Ettaler Kloster Edel-Hell

Brewed by Klosterbrauerei Ettal
Style: Dortmunder/Helles
Ettal, Germany

Bottle. Poured clear pale color with an average frothy white head that mostly diminished with fair lacing. Moderate sweet grassy aroma. Light to medium body with a watery texture. Medium sweet flavor with a medium sweet finish of short duration. My expectation where not met.

.5 liter. Pours a nice clear golden with a lasting white head. Aroma is toasted and cracker malts, light zesty herbal hops and slightly spicy. Bready malt flavor with a nice clean crisp hop bitterness in the end. Body is pretty decent for the style, but not quite as full as some other great Helles.

Golden amber with small white bubbly head. Smell is grassy and skunky. Sour bitter metallic maltflavor and finish.

Bottled. Beer is a clear light orange-gold color with a small, frothy, white, mostly and rapidly diminishing head. The aroma is kind of icky: Malty with light notes of toasted grain, light-to-moderate note of cereal; Hoppy with a light note of herb; Yeasty with a light sweet dough note; Light miscellaneous notes of cardboard and DMS. Not clean, doesn’t smell like something you’d want to drink. But I’m a trooper, so here it goes. The flavor is lightly sweet, lightly bitter with a short, lightly acidic, trace sweet finish. Husky/metallic aftertaste, along with a faint suggestion of airfreshener. The body is light, the texture is watery and the carbonation is average. Forgettable.

Bottle. Head is initially average sized, frothy, white, mostly diminishing. Body is clear medium yellow. Aroma is lightly to moderately malty (grain/husks), lightly hoppy (flowers), with a note of DMS. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, lightly to moderately bitter, husky/unclean. Medium body, watery texture, lively carbonation. Poor.

Rich, deep golden hued, big, puffy, lasting, snow-white head. Nice. Aroma: clean, lightly floral, and honeyed. Very even-handed and stable. Malty, but not belligerent. Taste: fresh, flush malt, cereal grains prominent, crisply leaving the mouth bone-dry, and shy of brittle. Great texture and mouthfeel here, malt shines bright on the palate, then wryly washes away. Nice fruit notes, apple, pear, chime in around the middle, more honey and herb. Finishes clean and zesty. Medium bodied, fully flavored, and truly delicious. $4 for a 500ml bottle. Worth it, in this case.

Bottle from Super Saver. Clear golden pour with 1-finger off-white head. Aroma of pale malts, some hopcit and honey. The flavor is pale malty up front, with some honey and hopcit emerging, and a crisp finish.

Well, this isn’t my favorite kind of beer style, so it only gets a seven overall, but this was a dandy grab. Golden color with some straw hay brown hues. Large head on the pour and it stuck around for a while. Appearance would have been higher if there was better lacing. The aroma was bready and of grass. The flavor was strong grassy Saaz hops with sweet biscuit and bread notes underneath, keeping this one short of a pilsner in character.