Allgäuer Weihnachtsbier

Brewed by Allgäuer Brauhaus (Oetker Group)
Style: Dortmunder/Helles
Kempten, Germany

Clear golden with a medium head. Sweet fruity aroma with malty and caramel notes. Flavour was sweet with caramel, malt and hints of hops. Finished mild bitter.

Draft at zum schneider, I believe it was billed as a winter lager. Very good, poured a clear gold and all the rest. A regular lager but pretty good.

Draft at Zum Schneider. Holds a creamy white head for a few minutes then collapses pretty quick. Aroma is pretty hoppy with a nice dose of pale malt. Flavor is pretty straight forward and it tastes pretty bold for a 5.5% beer. There’s a nice honey and bread thing going on also. There’s really nothing to not lime about this.

Labeled as Winterfestbier
Quite a bit paler than one expects in a typical Winter seasonal, the beer is a brilliantly clear, full gold color when held up to the light, but does take on some amber overtones as it sits on the table. The head starts out about two-fingers thick and is a frothy mix of pale, off-white colored foam. The aroma smells lightly of hops and mostly of malt. Aromatic components of hay, green grass, honey, fresh crushed pale malt, soda crackers, touches of lemon zest and a hint of herbal notes. Really the aroma smells like a more malty, slightly less hoppy version of a German Pils.

The taste is perhaps a bit fuller, and a touch sweeter than a typical, dry, German Pils, but it is not as malty as a Bohemian version would be. Perhaps I would characterize this as a slightly bigger version of a Helles. Malt flavors of honey, grass, biscuits, soda crackers and an almost, lightly caramelized malt sweetness are balanced by a noticeable hop contribution of mint, hints of lemon zest, a slightly astringent herbal note (especially in the finish), hay, and a light yet persistent bitterness.

This is actually a decent beer, I am a bit disappointed that this was not something darker & maltier, but this is a tasty beer. It has a really nice clean character to it; allowing the simple malt & hop components to come through quite well.

Pours darkish yellow with a small head. Grassy aroma, quite unbalanced bitterness. I want to like it, but ... bleh.

(500 ml bottle: $2.29 at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido, CA) The bottle I purchased last winter from another store was a total cardboard mess and totally unrateable, so I had to dump it, but this one isn’t all that great either. Light bready malt, grassy hops, mild bitterness, some spiciness, but I’m sad to say that I get a lot of cardboard in this beer too. Two years in a row. I can’t really identify the spices but they do add a lingering bitterness which really clashes with the bread and cardboard. Bread and cardboard in the nose too. Medium bodied, a bit heavier than expected, nicely carbonated. Very hazy and medium golden in color with an off-white head that rises to half an inch and settles to a ring. I wish there were a date on the label because this tastes just like the one I had last year. For all I know, these ARE last year’s and have been sitting in some warehouse for the past twelve months.

(Bottle 50 cl) Beautiful, fully golden beer with a rather small head. Full-bodied and aromatic with some underlying sweetness and a rather subdued bitterness. A nice, strong lager. 080402

Odd brownish gold color with a diminished off white head. Herbal infused malt aromas. Light toffee aromas as well. Sweet malt and dough flavors. Mild spicy hops come in late. Not much more to this one.