August 21st, 2010 by Nate

The one thing that struck me on the Northern Coast of Italy was the large contingent of non-Italian beers that had struck up deals with the local bars. I don’t know about you, but I’m all for new beers being offered to locals, but finding non-Italian beers in bars more regularly than Italian birra was interesting.

Maybe it is because I was staying in a fairly touristic area? Maybe the foreign beer companies had struck a deal with some prominent pubs to get some exposure. Maybe, Maybe Maybe. It’s not uncommon to find big beer brands such as Fosters, Warsteiner or Becks in places here, but I was honestly dumbfounded to find just how many establishments were pushing Tennent’s.

The thing was that this wasn’t just beer being served from bottles or cans, rather this was the house’s tap beer. Plus it wasn’t just the Lager from Tennent’s, but all of their brews:
Lager (4% ABV)
Special (3.5% ABV)
Ember (4.2% ABV)
Light Ale (3.1% ABV)
Super(9.0% ABV)

I think it’s great to see a Scottish brand getting such adoration from a bar in a foreign land. It also got me thinking about the logistics of getting the beer to Italy (as I have confirmed, it’s not brewed locally). Interestingly, this is yet another member of the AB-InBev group. So this could explain why it is where it is.

All of these questions leaves me with ideas for more blog topics… will have to come to those later.

To the beer itself, this was a pretty straight forward lager. Nothing special, nothing to write home about except that I was drinking a Scottish ale on the Italian coastline. It is a good mid-range beer, although I don’t think it was cold enough, which I’ve found a few Italian establishments having problems with. Still I did enjoy this beer at dusk.

AB-InBev, Diano Marina, InBev, Italy, Jammin Cafe, Lager, Tennent's

August 18th, 2010 by Nate

To break up the Italian Holiday Birra reports, I thought I’d just slot in this quick review of the
Rothaus Eis Märzen.

You may recall that I have previously reviewed their Hefeweizen. In that article, I point out the cult following this beer has, especially in the southern states of Germany. Because of it’s location it is often referred to as the “pride of the black forest”.

(German lesson for the day: Zäpfle essentially is a common name for a tavern, a tavern owner and sometimes as slang for a drunk)

Anyway to the Märzen at hand. Again regular readers will know that the Märzen discussion amongst us non-Germans has been ongoing. This is bier style that I very much enjoy, although not so much on a summers day, it’s a more spring/autumn drink. So why then am I drinking it in Summer? Well I was in Germany a month or so ago and needed some Benzin (petrol/gas) and hit the gas station for some additional refreshments. As is typical with German roadhouses/gas stations, they always have a collection of local biers for sale. So I picked up the above Rothaus.

I think that maybe it was the wrong time for the bier, but I still enjoyed it. After all it is bier! Still I think that the extra malt and stronger alcohol content should be left for the cooler months. I am sure that when I get to that period, I’ll be happy to re-visit my thoughts on this bier.

At this stage I can only fathom a high 3 steins.

Germany, Märzen, Rothaus, Rothaus Eis Zäpfle Märzen, Zäpfle

July 7th, 2010 by Nate

YET Another Weiss bier from me. I know, I know, I really can’t help myself. I honestly have to force myself to buy and try other biers!

Today’s Weiss comes from Kuchlbauer“Der Weissbier Spezialist” as they say. This is the first time I’ve actually come across Kuchlbauer and am surprised that a weissbier fan such as myself had not tried any of their biers previously. It could be that by being a Bavarian Brewery I may have overlooked them thanks to the hundreds of other Bavarian Weissbier breweries. None the less, these guys ONLY brew wheat beer and from the looks of it they’ve managed to brew a few variations of the weiss too.

The above is their “Alte Liebe” (Old Love), dunkel weiss. I was actually drinking it whilst cooking some Lamb on the BBQ. Summer time cooking and eating of meat all while enjoying a bier is such a fantastic experience.

So to the bier. Well those who’ve been here before know, I like my dunkel weissbiers, so I was quite excited to try this. Unfortunately this just wasn’t up to par with others that I have tried. The one key thing that got to me was that it was just too bitter for a Dunkel Weiss. I did expect more and that could also be why I was disappointed, so maybe I’ve got to hold back on setting expectations, especially for those biers from regions where you’d expect nothing but perfection.

In the end it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
It turns out that the folks at Kuchlbauer not only brew beer but they have a beer theme park as well. From the looks of things it’s not up there with Duff Gardens, but it could be interesting. So if any of you out there have visited Bier Welt (beer world), please let the community know about it.

Otherwise the next time I’m in Bavaria and get a chance, I’ll be making the visit.

Bavaria, Bayern, Beer world, Bier, bierwelt, dunkel, German Bier, Kuchlbauer, Weißbier, Weiss, weissbier

July 1st, 2010 by Nate

Summer is good.
I love stating the obvious, ha! No seriously the reason I’ve not been posting so often is that I’ve been out enjoying a few drops of the good stuff whilst enjoying some Sun.

But I have been tasting some new beers that I’m keen to share. Above it the Edel Pils from the Brauerei Hebendanz, who’s been doing their things since 1579 . So I hope they know what they are doing.

For those non-German speakers, “Edel” is a similar word to that of the English “Noble”. An interesting name for a Pils, none the less this Forchheim located Brauerei has quite a range of beers from the obvious Pils through Weiss and even Radler bier (I’ll cover this one day.. one day).

So to the beer itself, it was great drinking this on my balcony in the summer sun and normally this would allow me to have a ‘higher’ rating for the bier. But to be honest, in the end this was just a mid-range Pils. Maybe not so noble in the end, but enjoyable on a HOT day.

Bavarian bier, German Bier, N, Nürnberg/Franconia Adventure, Pils

June 17th, 2010 by Nate

I’ve already previously mentioned the Beer Specialist Shop “Drinks of the World” and regular readers will know that they sell hundreds of beers from around the world. Last weekend I was passing through Basel enroute to Frankfurt for the opening round of the world cup….. lets not talk about the Australian game ok.

Anyway, I stopped by the Drinks of the World store and picked up what was advertised as South African Beer. They didn’t have a huge selection, but what they did have was the above Mongozo Banana Beer, which turns out to actually be from the Belgian Brouwerij Van Steenberge.

I’m all for the idea of experimental beer and to be honest, I had some hopes that this beer would be decent…… was I wrong. The beer was almost acidic with sweetness to the point where my drinking partner coughed on the flavour. It is essentially nothing more than than a flavored malt drink. Look there are some great fruit beers out there, but this is not one of them. Try and your own peril.

HOWEVER, as much as I disliked the flavour of the beer, Mongozo does certify their beer through the Fair Trade initiative. What does this mean?

Well when you see a product with the above logo on it you can be assured that and I quote from their site:
“Fairtrade offers producers a better deal and improved terms of trade. This allows them the opportunity to improve their lives and plan for their future. Fairtrade offers consumers a powerful way to reduce poverty through their every day shopping.”

I don’t know about you, but I believe that this is a great idea and one that I would like to see more beer companies undertake.

But I really didn’t like this beer…. hmm quite the conundrum…hmm. 3 steins (because I’m inspired by the fairtrade program in knowing that my money has gone proportionally to the producers, etc).

Banana, Banana Beer, Fair Trade, Fairtrade, Mongozo, Mongozo Banana Beer

June 8th, 2010 by Nate

Summer is finally here…. well at least it seems that way. The weather here in Switzerland has been anything but warm, that is until now. Just in time for some biergarten action for the world cup.

Above it the ‘Old’ Bière from my local Lausanne Brewery, Boxer. (Keen readers may remember the Christmas brew review here) The Old Bière is apparently brewed to the ‘old’/'traditional’ Swiss style of brewing. What exactly that is, I’ve yet to find out and I have been looking. The closest I can come is that there is some semblance to the German Reinheitsgebot.

None the less the bière itself is a well balanced every-day-bière and enjoyable enough to keep on buying. As you can see in the photo, the bière is actually packaged in the impractically small 25cl bottles. I honestly don’t know who thought of these as being a viable packaging option. 2 Mouthfuls and the bière is finished, which is why there is only a photo of an empty glass. None the less, besides the small quantities this is a good middle range bière.

bière, Boxer Bière, Boxer Old, Old Boxer, Swiss b, Swiss Bière

May 21st, 2010 by Nate

I’ve been a little lax on the posts recently, just been slightly occupied with drinking the beer rather than taking photos of and reviewing it. But I’m back with this Laško Club Export Pivo.

Straight out of the gate, this is pretty much another mid-range, 4.9% ABV, mass produced pivo. Having said that though, I liked this just a that little bit more than the recently tried Jelen Pivo. The difference, at least to me was in the experience of drinking it, which kind of had me focusing on different facets of the pivo.

Like most of Europe, we’ve had a really damn long winter which seemed to brutally stop during the first weeks of April, and thus presented us with stunning weather and gorgeous days. However since then the weather has reverted back to a crappy winter ‘stuff’.

Yesterady afternoon the sun finally broke through and I managed to sit on my balcony and have a cool drink whilst sitting in a warm sun. So I cracked open the Laško and enjoyed some vitamin D rays.

The thing that I enjoyed most about this pivo that the Jelen was that the Pils was quite sweet and malty, which was perfect for sitting in the Sun. No it wasn’t challenging, nor was it of great quality but it never seemed to try to be anything more than it is.

This is actually my first Slovenian pivo and I kind of wish I’d tried it in Slovenia. But as I’m not going there any time soon, this was the next best thing.

All in all, this wasn’t a great pivo. But I can honestly recommend that if you’re off to a BBQ and have access to this, grab a six pack and try it out with your mates.

Laško Pivo, Pils, Pivo, Slovenian Pivo

May 7th, 2010 by Nate

Here in Switzerland we are surrounded not only by different countries but plenty of cultural offerings as well. I was recently shopping at the local Coop (a supermarket chain here) when I came across the above Jelen Pivo (Serbian for Deer Beer). Yes this is Serbian Beer/Pivo, which means a new category for this site, but also another countries view on the typical lager, as this is. Although this one seems to be the market leader in much of Adriatic Europe and is getting some press here in Switzerland. Interesting, eh?

Seeing as it is so popular, I couldn’t wonder if we were dealing with a Fosters or Bud of the Adriatic region. However after tasting it (a couple of times) I actually came to like it, for a mass produced beer. I actually liked how it was actually just a little spicier than a regular lager. It was also relatively cheap, for an import pivo, here in Switzerland. So this might even go into my mix of biers to give people learning more about bier.

Beer, Jelen Pivo, Lager, Pivo, Serbian Beer, Serbian Pivo

May 5th, 2010 by Nate

Back at the beginning of this Adventure, I tested the Kellerbier from the Pyraser brauerei. If you recall I was interested to find the brewery actually bottling bier in screw-top bottle. Nothing changes with their Weizen, which too comes packaged in a unique screw-top bottle.

So I’ll keep this one quick, here we have a fairly mid-range Weizen. It’s not up there with the likes of Schneider, however one thing is for sure, it is miles ahead of the Tucher bier range. Drinkable, yes, but nothing surprising.

German Bier, hefeweizen, Nürnberg/Franconia Adventure, Pyraser, Pyraser brauerei, Weißbier, weissbier

April 28th, 2010 by Nate

I’m always a fan of trying new drinks, hell that is why I started this website. I recently found some of the above Балтика (Baltika) No. 7 in my local super market. The thing that caught my eye was the Cyrillic label and relatively clear colour of the пиво (Pivo), so I thought I should give it a go.

A note, sometimes I just couldn’t be stuffed in pouring into a glass. I’m just happy drinking it out of the bottle, as was the case here (so no comments on colour).

The pivo has been labeled as a Premium Export, so I wasn’t so hopeful about it being top quality. Still it wasn’t bad, nor was it great. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what style of pivo the Baltika No. 7 is. It has a Pilsner aroma, but the flavour is more malty and generally quite refreshing. Almost like a pivo you would find somewhere warm, not the least Russia. It’s kind of like a Heineken, a lager but a little more Malty. Interestingly it’s website states that it was voted the “The Best Light Beer” Moscow Beer Festival.

2 Things, who knew Moscow had a beer festival? I’d be keen to check that out one day. Secondly if you are an employee of Baltika reading this, Sydney is spelled with a “y” and not and “i”.

In the end it’s an easy to drink mid range pivo, something to drink without thinking too much about it.

Bajitnka, Baltika, Lager, Pivo, Russian Pivo, Балтика