Ayinger Jahrhundert

Brewed by Brauerei Aying
Style: Dortmunder/Helles
Aying, Germany

Great pale yellow color with big malty and grainy aroma and a malty and slightly fruity taste. Not bad, but it didn’t blow me away.

Clear gold, medium roast aroma. Stemmy, briefly sweet like a meyer lemon, finishes with a cereal sweetness, leafy dry.

Bottle. Pours an opaque gold color with a big, nice, frothy white head. Aroma of malts and a little bit of grass. Light bodied. Has a slight bitter finish. Goes down easy. Not bad.

Ayinger’s Jahrhundert is a beastly word for a monolingual American to spell, but as a beer makes for easy drinking. A thick white lacing pins the semi-cloudy and golden beer to the glass. A bright and bubbly body sends out aromatic messengers, bearing an odd scent of botanical mass, a pleasant kind of glue, and a lot like the health supplement and foul tasting spirulina. I absolutely cannot account for my nose on these notes, except that these images were conjured immediately and with vivacity, eagerly pushing me into the taste to see if a beer can indeed be brewed to mimic a foul, teal, foamy health drink. Thankfully, the flavor takes a different tact, tasting a lot like fried plantains, backed by a layer of bitterness. I still find this refreshing, especially despite a lurking nuttiness, but it’s definitely a beer I have to pinch my nose in order to drink.

Appearance is very pale yellow with a fluffy, stable white head. The aroma shows perfumy, lemony hop qualities with an overall sweet malty impression. A well-balanced flavour with bready, slighty honeyish malts and perfumy, herbal hops that shine especially in the finish. Soft bitterness and medium carbonation. A masterpiece of a "simple" beer - malty and noble.

Bottle. Sweet orange and barley malt aroma with just a hint of hops. Golden color with moderate head. Bitter grassy hops dominate with less of a malt flavor. Extremely hoppy for a Helles - very nice.