It's pretty clear to see that when it comes to beer-producing countries I'm pretty biased towards Belgium. It's what I've mainly drunk for the last 10 years and it continues to delight me with its beer, but the time's come to branch out. If there's one country that I've scandalously ignored, it's Germany, which leaves me a rather large task. I've never drank an Altbier and the only Bock I've had is from Schlenkerla (which for those who don't know is completely drowned in beech smoke flavour).
So a trip to a decent local offy has furnished me with a few new things to try. He apologised that he was currently under stocked but there was still a fair bit on offer. The first thing that struck me was that pretty much every brewery in Germany has exactly the same idea of what a bottle of beer should look like. So, a lot of close inspection was needed to find the styles.
I started with a Helles from Allgäuer, called 'Original'. It was brewed to celebrate their 100th anniversary and came in a swing top bottle (great to reuse when homebrewing). I actually opened this one first because it looked like the bottle had been reused one too many times and there was a bit of leakage due to a duff lid. So much for reusing on the homebrew!
For a lager-sceptic like me, starting off on a flat beer was asking for trouble, but I did my best. I can't obviously comment on the head but the colour was interesting: darker than your usual pale-straw (dehydrated pee, anyone?) but as clear as Mother Theresa's conscience. It'd certainly been through the filter once or twice.
I was really hoping I'd love this beer, but at the same time had a horrible feeling that lager might not be my thing. As soon as I took a sniff I was happy I'd taken a chance. It was full of sweet maltiness (very mild, mind) and lots of noble hops. Hops are clearly fashionable at the moment, but not your old fashioned German ones, which are very special. The outstanding character of this beer, however, was sweetness: I was at home!
Even though it was completely flat it was very palatable. All the fruity honey flavours and sweetness made me reach for more. Thankfully it wasn't too much. It wasn't necessarily balanced by bitterness, it was just a steady amount that didn't ever become thick in the mouth.
Aftertaste-wise it was a similar story. There was a consistently sweet, honey flavour complemented by fruity and mildly herbal hops. Whilst there wasn't any real bitterness as such, there must be some there to keep the sweetness in check, otherwise it'd be pretty heavy going.
It shows that with 100 years' experience Allgäuer has learnt that you only need to do one or two things really well in order to have a great product. I'm sure that down the line there'll be other German beers that do a couple of simple things well that I may not find so tasty but this one has made me very excited about finding out.
Allgäuer Original "100 Jahre" 4.9% - 9
http://www.allgaeuer-brauhaus.de/100jahre/index.html
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