Spezial Ungespundet

Brewed by Brauerei Spezial
Style: Zwickel/Keller/Landbier
Bamberg, Oberfranken/Bayern, Germany

tried to pick a good one for my 1000th rating. don’t know if i would call this a smoked but that’s not important. thsi has a potent belgian triple candi aroma with orange mango juice in there. very full and tasty and finally, after a long wait, bitter. icecream mouthfeel. salty and dry finish. fruit salad, iced coffee, there is so much in this beer.

amazing complex spicy hoppy smell, like westmalle tripel or something. main flavour here is the really full hops - really spicy, peppery, herbal, salty, bitter and dry finishing. texture is beautifully creamy but light. i don't know if this is supposed to be smokey like the others - i couldn't taste much smokiness. but who cares, it's a beautiful beer.

Enjoyed many a half liter at the brewery pub in Bamburg, Germany. This beer is an unfiltered pils, and similar to St. Georgen Brau Kellerbier. This beer pours to a opaque, pale golden color with a white head that fades, and a soft carbonation. The nose on this beer is very inviting with herbal/grassy hop aromas, and hints of crisp pilsner malt. The palate is soft and round with good pale malt flavors, on a smooth and drinkable body. Spezial Ungespundet finishes with good pilsner malt flavor up front, then ends with a nice grassy hop bitterness that lingers. This beer is outstanding, very fresh, and very flavorful tasted on draught at source. It was a great beer to enjoy with a lunch of sauerkraut and bratwurst.

Vom fass @ Spezial, Bamberg, Germany.
One of the last beers I got to taste before heading out of this wonderfully picturesque, almost unspoilt town, before continuing south to the states beer capital - München.
Into a stein glass. Hazy, straw-gold in body. Very finely, intermittently carbonated, rising to a half inch of sticky, condensed white foam that held out and laced wildly down the glass. Aroma, like all Kellerbiers, was complex but this one was more definable than others. Damp, mown grass pierced the ol-factories first before waning to reveal some fresh chopped herbs, ripe fresh squeezed lemon and limes, and a waft of gritty, dusty pale malts underneath. In the mouth it is soft but full of life, inkling and entering every corner of the mouth like it owns the palate. A wonderfully gripping base of summer malts settles in first, before some ripe, tart and tight fruits and the sweeter edges of mango and grapefruit make themself comfortable. Body is light but firm and it is rather smooth, even creamy as it heads for the tonsils and then south. A little sour malt shines across the sides of the tongue. In the back it has a depth of spicy, grassy and herbal hop tones that give it a nice bitter, biting edge before it drops off with a long malt and hop swallow that has just a little more fruit. Very quenching stuff. It remains good for the length and seems to get more complex as it warms showing some pine-nuts, pale honey and peat on the tongue that linger well as it goes. Lovely stuff, one to surely bring pale lagers up a notch. A superb Kellerbier.

This was a suprise. You expect a smoked beer, but its not. This is a blond beer with a very pleasant taste of hops (dryhopping?). There are very different tastes in this beer but hop is the that stands out the most.

(On tap @ the brewpub) Hazy, yellow colour. Ok head. Nice fruity aroma. Tasty and fruity flavour with a nice bitterness.

Impressions from the Gaststätte:
-A sticky foam recedes to a ring on the cloudy golden brightness.
-Love handles galore in the mouthfeel, tons of wet hay to bite into, aided by the natural carbonation of course.
-Citrusy cereal are a bit muddled mind you, the mouthfeel is so rich, they must be in awe.
-Finishes pretty softly, with herbal hop flavors and bitterness, although slightly higher levels would have been lovely.
-Not bright enough to stand out amongst the best (in my tastes), but this landbier could not be better balanced and rich. Another high quality product from Spezial.

On tap at the brewery.

Vom Holz @ Spezial. Light bitter yeasty fruity nose. Dark yellow cloudy, off-white lace. Bitter hoppy edges, light minerals to balance the fruity chewy malt body perfectly. Süffig.