Crafty Loki - Wacken Brewery

Crafty Loki
Nordic Pale Ale
Wacken Brewery

0,33l
5,7%
IBU: 40

I stumbled across this when I recently ordered something from a shop and as I had to pay shipping anyways, I added 2 brews. Wacken is mainly known for the huge festival happening there and I had no idea there is a brewery... maybe they just use the name.. anyways. It seems that Wacken Brewery (German only) has a series they call Beer of the Gods and I chose to sample their Crafty Loki which they call a 'Nordic Pale Ale'. I am not sure about the Nordic part besides maybe the Loki name but hey.. it's a Pale Ale and me likey them usually so.

Like most of the beerses with a fancy name, this also has flashy labels. The front one shows us an old depiction of Loki the Trickster in his glory, the name of the brew and a text calling it something like 'a top-cool, top-creative, top fermented  beer'.

The back label holds some text about Loki and why the beer holds as many facets as the trickster God himself yada yada... let's give a personal relationship to it so we will like it more and buy more of it... I guess marketing is part of everything but I like my beers to have good taste not a good story, unless they have both but we will get to that.

RateBeer at this point does not have any scores for it, lacking enough ratings for it now.

I'm back to one of my standard trusty tasting glasses just because I can and didn't want to use the Widmer one again.

Loadsa bubbles, very nice. Full head with very fine bubbles. As it is 36° Celsius outside I didn't want to wait till it dissipated so the pic has a bit much foam. It's a golden, unfiltered brew with slight red hues.

The aroma is very fruity. Fresh berries with fresh cut grass and faint fruity hops and lemon zest. It's basically ones good ole IPA aroma but a lot sweeter.

The carbonation is a tad bit overpowering, the hoppish goodness is semi muffled by some weird musky tones but they vanish fast and give place to fruity, flowery aspects mixed with very faint medicinal tones. The awesomeness of this brew comes from the aftertaste which perfectly masters to blend the IPAness with what I would call the dry hoppish aspects of a crisp good German Pilsner.

This is unlike any pale ale I have had before and though there are some minus aspects, all in all, I really like it. I was skeptical about this I have to admit but now I want to try more of their brews!

Prost!

DMW

Bourbon Barrel Bock - Welde

Bourbon Barrel Bock
Welde
0,33l
6,6%
IBU: 28

From the same brewery as the last entry, I saved this baby for a while. A friend had mentioned it to me months ago as one of his favorites, alas I have saved it because nowadays I'm not too grand to digest stronger brews anymore. It's kinda fitting that I'll use my Widmer Brothers glass again as they used to make an almost similar brew.

Ratebeer goes pretty high on that baby as far as I can tell.

Funnily enough, Bock used to be the poison of my choice when it was served in a local pub I used to frequent many, many years ago, nowadays I often dislike the sweetness of them, which is automatically coming with the higher percentage.

Anyways, according to the information on the label itself and on the web, the brew rests 3 months in Bourbon, Rum and Tequila casks, thus making it a Cuvée. The hops used, namely Green Bullet seems to be a New Zealand variety and according to my research is nothing special.

The label again has 2 parts, the front label showing a barrel and the name and some general information, while the back has ingredients etc. I like the labels though they are minimal.

As mentioned above, I will use the same glass as the last time, a Widmer branded tulip I brought with me from the US.

Now I had the beer in the fridge overnight, till I just saw that they recommend 12° Celsius for it. As we got 35° outside and 7° in my fridge I will have to settle for a bit colder than usual experience though I took it out to acclimate itself a bit.

I kinda dread to venture outside to take my usual pictures because I react to the sun like a vampire ... but I shall undergo extreme trials for you, my readers.

It pours a bit thickish with a nice copper red cloudy color, clearly being not filtered. A medium amount of head can be produced with small to mediocre sized bubbles, which dissipate fast.

The aroma is very rich, floral tones mixed with freshly picked berries and the distinct barrel smell of liquor and faint honey and cork.

Now the taste.... my mouth is watering from the aroma...
It starts thick and syrupy, the carbonation could be better, the barrel taste is definitely there. Sweet, medicinal tones, vanilla and the alcohol being recognizable in the aftertaste together with faint bitterness. The bourbon tones are definitely there but so far I must admit I am not a huge fan. I will let this get a bit warmer and then try again..... stay with me...

Still the wood/barrel overpowers the brew. I like my Whisky smoky and peaty and woody... but with beer I am not as convinced as I maybe should be. I can sense a grand brew under the layer of wood but it is buried too deep for me to find this grand.


Prost!
DMW

Badisch Gose - Welde

Badisch Gose
Welde

0,33l
4,6%
IBU: 10

I got 2 of the brews of this brewery, a Gose and a Bock. According to the brewery's site their Gose won a Gold Award at the International Craft Beer Award.

As it is another hot day outside I am hoping for something light, tart, summery.
As a regional speciality beer, Gose is exempt from the German Beer Purity Law as the ingredients usually include salt and coriander. The top fermented Gose originally was spontaneously fermented by wild yeast strains, much like the Lambic class of beers. It has a rocky history as it sometimes vanished for years as brewers stopped making it or lost the knowledge on how to make it, alas it has found a renaissance with the craft beer movement.

Ratebeer again is somewhere in the middle of their scoring system when it comes to this brew. (Not that I care...:P )

The bottle itself is rather standard. It holds 2 labels, both cream colored with black writing, but somehow it fits the whole design of it. It shows a salt shaker and what I guess to be coriander leaves and also has a description what it tastes like... which I didn't read because I do like to make my own assumptions and not rely on other people too much when it comes to that. The back label lists the ingredients and the useful information like IBU etc.

Glass-wise I went for an old Widmer Brothers glass I brought with me from the US... simply because I couldn't find my standard tasting glasses... I have too many and yet they constantly seem to disappear...

The brew is cloudy and unfiltered and has a rather wellllll ehmmm ...let's say the color isn't the most appetizing but hey... I don't like my beers because of their color, right. So yeah slightly diarrhea color but who cares. Not much head to speak of. Just a small layer of mediocrely sized bubbles.

The aroma rocks. Very fruity, slight hop tones which are very well hidden behind salt and berry aromas. Umami and grapefruit come to mind.

The taste, now that is something.
The carbonation is good and the taste really awesome. It starts with rich sweet-tart gooseberry tones, evolves to salty mineral aspects only to give you the hint of hops and banana in the end, leaving a pleasant floral-fruity aftertaste without being sweet.
I especially like the fruit salty mix though that is something I usually never would like. To be honest I was sceptical about salt and beer but this works quite well though I am told that this particular Gose isn't even deemed to be very salty.

Now this brew is another example on how different beers can be. If you compare this to a heavy chocolate stout, one might thing that these are two totally different kinds of beverages.

A _very_ fine piece of brew-art. Thanks to the brewery for that!

Prost!

DMW

Brauerei Gusswerk - Steinbier

Steinbier
Brauerei Gusswerk

0,33l
5,6%

From what I could find out, this beer is brewed exclusively in a small  brewery  with attached brewpub (Site German exclusively) which is an Austrian certified ecological brewery so hey I'm doing a good thing for my health, right? Right?

Anyways, the special gimmick of this brew and why it is called Steinbier, meaning Stonebeer, is that it is cooled by hot stones being plunged into the brew... don't kill the messenger... which is supposedly giving it a supposedly special taste.

RateBeer is not giving it much... but as you know... I don't care about their rating and just include it for your reading pleasure and research.

The bottle and the included label is rather simplistic: A huge yellow dot with the name on it and the fact that it is ecologically brewed. They even have 2 little stones as dots over the 'i' on their label.

Glass wise I'd usually have taken a stein but to make a nicer picture I went for a stein-like glass instead.

It pours with a nice amount of caramel colored foam. The brew itself is unfiltered red-brown.

Aromawise we have a nice combination of yeast with nut and caramel, coupled with clemon zest and malt topped of with faint hues of honey.

I do like the warm honey caramel taste it starts out with, slowly changing to banana and hops. Really nice taste! The carbonation could be stronger. It does remind me of Finnish Sahti when it comes to the banana tones. The hop bitterness is decent and compliments the sweetness of ripe berries and caramel.

I _really_ like this brew! One of the cases when I am positively surprised! I also definitely think that RateBeer is wrong in their judgement of it.

Prost!

DMW

Steamworks Heroica Red Ale - The Air Canada Series

Steamworks Heroica Red Ale

0,33l
5,6%
45 IBU
Malts: 2-Row, Cara 20, Cara 45, Munich, Chocolate
Hops: Cascade, Citra, Simcoe, Amarilloe

As I explained in my last post, my friends from Air Canada made sure to give me something to write about. So today I will talk about the second of the Canadian beers I have gotten from them.
Steamworks seems to have a lot of interesting brews indeed and after the bit heavier baby yesterday, I am happy to tackle something I imagine to be crisp and summery... a nice red ale.

I am a bit weary as I never made the greatest experiences with Simcoe Hops but hey, I am here to be surprised, right!

RateBeer gives it more in style than in overall but as I also stressed last time, I have no idea how their points actually work.

The brown bottle again has 2 translucent stickers as labels that give us the impression as if they are painted on. Nice. This time -to go with the Heroica Red image- the label shows us a happy, heroic firefighter, rescuing a damsel in distress in his arms.... makes me wonder how he is gonna hold the beer bottle... The label on the back gives us the above-mentioned list of yummy ingredients and otherwise is rather minimalistic.

I went for a nice sturdy baby Guinness Glass for this as I somehow found it more fitting than my usual one.

Not much foam on this nice not totally filtered red beauty. It's red-brown like a watered down cola and not as red as I thought.

The aroma is very citrus heavy coupled with honey and hops. Faint flower and hazelnut tones mixed with grass.

The amount of carbonation is perfect. It starts off rather sweet, then rolls along the tongue with nice spice tones only to reach the palate and the back of the tongue to fully develop the rich bitter hops taste.

It is one of the beers that get a totally new aspect once one opens the mouth and allows some air to join. I really like the tart citrus aspects which mix with the toasted malts t give the nutty feeling till the hops arrive.

Truly nicely done! This has about everything a good brew is supposed to have and is in addition exactly what I needed today.

A superb brew with enough bitterness to make me happy, alas allowing it to paint a whole composition with the other aspects.

Thank you, Air Canada!



Prost!

DMW

Steamworks Jasmine IPA - The Air Canada Series

Steamworks Jasmine IPA

0,33l
6,5%
60 IBU
Hops: Cascade and Galaxy
Malts: Premium 2-Row & Cara 20



As the title tells us, I'd like to thank my friends from Air Canada for providing me with (so far) 2 very, very interesting looking Canadian beers. So "Cui honorem, honorem" - "honour to whom honour is due" I dedicate this blog entry to my friends at Air Canada! Thank you! Now let's tackle that beer...

I shamefully have to admit that I never heard of Steamworks but this has changed now. Looking over their list of beers truly makes me interested for more as some of their brews sound super cool... for now, however,  we concentrate on their Jasmine IPA.

The bottle -like most of their bottles- is really funny. Besides the information about hops and malts that I cite in the introduction, it is covered in illustrations. In this case, it is Chinese themed. We find a Dragon/Lion being protecting Chinese style houses and entranceways. The labels are translucent stickers of the kind that, back when I was still actively collecting beer labels, would make me cry to get them off... it does have the cool effect of looking as if they are painted on the bottle instead of glued onto it. Me likey!

Ratebeer is convinced of the quality of the brew with a whopping 81 of their points that I will never understand nor try to understand. (If someone of you does understand it and can explain it to someone with the attention span of a squirrel, please do so in the comments.. oh look a butterfly, can I have candy. I wanna go out and play.)

Actually I just realized that the hops and malts mentioned on Ratebeer aren't the ones written on the bottle. Weird. Maybe I got some export version or they refined their brew... what does make this beer special, however, is them including Jasmine Flowers in it. As it has been a long while since I had a decent IPA I am indeed looking forward to this and -at least in my mind- the combination of the hoppy bitterness with Jasmine works fine.... we shall see whether it is so indeed.

I decided to go with a standard tasting glass for this beauty.

It pours reddish gold with not very much foam but then again I didn't expect an IPA to have a huge head.

The aroma is very IPAish with strong floral and fruit tones and decent caramel aroma. Tones of honey and hay can be found and I think this must be one of the best IPAs I have smelled. The normally strong hoppy tones blend into a rich honey aroma as if bathed in the golden liquid. Really nice and rich aroma full of nuances,

OK sadly the taste doesn't hold what the aroma promises. Carbonation is about perfect. The taste starts with strong bitter chocolate tones which when mixed with the jasmine flowers end simply being a bit weird. The bitterness blocks out most other facets, alas it is not unpleasant.
This might be one of the beers that grows on one with time.

The strong bitter tones stay present for a long while after a sip and leave a pleasantly dry, yet memorable image of tea and bergamot.

I am torn about this brew. I can see how it could polarize which is a grand thing for a beer that doesn't want to cater to the masses. If you like your brew bitter it is definitely for you!

I would have liked a bit more sweetness and probably was mislead from the aroma.
It's a good brew which could be better if the bitterness wouldn't drown a lot of the other aspects.

PROST!

DMW