Eleven days in, I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t really know much about beer, and that I most certainly judge books by their covers. That said, I had optimistic hopes for tonight’s beer as I’ve been not having the greatest time with job these days and drinking on Fridays always seems like a good idea after a long week of work, and I was wondering if whomever put together this advent calendar had the wherewithal to put some quality beers on the Fridays of the calendar, because it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to look at a calendar to know when they are.
So when I pulled Grandl out of the fridge, I was pleased to see a fairly traditional, nondescript beer can design that reminded me of a throwback style like a Miller High Life can or like the Milwaukee Brewers typeface, which are kind of the same things considering Miller’s influence with the Brew Crew.
But anyway it’s almost like this can was a metaphor for the beer itself, because out of the can came a clean, golden lager with not a lot of aroma. The first sips were positive, but not really blown away; everything about this beer seemed pretty no-nonsense, nothing special, but at the same time not at all bad, and very drinkable.
The fact that BeerAdvocate lists this as simply “lager” and not like “festlager” or “alleybier” or “kellerbrau” or some other weird classification I’d never heard of until embarking on this journey, brings everything back to earth for something simple, basic, yet perfectly adequate.
Sure, it’s not bursting with flavor like Turbo Prop (#6) or has the explosive characteristics of a good dunkel like Kirta (#5), but it’s still a classic, smooth beer that goes down smooth, doesn’t overstimulate my novice pallet, and is something I know I could drink 2-3 of without breaking a sweat.
Either way, I’m gassed. I found myself already beginning to fall asleep at 8:45, while trying to watch Scrooge virtually with some friends, but such shouldn’t be a surprise considering I’m raising an infant that’s up by 6:30 every morning. And I thought I was all ahead of the curve by knocking out all of my daily chores and running earlier in the day that I’d be able to have a ton of time to myself to wind down the evening, but now all I want to do is go to bed before 11 pm and actually feel like I can get some sleep, so this review is about as long as most of the other beer reviews but is in fact full of fluff and talking about how I’m wrapping this up but overall, Grandl was solid, refreshing, and it’s general position in the rankings don’t do it justice as much as it shows where it stands to other beers with stronger gimmicks and more memorability.
Current Rankings:
- First Coral (#2)
- Kirta (#5)
- Turbo Prop (#6)
- Perlenzauber (#9)
- Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
- Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
- Grandl (#11)
- Hell (#1)
- Tannen Hell (#8)
- Tradition (#10)
- Käuzle (#3)
