Neuzeller Schwarzer Abt (Black Abbot)

Brewed by Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle
Style: Schwarzbier
Neuzelle, Brandenburg, Germany

(500 ml bottle: $2.49 at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido, CA) Holy mackerel, talk about a sugar shock! If you’re likely to get diabetes, this one beer will bring it on at least a year earlier. Wow. I had no idea this beer was supposed to be such a sweet beer, and sweet it definitely is. Extremely sweet and sugary, with plenty of cola flavor, some mild cold black coffee, and only a very light roast on the back end and no bitterness. Lots and lots of sweet cola and candy-like chocolate in the nose, some toastiness, and a bit of light sourness for a pretence of balance. Despite the sweetness, the body is barely medium, and any body here is the result of the sugar. Carbonation is very light, so this beer seems almost flat. Nearly black in color, some ruddiness at the edges. Small but creamy light tan head barely reaches a quarter inch in height before settling to a filmy layer. Some small patches of lace stick to the glass however. To me, it’s a dessert beer all the way and I really like this, but I also really like dessert wines too. If kind of reminds me of the current Mackeson XXX, the one brewed in the USA now, the one with much less roast than in the past. With this beer, I’d like to see more roast, bitterness and carbonation to break up some of the sweetness, but I’m happy with this beer all the same Probably would be too sweet and cloying to most folks though, so buyer beware.

500ml - (Secret Santa cousin Rich) - The best characteristic of this brew, aroma is roasty dark malts and brunt nuts. Pours black with small soda like head and some lacing. Flavor is nutty, syrupy, and thin like a watered down porter. Palate is thin. Too thin and artificial for me.

Wonderful label! Unfortunately, that’s about it. If you like artificial sweeteners, this is your beer. It taste quite saccharine, suggesting the use of some fake sugar to try to create the sensation of body and fullness. Instead, it falls flat on its face, coming off as artificial and a little flabby. Certainly no balance to this sugary sweetness at all. This is the rare beer that went down the sink for me after only a few sips. But they do have that killer label!

Pours a nice black with medium head. Aroma is quite peculiar, reminds me of cress. Nice roasted flavour and admirable filling palate for a beer of this ABV.

Bottle pours an ultra-dark mahogany/brown with an unstoppable, sudsy, tan head... like too many flakes in the washing machine. Aroma finds smoky notes over caramel-sweet malts and raisin. Flavor is sugar-sweet without balance... even the malts cannot be well-defined. Rather cola-ish, I’d suppose with hints of milk chocolate and charcoal. Gassily overcarbonated, and there’s just enough metallica in that persistent head to make it annoying.

"... the taste of paradise."     If the advertising on the bottle is accurate, paradise tastes like a cloyingly sweet cola and will make you belch.

<font size=-4>Purchased at <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Liquors, Chicago, IL 60638<font size=-1>

Malt aroma, with mild coffee and liquorice, black, touch of crimson, pours a rocky finger of cappuccino foam, fine lace. Taste of watery molasses, malt and sugar. Light bodied, pleasantly sweet. Average.

Tasted at Fynske Øldage. Black with a mostly diminishing head. Sweet malty aroma with hints of toffee and licorice. Moderately sweet with a light bitter finish.

Bottle fynske øldage 2005. Fair mostly deminishing head. Black!!! colour. Week aroma A bit sweet but nice hoppy flavour.