Hauenstein Beer

Brewed by August Schell Brewing Company
Style: Pale Lager
New Ulm, Minnesota USA

Sampled at Cellar’s Wine & Spirits in St Paul, MN. Shared by akevitt. Pours a clear golden blonde brew with a fast disolving white head that leaves behind a fine film and ring. Aroma of light bready malt, some sweet citrus zest and a touch of honey.Taste is light bodied, low carbonation, smooth with a good balance of malt and flowery hops flavors. Finish is semi-sweet at first and then a clean cut finish with no aftertaste. Not too bad for an everyday light bodied beer. On a historical note, I remember drinking this beer back in the late 1980s. The G. Heileman version of this beer was the gawd awful example of what beer was not supposed to taste like. I could purchase a six-pack of this for $1.99. One sip and the rest went down the drain, even when chilled to 34 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the worst beer I ever had. I am happy to see that A. Schell has put a much better recipe in this historical brand.

An ancient looking bottle produced by Akevitt. Clear yellow color with a medium head. Smells and tastes like sweet corn, very cleanly brewed. Very much like Grain Belt Premium. Honestly, as just a tip-it-back beer, it’s not bad at all.

In the can. I brought a 6 pack of this back from New Ulm in february after the Bock Fest. Just the fact that you could still find a beer in the plastic ring connected sixer was astonishing to me. This beer is apparently a retro-brand from a New Ulm brewery that no longer exists, but whose label has been revived by Schell a la Grain Belt. Looks just like you’d expect: a pale yellow fizzy lager with no redeeming qualities other than the fondness of the geriatric crowd and the desire by the twentysomethings to be retro hip. I have no problems with either mindset. I wish that my town had a brewery that gave a damn enough to revive Storz or Metz regardless of what the product tasted like. This beer has one of the plainest labels that you are ever going to encounter. I suspect that if I lived in New Ulm, I’d swear by this as my ice-fishing beer. This beer gets all its points from me in the historical preservation category. The flavor at least does not taste like liquid corn- unlike Schmidts.

An ordinary pale lager, clear gold color. Simple corn/malt flavor. Not offensive in any way and very drinkable.

Pale color. Straw gold color with a corn & grain aroma and flavor. A little metallic on the finish.

I came across this beer while at a Holiday party a couple of weeks ago. This was my boss' favorite beer while attending college at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Originally brewed in its current home of New Ulm, MN, it was at various times brewed by the Minnesota Brewing Co. in St. Paul and the G. Heileman Co. of La Crosse, WI. Many old regional beers die a quiet if not sad death. Arneson Distributing of Sleepy Eye, MN revived this nostalgic brand in 1996. Features a bland lager aroma. White, thin head with no visible carbonation. Decent head retention and lacing. Has a bland lager flavor, but what college beer doesn't? Mine was Meister Brau and this is no worse than that. The ex-college roomies I talked to that have fond memories of this one also spoke of its variable taste and its penchant for causing morning-after flatulence. I only had one bottle and didn't experience either. If for no other reason than to taste an infamous Minnesota beer legend, get your hands on some Hauenstein.

[Bottle, thanks Akevitt] Pours very pale gold with a small white head. Aroma isn’t offensive, but virtually nothing there. Taste is very sweet with the malt and corn described before melding into something that really did not work for me at all. This was a drain-pour for me and had very little that I found appealing about it. Pretty awful.

I had this last year from the "potheads in the basement" that lived on the ground floor of our apartment, it was contract brewed at ST paul at the time it was pretty good, but has since went down hill