Special Beer Review Gunzburger Brauerei

When we went to Legoland a month ago I researched local breweries.  The one that popped up on most of my searches was Gunzburger Brauerei.  They specialize in Weizen but do other kinds as well.  I dropped into a local Getrankemarkt and picked up a variety.  I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't find a bottle of their Weizenbock, but it is what it is.  Here are the beers that I did pick up.

Gunzburger Radbier Marzen Spezial -  It pours a coppery gold with hints of amber. A slightly off white head never quite disappears and leaves plenty of lacing on the sides. The aroma is floralish and kind of sweet. The first mouthful is interesting, somewhat bready and definitely malty sweet Almost reminiscent of honey? Pretty interesting. The finish is clean with no after taste, a definite plus. I really like this beer, too bad I'd have to drive 2 1/2 hours to get more.

Gunzburger Weizenbier Ur~Weizen - This beer pours a dark cloudy honey-brown with hints of gold.  The head is a generous off-white/beige.  Already I'm intrigued  The aroma is faintly smoky malts.  The taste is carmally sweet malts. No citrus or fresh cut hay here.  The finish is smooth and wet with just that hint of smoky malts.  Very interesting.

Gunzburger Weizenbier Hefe~Weizen -   The regular Hefeweizen from Gunzburger.  It pours a a cloud yellow gold with a slight (for a Hefe) white fluffy head that quickly dissolves into a layer of tiny bubbles on the top of the beer.  Lots of carbonation, you can see the bubbles flowing from top to bottom of the glass in large clusters.  The aroma is of cloves and spices.  The first taste is citrusy, clovy, spices.  Cloves and another taste I can't put my finger on dominate the wet finish.  A pretty good beer.  But not my favorite Hefe.  I might have liked the Ur~Weizen a little bit more than this one.

Gunzburger Radbier Hell -   Finally the Helles from Gunzburger Brauerei.  A brillinat golden yellow with a head soft foamy head that persisted.  The aroma is very light and subtle and eluded me.  The taste is spicy balance of hops and malts with just a little kick of hops at the crisp finish.  A very tasty beer.

After running through all of these I'm even more disappointed that I didn't get the Weizenbock, their speciality.  All of these were solid good beers.  I really liked the Ur-Weizen and the Marzen.  Too bad the brewery almost a three hour drive away.

Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Marzen

Oktoberfest is just around the corner and Shantel and I are making plans to gather some old friends we haven't seen in years together for a trip down to Munich.  It's my only chance to go to Oktoberfest plus we haven't seen some these friends in more than 5 years.  It should be a good time.  It's fitting then that the last beer from Hacker-Pschorr that I'm going to review is their Oktoberfest Marzen, the original beer of Oktoberfest (Marzen has now beeen replaced mainly with Helles at the fest itself)

This beer pours a dark copper, almost a brown, with golden tints.  The generous head is a light beige that disappears quickly, but leaves light lacing on the sides of the glass. The aroma is malty and slightly sweet and the taste starts outs the same with a slight bite at the end.  The bite is more of the heavily roasted malts then the true bitterness of hops.  A very drinkable beer and probably one of my favorite from Hacker-Pschorr.

This is the last beer in the Hacker-Pschorr collection that I will be able to review.  I actually think I've covered them all at one point in th last 20 months with the only exception being their doppelbock.  I'll miss the next doppelbock season as we move back to the states but maybe I can find it there.

I'm going to change my beer review format a little bit.  Instead of single beers, I'm going to do a whole family of beers (or as much as I can find) from a brewery and then do one long post including pictures of the brewery if I can.  I've already got several worked up that are just waiting on actual brewery pictures so look out for them.