Beer Advent Calendar Window Eight

Beer Advent Calendar Window Eight - Winterfestbier

There's a point in these calendars where the soul starts to be ripped from your liver. All the beginning good intentions - to give background on the brewery and beer with each post - are ripped from you. Before you've even had chance to send an e-mail with a polite enquiry, you are drinking, writing and reviewing with no background knowledge.

With that, we come to Window Eight and Hohenthanner Schlossbrauerei Winterfestbier. This beer was purchased late last year and is certainly included due to its beautiful Christmas themed label and name.

Apart from that I know next to nothing about this brewery or beer and a non-negotiable website doesn't educate me. I would love to show my journalistic skills in these posts, but I personally like diving into this unknown German entity with no expectations or knowledge. Please stick with this Advent Calendar, if not for the detailed beer information and world class tasting notes then at least the entirely pointless Christmas film quote...

"Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know ... the birth of Santa."

Hohenthanner Schlossbrauerei - Winterfestbier 5.3%

This is a lovely beer to look at, glazed in your glass like opaque clementines and fizzing away. There's plenty of orange peel on the nose with suggestions of clove and nutmeg. The flavour really brings out that orange along with whole coriander seeds, light liquorice and a little star anise. There's a strong hint of honey wafting through in later stages, next to professionally made marmalade. A little winter spice in a tub of marmalade creates the backbone to this beer. Despite an expected pilsner style, carbonation is low, allowing orange zest to wash over your tongue for a final finish. Forget the RateBeer scores, this is a surprisingly tasty bottle of festive beer.

Mince Pie Rating: 6/10 - a small nibble and those orange flavours really become apparent.

Best paired with: the satsuma everybody should still receive at the bottom of their stocking.

Comments

THE STATE OF CASK part 2: The Cask Consumers

In what has become one of the most written about subjects amongst beer communicators for a long while I am going to follow on with my own thoughts about cask beer. Yet these ideas are formulated from potential posts I've been writing the odd paragraph about for around 18 months but never managed to construct into something relevant. I have much to say on the subject; so much so that rather than making this into one enormous read I've split it into three sections regarding the current trends and effects on cask beer as I see it. Today I look at the problem with consumer's and the immunity of one Timothy Taylor's Landlord. Part 1 can be read here . On the first Saturday morning of June 2016 I travelled to Stockport Beer Festival with my Aunt Marie and Uncle David; famously more traditional beer drinkers. They enjoy a day out in Stockport as, coming from Dewsbury way, they don’t actually see much beer from my side of the Pennines, incl...

BEER INDUSTRY PERSONNEL - COME TO DADDY!

Around 7 months ago I started dating a pub manager. It was inevitable in many ways. Amongst the perks that come with being involved with somebody on the other side of the bar, came the dread of how to react in future to the interactions involved in bar work. It isn’t a situation I’ve been in before so it has required adjustment. I’ve never had a partner pull up a chair in the office and stare at me through part of the working day whilst occasionally ordering goods from me. So you don’t want to interfere in your partner’s work whilst still getting to enjoy the pub. You don’t want to suddenly take up a spot on the bar where you make gooey eyes at each other with every pull on a hand pump. You don’t want to be one of those possessive teenagers, watching like a bar hawk and scowling at any intimidatingly handsome pair of arms that makes your other half roar with laughter. You want to separate their work from your social life and allow everything to sti...

National Winter Ales Festival 2013 - A Reasonable Farewell

Perhaps if this had been three years ago I would really have lamented the loss of the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester . Not only has it long been held in my home city, but it was also my first ever beer festival, signifying a special place in my heart. That first visit was in 2006 and the event was then held in a co–operative building near Victoria station. At the time, my young ale loving mind was rather gobsmacked by the wondrous multi roomed, multi floored experience as barrels and casks of the good stuff stood waiting for me to try at no more than 90p for a generous half pint. Breweries and beer styles I had never heard of were present. It was also where I had my first taste of rauchbier, an encounter I have never regretted. I paid £3 to enter that day as a non CAMRA member. The organisations members that did travel with me on the occasion entered the festival for free (so they say, I’m inclined to believe they paid at least £1.) “They’re not a money making ...

Beer Compurgation

Search This Blog