Beers on Holiday!

[Llew Bardecki]

I was originally going to just post this in "What are you drinking?" but after cataloging the first few days I realized that there'd probably be enough for a topic of it's own :)

Girlfriend Sarah and I are on a two month trip that'll take us through China, various European destinations, Canada and the USA.  For the first time ever I've actually been making brief tasting notes for most of the beers I'm trying, and I thought folks here might be interested to hear some of my impressions.

So without further ado... Beer in Beijing:

YANJING
The cheapest and most popular local brew.  Priced from about $0.50-$1.00 for a 500ml bottle.  We had (at least) three different versions of Yanjing, 12°P, 10°P and 8°P (interesting that they differentiate them by degrees Plato. There's no sign of a %ABV on the labels.)

They all had relatively similar flavours.  Crisp, dry, light and "rice-y."  The 12°P version seemed to have a touch of sourness that was quite agreeable, and was probably my favourite of them.

These beers are a fabulous illustration of how sometimes the place and situation can make the beer.  If I'd tried them back in NZ, I'd probably have written them off as bland, fizzy yellow water, but drinking them on 30C evenings with delicious Chinese food in Beijing they were really enjoyable.

BEIJING OKHOTSK BEER
The only craft beer brewed in Beijing.  A branch of a Japanese chain of brewpubs.  They had a Pilsner, an ale, a Mild Stout and a Weisen.  The beers were uniformly too sweet and under-hopped, especially the ale, which had virtually no hop aroma.  The weisen was estery almost to a fault.  The mild stout (maybe more of a brown porter really?) was the best of the bunch.  Tons of chocolate malt flavour, and the roasted malts helped to cut the sweetness a bit so that it was actually pretty pleasant.
As much as I hate to admit it, I actually enjoyed the Yanjings more than any of these.

BEIJING BEER by ASAHI
A bit of malt flavour in there, but it was so buried by the tide of diacetyl that you could barely taste it.  I think this had the most diacetyl of any beer I've ever tried.  Dreadful.

Beijing was an awesome place.  Not the centre of the beer universe, but a fabulous stopover on the way to Europe, with stunning sights, fabulous food, and friendly, charming people.

Next stop is in Munich, so there'll REALLY be some beers to talk about there :)

[Patrick]

You gotta head to the Paulaner beer hall, I think it is near Goetheplatz station, they do awesome food and beer. I had a beef stew there which I still dream about!

[Llew Bardecki]

Never made it to Paulaner, though I did have a few of their beers in bottles. Their weissbier was another one which, like the Augustiner weiss, was superbly tasty and easy to drink.

And as for Bavarian food, we couldn't have asked for much better than the venison fillet and smoked trout at the wedding dinner :)

[Llew Bardecki]

I've always liked Munich, even leaving aside the biergartens and halles. So it's convenient that my girlfriend's brother lives here and is getting married this June (as much as we tried we weren't able to convince his fiance to schedule the wedding for late September ;)

I've already had heaps of beers in Munich, so I think I'm gonna have to split them into two entries. First beers from at the wedding and the next day:

HAIMHAUSEN WEISSBIER
All the draft beers at the wedding were from this small "Schlossbrauerei."
The Weiss had huge clove esters on the nose. Tasted quite dry with a slightly unpleasant astringent finish. Wasn't a big fan of this one.

HAIMHAUSEN DUNKELWEISS
Nowhere near as estery as the regular weiss. Didn't really smell fabulous (pretty boring actually) but the flavour was good, with a nice balance of clove and banana esters and just a touch of roast.

HAIMHAUSEN KELLER DUNKELBIER
Malty, slightly roasty aroma, with a bit of yeast smell in there as well. Quite dry and bitter. Surprisingly aggressive roast flavour that made me think of roast barley.

HAIMHAUSEN PILS
Golden, crystal clear colour. Huge mousse-y head. Big grain-y aroma. Sharp bite from high carbonation, very dry, quite bitter with a bit of spicy hop flavour. Very good beer. The best of the tap beers at the wedding and thus the one I drank the most of :)

And a couple at the Augustiner bierehalle near the central square, Marienplatz. We enjoyed these while watching the All Whites draw with Italy! Everyone at the bierhalle was very entertained and congratulatory when they discovewred they had some honest-to-goodness Kiwi fans in the room :)

AUGUSTINER HELLES
Big creamy head that disappeared fairly quickly. Nice sweetness with a good bitter finish to balanace it. Tasty and VERY easy to drink.

AUGUSTINER WEISSBIER
Not over the top with the esters, but clearly noticeable banana and a bit of bubblegum. The aroma and flavour were both very "soft" and round. Another tasty, very easy drinking beer. Can't believe I only had two beers at the Augustiner halle... But probably a good thing after the night before ;)

[Llew Bardecki]

I've almost given up on taking and writing notes of everything, but during our few days in Munich following the wedding we actually had some really noteable beers, so I guess I've got at least one batch where I'll go into some detail for all of them. The day before we left Munich we went to the Schneider Weisses Brauhaus following an afternoon at the Deutches Museum (an amazing science and technology museum that is every engineer's dream.) We didn't get to try everything, as there were... 11 I think? beers available. So we just picked the 5 most exciting and went with them.
SCHNEIDER KRISTALWEISS Straw coloured and crystal (Kristal?) clear. Subdued esters on the nose. Crisp due to high carbonation, but still sweet. A bit of astringency. Good, but not great.

Me in the Schneider Weisses Brauhaus with a Schneider Kristalweisse (front) and Grunes (back) SCHNEIDER GRUNESWEISS A 6.2% weissbier that was described as spring-like and refreshing. A mix of spice and bubblegum on the nose, with a bit of banana. Fairly sweet, but balanced by clear, assertive hops. The lemony hop flavour reminded me a lot of the Sorachi Ace American wheat I made recently. Nice bitter finish. A very tasty weissbier at the top end of both gravity and hoppiness for the style. Both Sarah and I really liked this one.
SCHNEIDER AVENTINUS WEIZENSTARKBIER I've had this many times in NZ, but how could we visit its home and NOT try one on tap? Banana, yeast and brown sugar nose. Flavour similar, with lots of banana. Quite sweet, very yeasty with some noticeable grain flavour and a touch of hot alcohol. Hate to admit it, but I've actually preferred the bottled samples I've had in NZ. Must be the beer developing with a bit more age and time on the yeast.
SCHNEIDER HOPFENWEISS WEIZENSTARKBIER Just like the Aventinus, it's an 8.2% weizenstarkbier (strong wheat beer), but this is where the similarities end. To start with, it's much lighter. Cloudy dark gold. The nose is all about the hops. Huge, spicey floral hop aroma, with a hint of citrus and salt. Flavour is firmly bitter, and slightly soapy. A bit of the classiv weissbier flavour shows up under the hops, but only a bit. A long lingering bitter finish. Hard to believe this is 8.2%ABV. Unlike the Aventinus, it doesn't have even the tiniest hint of higher alcohols.
SCHNEIDER AVENTINUS EISBOCK Wow. Just wow. Banana, dark fruit, spice and alcohol on the nose. Banana, along with tons of date and raisin flavours. A touch of hot alcohol, but surprisingly little for 12%abv. A bit less than in the regular Aventinus even (possibly because this came in a bottle instead of on tap?) Finishes with some bitterness than I've never noticed in the original. Ordinarily Aventinus makes everything else I've drank before pale in comparison. This left me with the same feeling, even though an original Aventinus came immediately before!
AUGUSTINER EDELSTOFF EXPORTBIER A slightly bigger, stronger (5.6%ABV) version of Augustiner Hell. Had a couple bottles of this over dinner with Sarah's brother's new in-laws. This was after Schneider, so I wasn't in the best position to take notes, but what I wrote down was "this is what people mean when they say 'malty.'" Not sweet, not roasty, not caramelly. Just tons of that flavour that is difficult to describe with words other than "malted barley." And that (except for a weisswurst and weissbier breakfast at the Augustiner bierhalle before catching our train to Vienna) was our Munich beer experience. Overall, I think the most memorable beers were those from Schneider. The Grunes and Hopfenweiss especially really stand out in my memory. But there were lots of other great ones as well, The Augustiner Weissbier, and the Haimhausen Pils weren't as overtly spectacular, but they were still great tasting beers that were incredibly easy to drink. The wonderful thing is that there'll still be dozens (and dozens) more to try next time we visit :)

[Llew Bardecki]

Yeah, I love Andechs. We went there last time we were in Munich, and had hoped to squeeze a visit in this time as well. Unfortunately we were pretty tight for time, and the weather was grey, rainy and cold for our whole visit, so it just wasn't in the cards. Another thing on the list for next time :)

[Llew Bardecki]

We had a couple beers on the trip from Munich to Vienna, but they weren't anything spectacular, and I couldn't be bothered writing notes. So straight on to the Viennese beers:

EGGENBERG URBOCK 23°
Grabbed this on a whim for dinner on our second night here. It's 9.6%ABV, so pretty hefty, even for a doppelbock.
Virtually no head. Strange orangey gold colour.
Malt, toffee, and alcohol on the nose.
Super sweet, with light caramel, marmalade and alcohol flavours. Has a noticeable hop presence, but not enough to balance the malt. This one still sits firmly on the malty side. Definitely a sipping beer, but one that grew on me with each sip.

We checked out the Highlander brewpub on the afternoon of our third day in Vienna. They usually have four beers on tap, Zwickel, Marzen, Weizen and Stout. Unfotunately the stout was unavailable while we were there.

HIGHLANDER ZWICKEL
Apparently a zwickel is the Austrian term for an unfiltered, keller-type Helles.
Pale gold colour with a tiny bit of haze (all their beers are unfiltered.) Grainy, dry flavour with malt sweetness more than balanced by the hops. Mild, but clearly noticeable noble hop flavour. More hop flavour and aroma the German Helles I'd been drinking recently. I quite liked it.

HIGHLANDER WEIZEN
Cloudy gold colour, big white head. Clove, yeast, vanilla and (pepper?) aroma. Weird, not entirely pleasant flavours of spice and smoke. Not a big fan of this beer.

HIGHLANDER GOLDBRUN (MARZEN)
Gold colour, with a bit of haze. Obvious floral hop aroma. Pretty dry flavour, putting it clearly on the bitter side of the scale. Floral hops on the palate, along with an unusual spicy note. Not sure if this came from yeast or hops? Finishes dry and bitter. I really liked this beer and had a second :)

It's interesting that, despite several trips to supermarkets and a couple to pubs, I've yet to see anything that looks like a Vienna lager here... They're all Helles, Pils etc.

Today we're going wine touring north of the city, but I'll definitely want to pull a few beers out of the fridge to try this evening... Later on we're going to see Billy Idol at a huge free music festival on an island in the Danube. Promises to be a very entertaining night :)

[Llew Bardecki]

Had a bunch more beers in Austria and Central Europe, though haven't had time to write about them 'til now:

Austrian Beers: Stiegl Paracelsus Organic Zwickel, Raschhoffer Zwickel, Edelweiss,Okkatringer, Wieselberger and...

STIEGL GRAPEFRUIT RADLER
This isn't beer. I don't know what it is. But it tastes great. Like Fresca or some other grapefruit soda with a little bit of grainy malt flavour. Maybe once the DB trademark's deregistered I could convince them to start selling it in NZ

Slovakian Beers: Zlaty Bazant, Kozel 11° and...

SARIS DUNKEL
Dark brown, crystal clear. Creamy pale tan head that lasts a long time.Big roast aroma with some sweetness. VERY sweet roasty flavour. More roast than any German Dunkel I've ever had. Notes of bittersweet chocolate, further sweetened with brown sugar. Way too sweet, but somehow it manages to be very tasty.

Hungarian Beer: Soporoni Aszok

[Llew Bardecki]

Then we were on to Scotland: I was surprised by the number of cask ales we found there. It was only a quick visit, and I was too busy to go out looking for specialist beer bars, but even one of the biggest pubs in the city was having a "Caledonian Cask Ale Week" Beers we had in Scotland included: Freeminer Organic Ale, Freeminer Bottle Conditioned Ale, Thwaites Strong Brown Ale, Caledonian Deuchars "IPA" (which was one of those odd UK IPAs that are more like ordinary bitters), Caledonian 3 Monkeys, Gales Seafarer and...
CALEDONIAN SURFSUP Hand pulled cask. Clear, gold colour. Medium sized, creamy white head. Sweet aroma with Citrussy and Tropical Fruit hops with a tinge of mint (maybe some US hops blended with Styrian Goldings or something?) Soft sweetness, nicely balanced by the hops. Very tasty, easy drinking beer.

The Standing Order pub in Edinburgh where I somehow ended up being given two pints of Caledonian Surfsup with my breakfast
INVERALMOND BREWERY OSSIAN Hand pulled cask. Dark gold colour. Firm, persistant head. Lovely citrus-floral hop aroma. Not very bitter (25 IBU maybe?) Slightly tart, nicely hoppy flavour. Long bitter finish. Almost like a cask APA, or maybe a pumped up American Blonde. Probably my favourite beer we had in Scotland. Next we're off to Netherlands and a whole big whack of Belgians, then onto England for some more delicious cask ales :)