Eisenbahn Dunkel (Escura)

Brewed by Cervejaria Sudbrack
Style: Dunkel
Blumenau, Brazil

<b>18-Apr-07</b> <i>(12 oz bottle, Batch 35: Purchased 14-Mar-07 for $2.11 from www.liquidsolutions.biz)</i> Not all that impressive to look at, the dark brown beer pours with a small, fizzy, light-tan head, but that disappears within seconds. The mildly aromatic nose offers chocolaty, lightly roasty malts with a hint of sourness in characteristically clean lager fashion. Whatever this beer may lack in appearance and aroma, the flavor does its best to make up the difference. Prominent, lightly sweet chocolate is accompanied by a pleasant nuttiness and a gentle hop bitterness, finishing with a touch of roast. But because toffee becomes more apparent in both the flavor and nose as the beer warms up, I think this beer is best served well-chilled to truly enjoy the chocolaty goodness. Medium in body and carbonation. While my overall impression is one of only mild enthusiasm, it’s definitely another tasty beer from this Brazilian brewery.

Bottle: Dark brown, moderate light beige head, quite spritzy, settles too quickly leaving no head whatsoever, sparce lacing.   Lordy, I don’t think I would have ever smelled this in a beer, nor say it, but this smells like gravy!   Subtle hits of heavily roasted malts, but damnit, I am getting a weird gravy aroma out of this.   Not exactly appealing.   Slightly wheaty on the tongue, some roastiness, but damnit... way too much gravy doodle.   Dark lager is one thing, but mixing it with the meat, potatoes, and grav y is another.   Seriously, mash some potatoes, add some meatloaf, mix in some gravy, and you got this stuff.   I mean... WTFBBQ?!   Way different from the norm.   Moderate body and mouthfeel.   Kinda reminds me of that damned Turkey and Gravy Jones Soda.   Blech...

12oz bottle batch 17. Good roasted nut aroma with some sweetness on the nose. Blackbody with a redtynt and thin dark tan head. Good roasted nut and some chcoclate in the mix. Had a cola carbination to it that bought out some sweeetener. Easy on the palate with moderate bittering good beer.

Batch Number 17; Sampled April 2008
As I pour this brew a nice aroma of caramelized malt, toasted grain and light chocolate wafts to my nose. The beer pours with an initially three finger thick, amber tinged, tan colored head in my 25cl tulip glass. The beer shows a dark, amber-brown color, but shows a brilliantly clear, cherry-red color when held up to the light. A deeper quaff of the aroma yields more, concentrated aromas as previously noted; light coffee aromatics, some light raisin notes and some berry aromatics are noticeable, though the roast character tends to dominate the nose if you spend more than a second smelling it.

Quite dry tasting up front, though a bit of caramelized malt sweetness creeps in towards the finish. Nice and roasted tasting, more leaning towards a nicely toasted malt character that burnt flavors. After my first sip a bit more of the malt sweetness becomes more noticeable, though not so much as to characterize this as a sweet beer. Quite light bodied, this beer is very quaffable though it does have a presence & heft in the middle. Light dusty cocoa flavors, some bitter dark grain notes as well as a light hop bitterness are found in the finish. This has a nice raisin-like maltiness to it at times, in fact a nice malt sweetness really does pick up here as the beer warms up (or perhaps it is my palate recovering from that overly sweet Pils I just had).

A tasty beer; I like how full flavored yet quaffable it is. It has more roast character than is typical of a Dunkel Lager, but I wouldn’t call it a Schwarzbier either; either way though it is tasty.

Purchased: <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Liquors, Tucson AZ

Batch #17. 12oz, twist-off, amber colored bottle. Dark brown label. Nice dark brown color, egg-shell colored bubbly head. Aroma is heavy deep toast, huge roast, macadamia nuts. Two words, Smokey caramel. Flavor has lots of smoked roast. smoked pork roasted on banana leaves. Lots of grainy malt character, some chocolate in the finish, pine hop. Fermented Malta.

Poured a deep dark brown color, nice off-white initial head, although it didn’t stick around much or lace significantly. Looked pretty fresh in that Kostritzer glass of mine (used for schwarzbiers and dunkels). The aroma was roasted chocolate and coffee along with some dry nuts. The flavor was roasted coffee and chocolate, nuts, very light grass, and finishing with a touch of breadiness. The finish is extremely crisp and dry, nailing the essence of a lager. Full flavor, very crisp finish, excellente! Very worthy of high dunkel honors, as this style doesn’t easily impress.

6/24/2007: Eisenbahn Dark Lager pours a very dark brown color. The aroma is rich caramel and molasses. The flavor has roasted malt, some molasses, and ceramy light chocolate. Medium-light to medium body. This is a good dark lager.

12 oz bottle (Batch No. 36) Shared with Rob and Lance at the Oatmeal Stout Brewout. Rating #36 for this beer...

Bottle. Dark brown color with a laced light brown head. Cereal and malty aroma with the familiar German dunkel aroma and flavor. Smoked with light chocolate, earthy and licorice flavors.