gold blond coloured little sparkling body with a white head a spicy hoppy aroma a sweet herby spicy hoppy taste with a spicy bitter finish

Clear golden blond coloured beer with average carbonation and a small white head. Hoppy sweet light cooked vegetable aroma. Medium to light palate. Finish is coorked vegetable, light sweet bitter, cooked mais touches. Very medium one.

Draught: Poured a golden color with white head. The aroma is malt, but the taste to me was watery grain.

Clear yellow coloured beer with small white head and medium carbonation. Herby spicy aroma. Full palate. Finish is bitter and herby.

Bit of a pirate ship, this one, sailing under false colours. Everything about the label from the name to the branding says "German", yet a glance at the back of the bottle reveals an Italian brewer. Smart marketing, I guess. The brewer’s website (www.forst.it) offers some real gems of Inglish. My favourite quote runs like this: "Kronen beer peaks all the Forst Beers. You can meet it everywhere: on a ski slope for a fortifying break, in the "Stuben" with speck and chestnuts, on a refined table. "Kronen" worthly represents this country, Trentino Alto Adige, where it was born and it is strongly connected: strong, serious, but also gracefully of company." Which is pretty much what I was going to say. I found the beer equally bewildering. It smelled like a cocktail of acetone and strawberry ice cream, with some faint cardboardy malts. Tasted better than that sounds with a thick bed of malts supporting some astringent hop bitterness. Sweet with an acidic finish. Overall a bit corny and stale-tasting. Pretty nasty after-taste. Not good. Now please excuse me - I’m off to the Stuben for speck and chestnuts. (330ml bottle from Petersham Cellars. BB 7/8/08)