sugar. This would be good with the pineapple-sambal pulled-pork sliders I paired to at a tasting event last week.

Iron Maiden’s Trooper

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Band beers are all the rage. Hanson has one. So does Kid Rock. AC/DC, Mötorhead, and Kiss are in the signature brew club as well. The question is, how much of this is about beer and how much of this is about marketing?

Case in point; Trooper the signature beer of Iron Maiden. Clearly the Iron Maiden brand is huge. It’s attached not only to the band, but also to a large collection of band-related merchandise. You can buy Iron Maiden T-shirts, hoodies, pint glasses, key chains, even an Iron Maiden skateboard deck. The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son basketball jersey will only set you back about 75 bucks. It’s big business. Clearly attaching the Iron Maiden name to a beer will bring a windfall to the brewery that makes it. Adding a “craft” beer to the merch line can’t hurt the band either. But is marketing and branding – raking in the dough to be blunt – really all there is to it?

At a recent Better Beer Society University session that I hosted on beer marketing I quizzed Trooper importer Lanny Hoff (Artisanal Imports) on this very topic. (I think I took him by surprise with my aggressive questioning, but he’s more than ready for some good-natured verbal sparring.) He said that the goal of marketing is to convince you to buy something that you really don’t need. Despite what many of us think, we don’t really need beer. In that sense, says Hoff, attaching the Iron Maiden name to beer is all about marketing. But he’s okay with that. The marketing is convincing people who ordinarily would drink light lagers to try something a bit more adventurous. It’s bringing new consumers into the fold.

But Hoff does feel that Trooper rises above pure money-grabbing gimmickry. Everyone involved, from the band to the brewer, actually cares about the beer. And the beer is good, he says. It’s real beer, not just something cranked out to make a quick buck.

So let’s explore this for just a moment. It’s not like Iron Maiden went to some nameless contract brewer and said, “Make us a beer.” Trooper is brewed by Robinsons Brewery, a 175-year-old, family-run, English brewery. They make respected brands like Old Tom Strong Ale. Iron Maiden’s front man Bruce Dickinson claims to be a lover of traditional English beers. He reportedly went to the brewery personally and assisted in its design and production. In a promotional video for the beer Dickenson describes being “put on trial” by the brewmaster at Robinsons as to whether the band was serious about producing a real, long-term ale.

Bruce introduces ‘Trooper’ from Trooper on Vimeo.

But I suppose the real test of whether or not Trooper is just a marketing gimmick is the beer itself. Is it good? Or is it just another Badass Beer?

Here’s my notes:

iron-maiden-beerTrooper
Robinsons Brewery, Cheshire, England
Style: English Best Bitter
Serving Style: Pint bottle

Aroma: Malt leads with toasted bread crust and biscuit. A touch of orangey fruit. Just the subtlest hint of earthy English hops.

Appearance: Medium copper color and clear. Full and persistent head of nearly white foam.

Flavor: Medium-high bitterness from start to finish. Malt offers a pleasing counterpoint with toffee and dry, biscuit and toast flavors. Hop flavors are low, but present – earthy and herbal, minty even. Background notes of orange marmalade. The finish is dry with lingering bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium-low carbonation.

Overall Impression: A very nice best bitter. To quote Dickens, ‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.’

Alaskan Pumpkin Porter

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Sure, it’s Thanksgiving Day. But while people complain about retailers like Wall Mart and Best Buy making their employees come to work, in many places liquor stores are also open (except in Minnesota, of course). So for those of you who somehow forgot to supply yourselves for the holiday meal, here is a last-minute, turkey-worthy recommendation.

Here’s my notes:

pumpkin_porter_bottle_pic-webbyPumpkin Porter
Alaskan Brewing Company, Juneau, Alaska
Style: Imperial Porter with pumpkin and spices
Serving Style: 22 oz. bottle

Aroma: Vegetal squash and pumpkin pie spices are way up front – allspice, ginger, cinnamon are what I smell, although that’s not apparently what’s in it. Black strap molasses. Graham crackers. Low-level dark chocolate underneath. You get the pumpkin filling and the crust.

Appearance:  Very dark brown, nearly black. Ruby highlights. Clear. Full head of creamy, ivory foam with good retention.

Flavor: Vegetal squash notes like acorn squash. Pumpkin pie spices – ginger especially, along with cinnamon. Ginger lingers long after the dry finish. Molasses grabs in the middle and also hangs on into finish. Low malt sweetness. Low-level, dry, chocolate-cookie roastiness. Bitterness is medium-low, but accentuated by dry finish and low-level of dry roast. Toast. Mellow coffee/chickory gets stronger as the beer warms. The pumpkin pie and the coffee to go with it.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Medium carbonation. Low creaminess.

Overall Impression: This is a lovely, unique, and complex beer. Crisp and refreshing, and yet dusky and mouth-filling. Spices are prominent enough to give the sense of eating a slice of pumpkin pie, but not so intense as to make the beer scream “SPICE.” The massive load of pumpkin used (11 pounds per barrel) really do allow for that vegetal squash flavor to come through. And at 7% ABV it’s just strong enough to call it “imperial” but not so strong that you can’t have another. It’s beautiful with a slice of pumpkin pie.

Summit Union Series: Rebellion Stout

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Summit Brewing Company just keeps cranking out new brews. Between the Union Series and the Unchained Series they have had by my count five new releases this year. The latest from the Union Series, Rebellion Stout, came out just this past week. It seems that it is an extremely limited-batch brew. My sources tell me that retailers got very small allotments, meaning that in many places it has already sold out. Will there be more to follow? We can only hope.

Rebellion Stout is an example of foreign extra stout. This strong stout style was originally brewed for export to tropical regions of the British Empire. The BJCP describes two different varieties of foreign extra stout – tropical and export. The tropical version has lower roasted malt character and higher levels of malt and fermentation-derived dark fruit notes. The export variety is drier and roastier with less fruit. Examples of the tropical version available locally include Lion Stout and Xingu. There used to be more examples of the export style available in the Twin Cities. Guinness Foreign Extra, brewed since the 1800s was here for a bit, but now is apparently no longer available. You can still find the old Guinness Extra Stout bottles that used to be the only variety of Guinness available. This lack of local availability makes Rebellion Stout, an export version, a particularly welcome addition to the Summit lineup.

The focus of the Union Series is the use of new and new-ish brewing ingredients. This beer is hopped entirely with Boadicea Hops, an English variety described as having light spicy and floral aromatics. They also used Propino malt, an Irish base malt created for porters and stouts that was recently released in the US.

Here’s my notes:

Summit Rebellion StoutRebellion Stout
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Foreign Extra Stout
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle

Aroma: Tangy, noble-like hops lead off – spice, black currant, lime peel. Reminds me of Tettnang. After the second and third sniff, malt takes over – chocolate, dry graininess and light toast. Subtle coffee notes. Low alcohol.

Appearance: Voluminous, creamy, dark-tan foam with excellent retention. Opaque black. Appears clear.

Flavor: As in the aroma, tangy, noble-like, spicy/black currant hops hit first on the tip of the tongue. Malt quickly takes over and leads the rest of the way. Chocolate is the main note – semi-sweet amd dry like an Oreo cookie. Low caramel, grainy, and toasty malt flavors add complexity. Malted milk balls. Although made with Black Patent malt, there is no harsh or burnt flavor. Hop bitterness is low, assisted by bitterness from roasted malt. Finish is off-dry with lingering molasses, licorice, and chocolate.

Mouthfeel: Creamy. Velvet silk. Medium-full body. Low carbonation. Slightly warming.

Overall Impression: Rich and roasty, but with no burnt malt flavors, this high-test stout goes down super easy. Maybe a little too easy, as it’s quite tempting to down a few. This beer was lovely with a mild blue cheese, but it would stand up quite well to a more pungent one. It’s a shame that it might be so hard to find.

St. Paul Boy Makes Good: Bob Galligan of Hops & Grain Brewing in Austin, Texas

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Most people are unaware that aside from organizing private beer-tasting events, I also own a theatre company. Don’t bother asking which one. Although it’s quite successful, you’ve never heard of it. We don’t do any public performances. GTC Dramatic Dialogues tours to college campuses all across the country doing interactive, dialog-based shows on issues like diversity, sexual assault, and substance abuse. That’s right; I am both a beer evangelist and a substance abuse educator.

Naturally, we drink a lot of beer while on tour. The actors who work for me know that if there is a brewpub in the town where we are performing, we will be eating there. They have no choice. Beer and Yahtzee is a typical post-show activity. Ah, the showbiz life!

Over the years I have introduced a lot of actors to really good beer. For some it has sunk in more deeply than others. One of those is Bob Galligan. I hired Bob pretty fresh out of the theatre program at the University of Minnesota. He performed with the troupe for two seasons before moving to Austin, Texas. Bob was fun to have on the road. His oddball sense of humor can be seen in this video created with friends for distribution to colleges.

Once in Austin, Bob realized that there was no acting to be done. What was an out of work actor to do? Go into brewing, of course. Within a year he worked himself up from tour guide to canning line, brewer, and finally head brewer at Hops & Grain Brewing. I caught up with him in the brewery’s booth at the GABF.

Hopps & Grain AlterationAlteration
Hops & Grain Brewing Company, Austin, Texas
Style: Northern German Altbier
Serving Style: 12 oz. Can

Aroma: Clean. Malt forward with subtle bread crust and light spicy hops to balance. Dark fruits – raisins.

Appearance: Moderate head of off-white, creamy foam that is moderately persistent. Brown with reddish highlights. Clear.

Flavor: Malt definitely leads. Bread crust maltiness with caramel-like melanoidin. Bitterness is medium to medium low. Spicy and floral hop flavors are medium to medium low. Hints of chocolate and dark fruits like raisins. Clean, crisp lager-like finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with some creaminess. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: I’m going to call this one a Northern German Altbier. The bitterness and hop flavors strike me as low for a good example of the Düsseldorf variety. Caramel and toast malt with touches of dark fruit are similar to Belgian dubbel, but without the yeast esters and phenols.