Faust Festbier

Faust Winter Festbier
0,5l
5,5%

And part 2 of the Faust week. As Spring starts or has started it is high time that I open  the Winter Beer... It deviates from the usual Faust labels a bit and depicts a fluffily cute Christmas Village.

So time to bring summer into life. It pours nicely clear and amber colored with a nice foamy head and loads of yummy white foam. (It's funny that in Finland eg. the Bartends tend to get the foam out of the glass when I order a beer.. over here in Germany I'd prolly return the beer if it wouldn't have any foam..

It smells very fresh and fruity with light malt tones that are very sublime. The yeast also is noticeable but blends in nicely with the fruity tones. All in all it does smell very appetizing.

It's nicely sweet and slightly yeasty, it could go with a bit more hoppy bitterness but as it's a Christmas beer that's OK as it should help warming your insides on a cold winters day. The carbonation is about perfect and it leaves a pleasant warm, slightly yeasty aftertaste. This is good drinks definitely and another great brew by Faust. Slight honey aroma tops off the whole composition

DMW

The Faust Series... kicking of with Kräusen

Faust Kräusen
0,5l
5,5%

Apparently Blogger found my Cherry porter so bad that it automagically deleted the post.. or I managed to click a wrong button... SIGH half an evening in vain.... alas see the Strawberry Porter and You should have the article... replace strawberry with cherry though..

Right after that unsuccessful flirt with the porters I was looking forward to start my FAUST week.
To honor someone, I herewith dedicate the Faust week to Felix, a friend who grew up next to the brewery.

I picked the first one because I never heard of 'Kräusen' and the cloudy unfiltered part sounds very interesting.
Wikipedia states:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewing#Conditioning 

Kräusening is a conditioning method in which fermenting wort is added to the finished beer.^[80] The active yeast will restart fermentation in the finished beer, and so introduce fresh carbon dioxide; the conditioning tank will be then sealed so that the carbon dioxide is dissolved into the beer producing a lively "condition" or level of carbonation.^[80] The kräusening method may also be used to condition bottled beer.

So yeah let's see.
All Faust beers show the same design for their labels which is a good idea as it keeps corporate design going.. I like the bit old fashioned way they design their labels.

Pouring very bright and only a tad bit cloudy like stained glass windows, this beery goodness holds a decent foamy head, just like German beers are supposed to. The yeasty smell reminds me more of freshly baked bread than of the usual beer yeast smell. There definitely are fruity tones in it as well as well as the crisp tartness of good beer. Enough said.. mouth is watering, time to try...


Sadly not as cold as I'd like it, this is very good. A perfect blend of fruit, tartness, bitterness and yeast tones. To be honest there are too many aspects for me to write about but it does remind me of a good Kellerbier. It's sweet in the beginning, great in between and slightly nicely malty bitter in the end. Absolutely a beer that gets my seal of approval. I would heighten the carbonation a bit but that's just unimportant when considering the multitude of aromas in it. Sadly I never found a perfect translation for 'süffig' as that's a very good word. My beloved Co-writer Pasi once translated it as 'quaffable'.

Anyways... absolute highlight and on my top lists. Well done!

DMW

Lausitzer Porter

Lausitzer Porter
Bergquell-Brauerei Löbau
0,5l
4,4%

To end the Porter series by this particular brewery I never heard of before, I chose the untainted Porter they make.. I'd wager a guess that it's the same brew I had the last few days which in those cases was mixed with artificial aroma.. so now wondering what the real Mc Coy will be like. They use the same design as the fruity variants, a red PORTER logo, this time branded with 'Lausitzer'.

The foam is a lot better and more stable on this version and also a bit more cream colored, alas not as fine as I'd have expected it from a porter. It's dark brown/reddish but not as dark as one would expect.
It smells fruity with distinct yeast tones and a slight malty, smoky smell. The whole smell is rather fine and not very intense.

Let's find out whether their porter really needs to cloud its taste with aroma...
Well as I just found out they already add sugar to it which - as most of you might know by now - isn't my favorite. They aim to balance the bitter tones with the sugar but I am not a fan of the outcome. I think the beer would benefit from leaving the sugar out of the mixture. The tartness there and would be nice but also is mainly clouded by the added sugar.

So a 'meh' from me.

DMW

Strawberry Porter

Erbeer Porter
Bergquell-Brauerei Löbau
0,5l
4,2%

Before I start the Faust week I make a short detour to Lausitz where I got 3 kinds of porter from.
Kicking of is the Strawberry Porter... like I mentioned with the Honey beer, this again is a mix beer and not brewed with cherry but simply has added cherry something in it. Too sad.

Already after opening and during pouring this reminds me of some cherry vanilla coke.. the color is pretty much the same and the foam consistency as well. The artificial smell is very intense, even if I haven't even put my nose over the glass yet.
It's very cherry intense and I can barely make out the beer tartness under the sweet strawberry tones. All in all this smells like a soft drink not a beer but we shall see whether the taste breaks these assumptions.

This drinks suspiciously great actually, Not too sweet though I could go with a bit less sweetness but a nice composition of berry and beer... though I wouldn't be able to identify the beer used as a porter.
Also the taste isn't as artificial as the smell and I got a very round mouth experience with it. The malty tones fill the upper palate while the sweeter aspects stay on the tongue. I'm not really sure whether I would have identified it as Strawberry though.
In any case it's worth a try though I'd encourage them to use the berries in the brewing and not just add the juice afterwards.

P.S.: Also I am REALLY not happy with that phones camera when I look at those pics...
P.P.S.: After studying the bottle I found out that the closest strawberry this beer has ever seen was the Strawberry Chewing gum of the Apprentice... as they have artificial this with artificial this in there and even label it as  'With Strawberry-taste'... Huge minus...

DMW

Odin-Trunk

Odin-Trunk Schloßbräu
0,5l%


http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/furstlich-drehna-schlossbrau-odin-trunk/44513/

I have been knowing this baby for a couple of years as it is served in a local wannabe Medieval Bar. I did like it back then. Like the upcoming strawberry and cherry Porters, I sadly had to realize that this isn't brewed with the honey but simply has it added to the beer... So technically it's more like a beer mixery thingy... Which makes me a sad Panda but oh well.. You can't have it all. The label is sorta archaic with the huge Odin dude on it and has a slight weird connotation for me but well its Wednesday tomorrow and as that name stems from Odin (Wednesday Wodansday Wodan Wotan Odin) it's the fitting beer for tonight.
I chose the handmade glasses I found on a fleamarket for it as they have the same archaic, back to earth feeling for me as the label.

It's pouring with a red brownish hue that I am not a huge fan of.. maybe if it weren't filtered and would be cloudy then yes but this way it reminds me of Cola Beer or something... No huge head on it, instead more fine bubbles like from a soft drink, though they stay relatively stable. (The little of them that are present that is)..

I can smell the honey and also soft tones of cinnamon in it. Funnily the smell reminded me of the cookie beer I had a few weeks ago. Some smoky tones as well as sweet christmas candies come to mind when smelling it. The tartness of the beer itself is present as well though, making it on of the best smelling beers I have had... let's hope the taste holds what the smell promises.

Wonder why I used to like this.. pretty bland with some metallic side tones, trying to be covered up by the honey and the sugar. The second sip goes a lot better and I like the cinnamon parts of it that I find on the upper pallate, alas I'm still not a huge fan of the mixture of bitter hoppiness with added sugar though the honey in this case makes it better.

This could be a good beer if the sweetness would be toned down a bit. It's definitely interesting but the sweetness is too much for me today.

DMW

Faust and Porter

Though I'm a tad bit stressed atm as real life is taking it's toll, I managed to squeeze in a visit to the local beerery and buy next weeks blog material. Not trying to go along topics but as I liked the Scottish series I just finished, I thought I'll go with a similar topic as the local shop just had 1 bottle of everything that the Faust Brewery brews. So that shall be a topic and also some Strawberry/Cherry/normal Porter I found from a Brewery I never heard before.
Sadly the camera in my new Nexus 4 needs some getting used to for me, which explains the rather bad pic.
Anyways the beers to expect in the next week or so are 5 Faust, 3 Lausitzer Porter and a Honey Beer Ialready tried but didn't write about in a medieval pub.

Looking forward to broaden your horizon!

I live to serve, I aim to please...

DMW

Pfungstädter Edel Pils

Pfungstädter Edel Pils
0,5l
4,9%

In a back to the roots series we got a 80 cent beer of classical brewery origin. Which I write about so that you don't get bored.
Like all German Pilseners this pours with a lot of foam which gives a nice full head of foam which dissipates very slowly and ends with a nice little foamy beard after the gulps.
It smells classically bitter and hoppy like a good crisp Pilsener should with some yeasty tones embedded though there also seems to be a sweet element.

It's a nice mixture of hoppyness and yeastyness just like a good Pils should be. Funnily though I chilled it for ovre a day I still didn't like the temperature  of it as it seemed too warm. The carbonation is decent to too little. It's an OK summery Pils with too little carbonation but I found it surprisingly refreshing to try a normal, boring Pils again.

DMW