| MAY/JUNE 1999 | VOL.4 NO.2 |
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Bright Beer
Up-to-date news and views from the World of Beer
North American Craft Brewing Dead? Some Aussies Think So
Birra Italia
Will That Be Red Beer or Red Wine?
Taste of the Month
The Best of the Month's Eating and Drinking
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What They Said and What I Think
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The Taste of the Month - The Best of the Month's Eating and Drinking
I played host to an unexpected beer tasting this month when the planned locale for a sampling of German weizens and bocks feel through and I was asked to step into the breach and provide an alternate venue. I was only too happy to do so and, as you will see, even ended up contributing a choice bottle of my own to the event.
The tasting featured beers not normally seen in Ontario: the delicately fruity and wonderful Mt. Begbie Kölsch from British Columbia, the impressively spicy and delicious Maisel Kristal Weizen from Bavaria, and the lightly chocolaty, clovey Dunkel Weiss and the dangerously drinkable, peppery, raisiny and 7.7% alcohol by volume Ritterbock from Kaltenberg Brewery, located just outside of Munich. The star of the show, however, was an aged brew I pulled out of my cellar at the end of the night: the Eisbock Bayrisch G'frorns from Kulmbacher Reichelbräu of Kulmbach, Germany.
I had no idea how this beer would have weathered the years, having never tried an aged version before, but the half decade or so the bottle had been in my cellar proved to be time well spent. The complex nose showed prune, date, burnt toffee, white pepper and a host of other aroma notes, while the body offered a soft start leading to a fully-developed flavour of sherry-ish orange and prune notes, more pepper and hints of earthiness and wood leading to a surprisingly dry finish. Both my notes and the faces of the other tasters said it all: despite the fabulous beers we had sampled, the Eisbock ruled the evening as the taste of the night, and the month.
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