Special Beer Review - Lowenbrau

Lowenbrau Original - The helles from Lowenbrau.  It pours a a clear gold with a generous foamy head that dissolved quickly into a thin layer with some lacing on the sides. The aroma is faintly of fresh cut grass.  The taste is slightly sweet with a slight undercurrent of bitterness from the hops.  The finish is crisp and slightly dry.  Not my favorite helles but definitely one that is drinkable.

Lowenbrau Urtyp - The label proclaims this to beer to have character.  It pours a clear golden with a generous slightly off white head that disappeared slowly leaving lots of lacing on the side of the glass.  There is a weak aroma of fresh cut grass. The taste is slightly sweet perfectly balanced with a slight bitterness.  It finishes crisp and clean.  I definitely like this beer and I'd have to agree more character than the regular helles.

Lowenbrau Triumphator - Lowenbrau's doppelbock, one of the few that are available year round, This beer pours a dark coffee with hints of reddish amber.  The head is a generous beige that slowly dissolves into a thin layer with lots of lacing on the sides.  The taste is sweet chocolaty caramel with little of the 7.6% alcohol showing through.  That's a lot of alcohol but not as much as some other doppelbocks.  The finish is wet and crisp.  A fine, if just a little lightweight, example of a doppelbock.

Lowenbrau Dunkel - This beer pours a dark coffee with hints of amber.  A slightly offwhite head dissolved quickly into a very thin layer with almost no lacing.  The taste is of well roasted malts with a very slight sweet undertone.  The finish is crisp and begs another drink.  I like dunkels and this is a good one.

Lowenbrau Oktoberfestbier - The lion's brew, that's a rough translation of lowenbrau. Their Oktoberfest/Marzen offering pours a coppery gold like the others but the head seemed to disappear a little faster, although the lacing remained on the sides. The aroma is still malty. The taste is malty sweet with a more pronounced hoppy bitterness. Interesting. The finish is crisp and wet and with that extra hoppy kick. Tasty but not my favorite.

Lowenbrau LowenWeisse - The hefe weisse from Lowenbrau.  It pours a dark cloudy caramel with hints of gold.  The head is a thick white that dissolves quickly donw to nothing with only limited residue.  The aroma is citrusy and sweet.  The taste is more citrus with hints of clove. The carbonation makes this beer very crisp on the tongue.  The finish continues to be crisp and there is minimal after taste.  This is a good hefe. 

Special Beer Review - Paulaner Brau

This weeks brewery beer review is from Paulaner Brewery.  One of the the Big Six from Munich.  I will admit that when I first moved to Germany I purposely avoided Paulaner because it was a name I was familiar with from the States.  That was a mistake and as I get ready to move back I'm damn glad that I should be able to find some Paulaner.  If you have a auto web translator their website is one of the more amusing ones I've been too.  If not their international site isn't bad either.  Bottom line though here is what I thought of the beer.

Paulaner Original Munchner Hell - The Helles from Paulaner.  I original had this beer when I first got to Germany and my review is here.  I'm still obviously not a pro at beer reviews but I've come a long way.  Here are my current thoughts.  this beer pours a clear yellow with hints of amber/red.  A generous head starts thin and dissolves quickly leaving small amounts of lacing on the sides.  The aroma is of malts and hints of fresh baked bread.  The taste is fine balance between hops and malts with the malts wining in the end.  The finish is wet and crisp.  The verdict is still the same, a fine example of the Munchner Helles and I'm glad that I should be able to find this beer when I get back to the states.

Paulaner Premium Pils - This pils pours a yellow-gold with a thin head that dissolved rapidly but leaves prominent lacing on the sides.  The aroma is hops and spices and that carries over into the taste.  The taste is spicy hops....not bitter, but tasty.  The finish has a touch of bitterness but it's almost not enough to notice.  A good example of a German Pils.

Paulaner Original Munchner Urtyp - According to the German Beer Institute a Urtyp Helles is beer where the brewery tries to emphasize the authenticity of its beverage (ur means "original" and urtyp means "original type").  This beer pours a clear amber gold with a generous head that slowly dissolves leaving small amounts of lacing on the sides.  The aroma is a sweet malts and that carrys over into the taste which is competing balance between the hops and malts with the malts ultimately dominating.  The finish is crisp and slightly dry, making you want another drink.  This not just one of my favorite Paulaner's it's one of my favorite beers period.

Paulaner Original Munchner Dunkel - The dunkel beer from Paulaner.  It pours a dark brownish amber almost like a cola.  The head is beige colored and foams up well just cresting the top of the glass without going over and leaving lots of lacing on the sides.  The aroma is of coffee, chocolate and sweet.  The taste is sweet, well roasted malts with the hints of coffee and chocolate.  The finish is slightly dry.  Not my favorite dunkel but it's drinkable and definitely not a bad example of the type.

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier Naturtrub - The regular Hefewiezen from Paulaner.  This beer pours a brilliant straw gold with a generous slightly golden head.  The body is too cloudy to see the carbonation bubbles that keep the head alive for quite awhile.  The aroma is cloves and bread.  The taste is more cloves with just a hint of bananas.  The finish is crisp and wet, and just makes you want to have a follow up drink.  A fine example of Bavarian hefewiezen.

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel - This beer pours a cloudy dark copper amber with a generous beige head that is plenty foamy and dissolves really slowly.  The aroma is of spices and bread.  The taste is bananas, spices (cloves?) and slightly toasted bread.  Interesting.  The finish is crisp and wet.  Pretty tasty.  Since we couldn't get into the beer tents during Oktoberfest this was the beer I was drinking that day.  For an interesting twist on the radler or shandy concept take a 50/50 mix of this and a lemon soda.  Germans call it Russ.  I'm almost tempted to think I like a Russ more than I do a Radler. 

Paulaner Weissbier Kristallklar - The filtered wheat beer from Paulaner.  This one pours a clear golden yellow with a frothy head that quickly disappeared but was fead from a constant flow of tiny bubbles from the center of the glass.  The aroma is spicy banana cloves.  The taste is bananas and cloves as well.  The finish is very crisp and tart, but not really dry or not really wet.  A very refreshing beer and probably one that goes down well on a hot day in the middle of summer.

Paulaner Oktoberfest beer - This beer came with a 1 liter glass mug to go with it. I mean how could I pass that up. A liter beer and a mug all for 1 Euro. Here's what I thought of it. This beer pours with a dark coppery tint and nice fluffy head that lasts about 5 minutes. In essence it looks exactly like all of the pictures of the beers that those well endowed barmaids are serving to all of the revelers in Munich during Oktoberfest. The aroma is fine balance between hops and fresh cut grass and the flavor is just as balanced with a slightly sweet malty hint of hops and a semi dry finish. Most definitely a very drinkable beer. 

Paulaner Salvator - A meal in a bottle, this dopplebock also packs a punch at 7.9% alcohol by volume.  It's Paulaner's take on the Catholic monks liquid diet for Lent.  It pours a bright coppery red with in my pouring a very limited head.  The aroma is slightly fruity and sweet.  The initial taste is fruity, dissolving into chocolaty, roasted malts.  The finish is dry with just a little more than a hint of the alcoholic punch that it will hit you with.  Not a bad substitute for a meal, but I'm not sure I can handle more than one at a time.

As I've stated before you can't beat a free steinkrug with a rack of beer.  It's even cooler when the handle is a carabiner that you can attach to backpack!  Actually it's not as comfortable as a normal handle, but it's still cool.

Weltenburger Asam Bock

The Weltenburger Asam Bock is this weeks beer review, it's a doppelbock from the Weltenburger Kloster Brewery in Weltenburg, Germany.  If you remember the brewery tour was one of the last things that I did before I deployed and it was really cool, read about it here.

This beer poured thick with a brown almost black body and a tan head.  It definitely gave off a chocolatey aroma.  The beer went down the throat very thickly and tasted of chocolate and finished slightly dry.  A very satisfiying experience. 

I was a little shocked at how thick the beer was.  I was expecting a regular bock and not a doppelbock since most doppelbocks are seasonal and it was late May when we went to the brewery.  It was very good though and I definitely have another one when I return.

Paulaner Salvator/Tucher Bajuvator

As I mentioned in my last review it's bock season and I've spent the last week since the end of my training exercise looking for a double brewed bock or doppelbock before the season ends with Easter. I've managed to come across two and I'll review one of them and touch on the other briefly.

Most doppelbocks have names that end in "ator" and the original doppelbock was called a Salvator. Paulaner currently owns the rights to that name and it was their Salvator that I managed to get my hands on and I must say I liked it.

The Salvator poured out a deep coppery red with almost no head or a head that disappeared very quickly, as you can see from my picture. I expected a beer with a much stronger kick, but it was actually quite mellow and really reminded me more of Shiner Bock than any other bock I've had in Germany. It went down smooth really made me wish I had a schnitzal sandwich to go with it. For a more educated review go here.

The reason I was expecting more of a kick was because I had the Tucher Bajuvator at a beer call at the conclusion of our training exercise. The Bajuvator was almost as dark as a cola and had a good head. It also seemed extremely strong and had a bitter taste. I could only down two of them and I really should of stopped at 1 and a half. That probably had more to do with my lack of beer for almost a month but who knows.

On a related note Shantel asked me what I was giving up for Lent and she also suggested that it be beer. Well if the good German monks from the middle ages didn't give up beer than why should I?