Monday, August 31, 2009

Forty Beers - Part One.

A few posts back I declared my intention to try 40 new beers in this, my fortieth year. The first new ones I tried were on the day after my birthday, with the bottles picked up at the Berlin Beer Festival.

1) Černá Hora Pater (bottle): Bubblegum nose, mid gold colour. Toffee notes and a slightly sour "cheap cola" finish. Not unpleasant, but I won't be heartbroken If I never try it again.

2) Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle Neuzeller Porter (bottle): Sweet, lightly burnt toast nose. Lots of liquorice and black toffee - reminded me of Robinson's Old Tom. Very enjoyable and very more-ish.

Germany 3) Tegernseer Spezial (Herzoglich Bayerisches Brauhaus Tegernsee) (bottle and draught): The colour of august wheat, no discernable nose that I could detect. Clean, crisp. Very slightly tart with short 'buttercup syrup' finish. Refreshing. A couple of days later I had this vom fass in Bad Tolz. The waiter claimed it was "best beer in Germany - better than Augustiner!". While I can't agree with that, I preferred it to the bottled variety - it was full of sweet malt and fresh grassy-ness (if that's even a word), and a quite superb swig.

4) Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus Tannenzaepfle (bottle) : Slightly metallic nose. Darkish gold colour. Lots of heavy but quite sweet malt and hoppiness sustained into a long finish. Maybe it's that wonderful label, but notes of pine and resin kept creeping in. A real mouthful, anyway. I'd brought one bottle with me, only to find that Dan had got in a whole crate. Prost!

6 comments:

Affer said...

By God, that's given me a thirst!!!

TIW said...

That's the idea, affer! Although as usual everyone else on the blogoshire had all these beers years before I did.

bailey said...

I've only ever had one of those. Tegernseer Spezial looks particularly tasty.

Bailey said...

And, what do you know -- I had a bottle of Tegernseer Spezial yesterday, at Cask in Pimlico. It was very nice.

TIW said...

Cask - Is this the place you blogged about a month or so back? It sounded my kind of place - we're about due a visit to the Tate Brit so we'll have a look (if we don't go by Vespa).

Bailey said...

That's right. Let us know what you think. They also had Schlenkerla Helles (not really smoked, but smoky because the brewery is!) which was incredible.