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Now we're getting somewhere: Peschl

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Thank you, Peschl or Passau. We hadn’t dared let ourselves hope that all that folksy branding and ‘family brewery’ rhetoric might actually mean interesting beer but were over the moon to be proved wrong.

The benefit to all the local breweries offering similar ranges is the ease with which they can be compared. Straight off, we could tell that Peschl’s helles and pils had more zing than the respective offerings from Hacklberg and Lowenbrau. They weren’t transcendent, but we certainly found them interesting and agreed that, if we could never drink anything but these again, we’d probably be happy.

Even the hefe-weizens were interesting, being perhaps a little more grainy-tasting (more wheat in the mix?) and a touch sour.

So, we thought we’d found the best beer in Passau, and began to feel a little more cheerful.

Nächste halt: Innstadt.

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Posted in beer reviews, breweries, Germany | 4 Comments »

The breweries of Passau: Löwenbrau

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

It seems every German city has a Löwenbrauerei or two. Your Germans are nuts about lions, especially medieval stone ones that look like dogs with perms.

Passau’s Löwenbrau is another big local brand. We saw their trucks, adverts and parasols all over town and the surrounding countryside — and, as we’ve come to expect from big regional Bavarian breweries, they’re not exactly risk-takers.

In fact, we could more-or-less repeat our review of Hacklberg. A cold helles on a terrace on the river Inn at sunset, after a hike in the sun, is always going to taste good but, really, we were beginning to think that we might have to give up on the beer in Passau…

Nächste halt: Brauerei Peschl.

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Posted in beer reviews, breweries, Germany | Comments Closed

The breweries of Passau: Hacklberg

Monday, June 14th, 2010

There are five breweries in Passau.

Based on the number of times we saw their logo (including on a hot air balloon over the old town) Hacklberg seem to be the biggest. Their beers were also the first we tried, on a lovely terrace overlooking the Danube (at Am Paulusbogen).

Short review: these are average, Munich-style Bavarian beers — pale, clean and somewhat fizzy.

The helles went down very well after several hours on a hot train, but we’d struggle to describe it in a meaningful, beer-writery way. It tasted a bit of malt, a bit of hops, and mostly like, well, any other decent lager. The pils was similar but a little paler and with perhaps a hint of sulphur. The hefe-weizen was absolutely by the book and would have been hard to distinguish from Erdinger or Weihenstephan in a taste test, we suspect.

The darker beers were more interesting. The dunkles-weizen had more character than the light version — about as much as colour and flavour as Schneider Weisse, in fact. The non-wheaty dunkel had some roastiness and we disagreed over whether it was actually any good or not: Boak thought it tasted sugary, plasticky and rough-edged (in a bad way), whereas Bailey found it just on the right side of characterful, and found a few spicy flavours (caraway?).

Nächste halt: Löwenbrau Passau.

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Posted in breweries, Germany | 5 Comments »

Frankfurt, Passau and Cologne (again)

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

We’ve been on our travels! We’d normally announce an upcoming holiday here and ask for tips but, on this occasion, we spent a hectic, disorganised week before we went away in our new favourite German city of the mind: Bad Planning.

So, just to whet your appetite for what we’re afraid to say is going to be a long series of posts recounting every detail of our jaunt, here’s what we made of Frankfurt, where we stopped over for a few hours on the way out.

Zu den 12 Apostel, at Rosenburger Strasse, just north of the centre, like most German brewpubs, offers a cloudy helles and a dunkles. The helles had slightly more perceptible hops than others we’ve had, and was refreshing enough, but we’d be lying if we said it was anything special. We were pleased to find the dunkles didn’t taste sugary and unfermented as so many do, but it certainly would have benefited from more hops. Or any hops.

Any glamour these beers had was entirely because they were the first of the holiday, and those always taste good.

The food was perhaps the most interesting thing: lots of the menu was southern slavonic. We were also impressed that they’d created a pretty convincing beer garden in what was, in effect, an alleyway round the back of an office block.

Tandleman’s also been in Frankfurt recently, we note.

Nächste halt: Passau.

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Snacks to beer part 2 — schmaltz/smalec

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

I have very happy memories of visiting Poland. Chief among them is the great joy I experienced in Wroc?aw when presented with a free — yes, free! — plate of bread and dripping with my first pint at Piwnica Swidnicka.

Since then, I’ve also enjoyed it at as ‘schmaltz‘ in various places in Germany, most notably Klosterbräu in Bamberg which has several varieties, including goose fat.

They say you shouldn’t eat greasy food with beer and, yes, if you’re carrying out any kind of formal tasting, it’s probably a bad idea. But, in the real world, nothing makes a wheat beer zing like a piece of rye bread spread thickly with spicy, salty, onion-laced lard.

These days, it’s thankfully very easy to get schmaltz/smalec in the UK in any shop which stocks Polish foods.

The one I bought to eat with my beery bread had a higher meat content than some (try saying “mechanically recovered chicken and pork” without saying “mmmmmmm”…) and was very satisfying indeed. Sometimes, you’ll find it in tins; in blocks like butter or lard; or in glass jars. It’s cheap however it comes.

Let’s be clear, though: it is not health food.

That salad I had with it cancels out the fat, though, right? Right? And it’s normal to have shooting pains in your left arm, isn’t it?

If you like your grease cut with other fats, why not give Obazda a go?

Bailey

Posted in beer and food, Germany, Poland, Snacks to beer | 3 Comments »

Every beer gets a second chance

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Both variants of the Brooklyn/Schneider Hopfen Weisse in their beautifully designed bottles

We hated Schneider Hopfenweisse when we tried it a couple of years ago and I almost turned my nose up when offered it on draft at the Devonshire cat, Sheffield. Nonetheless, I got my half (a mere £2.80…) and gave it another go.

It’s always a good idea to give a beer a second chance. Wowzers, Penny. I take it all back. It’s wonderful.

It’s like a turbo charged wheatbeer with crisp, almost tangible hops; bubblegum cut with grapefruit. Truly extreme and fabulous for it. Oddly, the German-American parentage gives this a very Belgian aroma (booze + spice) which really adds to the pleasure.

Boak

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Posted in American beers, beer reviews, Germany | 7 Comments »

Beer festivals are growing on us

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

At a loose end, we decided to pop to Manchester for the weekend, taking in the National Winter Ales Festival, of which Tandleman was one of the organisers.

After startling him with our unannounced arrival (he made a very effective bouncer) we made our way upstairs to the main hall. Our first impressions were of a relatively young crowd with the kind of male-female mix you’d expect in the real world. The atmosphere was like that of a large, busy, if rather brightly lit pub. Or, with people sat on the floor in groups, was it reminiscent of a music festival? We felt very comfortable and soon completely forgot we were in a wedding banquet hall on an industrial estate in a city we hardly knew.

We headed straight for the German rarities. Uerige Sticke Alt, which we’d been wanting to try for a long time, had the trademark Uerige bitterness, although after such anticipation, it was a little disappointing. Schlenkerla Urbock (or did the label say Eichbock?) (6.5%) was clear and syrupy and, frankly, balanced too much towards sweetness for our taste.

A brief detour to Bohemia next with Bernard Kvasnicove took the idea of unfiltered beer to the extreme:  there was a bit of wood in it. It was mellow and, again, sweetish. It wasn’t warm, but it could have got away with being two degrees colder.

Lowenbrau Buttenheim Bock didn’t taste as strong as 6.5%. It was very nicely balanced, clearly a well crafted beer, and far from bland, but we wanted a bit more zing.

We went closer to home for the next round. Broughton 80 Shilling was bland; Acorn Gorlovka Stout astounding. What a contrast. We were sceptical as to how a 5% beer could lay claim to the ‘imperial’ moniker but this beauty did it, through hop bitterness, chocolate intensity and a very heavy, chewy body. It was the stand out beer of the evening.

JW Lees Darkside was really interesting — so fruity and sour that if someone said it had plums or maybe even cherries in, we’d believe them.

Red shield, White Shield’s weaker, blonder, cask-conditioned cousin, could have borne a lote more hop aroma and came off as a bit boring in comparison to, say, Dark Star Hophead or Marble Pint.

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Posted in beer festivals, beer reviews, czech republic, Germany, real ale | 11 Comments »

Plenty beer, plenty meat, plenty money

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

On our recent jaunt in the north of Germany, we took the opportunity to re-read Erskine Childers 1903 German-invasion-scare novel, The Riddle of the Sands.

This passage occurs when Davies and Carruthers (yes, the narrator is called Carruthers!) meet a channel pilot on the Friesian coast and he takes them duck hunting.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘all right. There is plenty ducks, but first we will drink a glass beer; then we will shift your ship, captain–she lies not good there.’ (Davies started up in a panic, but was waved back to his beer.) ‘Then we will drink together another glass beer; then we will talk of ducks–no, then we will kill ducks–that is better. Then we will have plenty glasses beer.’

This was an unexpected climax, and promised well for our prospects. And the programme was fully carried out. After the beer our host was packed briskly by his daughter into an armour of woollen gaiters, coats, and mufflers, topped with a worsted helmet, which left nothing of his face visible but a pair of twinkling eyes. Thus equipped, he led the way out of doors, and roared for Hans and his gun, till a great gawky youth, with high cheek-bones and a downy beard, came out from the yard and sheepishly shook our hands.

Together we repaired to the quay, where the pilot stood, looking like a genial ball of worsted, and bawled hoarse directions while we shifted the Dulcibella to a berth on the farther shore close to the other vessels. We returned with our guns, and the interval for refreshments followed. It was just dusk when we sallied out again, crossed a stretch of bog-land, and took up strategic posts round a stagnant pond. Hans had been sent to drive, and the result was a fine mallard and three ducks. It was true that all fell to the pilot’s gun, perhaps owing to Hans’ filial instinct and his parent’s canny egotism in choosing his own lair, or perhaps it was chance; but the shooting-party was none the less a triumphal success. It was celebrated with beer and music as before, while the pilot, an infant on each podgy knee, discoursed exuberantly on the glories of his country and the Elysian content of his life. ‘There is plenty beer, plenty meat, plenty money, plenty ducks,’ summed up his survey.

Image from the cover of the recent beautifully designed Penguin edition.

Posted in beer in fiction / tv, Germany | 8 Comments »

Cologne: not just about the Koelsch

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

freischems

We end up in Cologne so often these days  on our way in and out of Germany that it’s a struggle to find new pubs or beers to try. This time, however, we spotted an advert for Freischem’s Brauhaus on a free city map and trekked out of the immediate city centre in the rain to give it a go.

It was huge and mostly empty — because it was 4.30 on a wet Sunday afternoon or because it only opened a month or two ago? The beer list immediately had us a little excited. It included a Koelsch, of course, but also something called Trub, a weizen, a Christmas beer and a stout.

The Koelsch was of the slightly darker, honey-tasting variety (see also Paeffgen) and very pleasant. Trub was, unsurprisingly, a cloudy light beer — their answer to the bland brauhaus zwickl and perfectly drinkable, if unexciting. The weizen ticked all the usual boxes.

Weihnachtsbier was a nice red colour with a good spicy aroma. We were split on this one, though. Boak thought it was dull, verging on unpleasant, with an off yeast flavour and not much more. Bailey could taste roasted malt and liked the bitterness.

The stout was the stand-out beer, though. We really weren’t expecting much — a boring schwarzbier, perhaps? — but it had a good thick body, a creamy chocolate flavour and a great roasted bitter aftertaste. We’d have enjoyed this anywhere but, by German brewpub standards, it was a knockout.

Given that it wasn’t far away, we also staged a return visit to Hellers, where there were a couple of new beers for us to try as well as some old favourites. Winterbock was an amateur take on Aventinus, with all the right clove and fruit flavours but  with absolutely no condition. Pity, as this would be stunning otherwise. The new bottled Pils was very good — bitter, but not especially hoppy, and so malty it tasted like mashing grain.

Bottles of Hellers Wiess (the unfiltered Koelsch) are currently on sale at Cask, the excellent pub in Pimlico we wrote about here.

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Posted in Germany, pubs | 6 Comments »

Jever: now that's what we call bitter!

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

A krug of Jever pilsener beer in Hamburg

We’ve been fans of Jever, the famously bitter pils from the North German city of that name, for some time. When we met Knut a couple of weeks back we spent a few minutes collectively rhapsodising about what a wonderful beer it is when it’s not gone stale, as the bottles that turn up in London seem to have done about 50 per cent of the time.

We’d never had it on tap, though, and were determined to put this right in Hamburg where Jever is one of the three or four most readily available commercial lagers. The Friesenkeller, which is in a cave between the Alster lake and the Rathaus and focuses on Friesian specialities, caught our eye as a likely spot.

The pils came in a stone krug so that only the rocky head was visible peering over the top. The familiar sulphurous smell hit us before we’d even lifted the vessels. The marvellous lingering bitter aftertaste was thrown into sharp contrast by all the timid brewpub beers we’d been drinking — it really seemed a bold, lively, interesting beer.

One dimensional? Yes, probably, but nonetheless a beer we’d like to be able to drink in good condition more often.

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Posted in Germany | 15 Comments »

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