Spezial Rauchbier Lager

Brewed by Brauerei Spezial
Style: Smoked
Bamberg, Oberfranken/Bayern, Germany

Clear amber with a medium white head. Smoked aroma with caramel and malty notes. Flavour was fairly smoked along with malty and caramel notes. Finished smoked. Just love smoked these days.

500 ml bottle. From Bamberg, Germany.
Clear amber colour with average off-white head. Smoky aroma with some sour lactose notes. Smoky flavour with malt and some sweetness also present. Smoky flavour not over dominated.

On tap at the Bavarian Lodge, Lisle IL. and served in a large mug with a cloudy, orange/amber hue, very modest, quickly diminishing to "just a thin ring", off white head, and sparse spots of lacing. The aroma was that of old wood and some fruit sweetness. The flavor presented light toasted malt, very little smoke, and continued the sweetness in kind of a thinned kool-aid fashion. Although somewhat fizzy to the tongue at first, the carbonation was on the whole, fairly low, and the body was just medium. A standard, lightly smoked, amber lager that didn’t impress.

Bottle from Bruisin’ Ales. Pours hazy light chestnut with weird shit floating in it. Not much head here. Tasty base beer... good lager leaning toward a bock. Notes of smoke and charred wood are there, but very mild, especially on the tongue. Nose is a little meatier/smokier. Focus of the beer is on the malt itself, which I guess has been mildly smoked. Full body. Good intro rauchbier, I guess. Tasty if mild.

Bottle from Whole Foods in Ann Arbor, MI on October 16, 2009. Been to the brewery, had the lager there and really enjoyed it, but after picking up a bottle in the States and enjoying on American soil, it just didn’t have the same spirit. Has a light body, sweet, and is just a little less smoky than what I’m used to for a rauchbier. Light and enjoyable! The ladies would enjoy this one.

[bottle] Sweet base malt with a little sherry-like character and subtle woodsmoke that is not ham/bacony. Hazy bronze with a quickly dropping, white sheet. Flavour is a good balance of toffee malt, dried fruit, tobacco, mineral water, and gentle smokiness. Extremely quaffable lager with tons of flavour and not dominated by smoke like some of the other smoked beers. Light body, moderate carbonation, clean finish.

500 ml bottle
I bought this hoping to get a nice meaty beer like the type I imagine what I hear or read about rauchbiers. Instead I got what amounted to a solid lager with allusions to smoke but no real substance behind it. I guess I will have to move on to a new brewery next time.

Aroma / Appearance - The gushing foam was not a good sign but I kept my optimism about the contents. Bronze in color, the body released mostly cedar. The smoke was more like that of a cold cigarette that had been left on the road after a thunderstorm rather than anything substantial.

Flavor / Palate - Fortunately there was more smokiness in the body but nothing like I had hoped. It tasted much like the smoke that chicken or turkey absorbs before being sold at the local deli. Simplistic and a bit boring I will not be trying this again if I do ever see it on the shelves.

Overall I was disappointed in this smoked bier as it compares to Schlenkerla beers. This beer has a much very flat and had very little head or carbonation. The palate was also very subdued and tart. The aroma was almost stale. Overall, not very good.