Tag: holidays

Advent Beer #23: Landgang Pils by Landgang Brauerei

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What I’ve been doing every single day is that right before I pull the day’s can out of the fridge, I pull the next day’s can out of the box, to prepare it for the next day.  I try my best to not look at the can when I’m doing such, because as has been the routine, I like to be surprised when I pull it out of the fridge.  However, when I pulled this can out of the box yesterday, it was impossible to not notice the lime green color all over the can, and I was wondering if they had just snuck a tallboy of fucking Surge into the box.  Frankly, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but I knew I was getting a lime green-ass can tonight.

Anyway, so when I retrieved the can today, I looked quizzically at the design of the can.  First, I quickly identified that it was a pilsner, mostly because it’s listed on the bottom of the can, but then I couldn’t help but notice that they’ve basically put Shipwreck from GI Joe on the can itself for some reason, and I’m just sitting there with this wtf look on my face.

Typically, when I see something short-called “Pils,” it makes me think of Sam Adams’ Noble Pils, which is one of my more preferred beers in spite of the hoppiness of it.  I normally equate pilsners that identify themselves with lots of hops as IPAs and I think I’ve made clear how I feel about IPAs, but after stuff like Noble Pils and bier #6 Turbo Prop, I’m in this gray area of love and hate with some of them.  But seeing as how I’ve been determined to have at least one quality beer with the days remaining, out of my das boot, I was skeptical that I’d be relying on the final day of the calendar to hope to get something particularly good.

Shipwreck Pils doesn’t have a lot of aroma, pours very light, and looks every bit like a classic pilsner.  The first sip is immediately satisfying, but there’s a little bit of an odd finish at the end that negates a lot of the good will set by the first taste.  Overall, it’s an okay bier, that I think sits firmly in the middle of the pack as far as all of the Deutsch beers are concerned.  There have been many better, but at the same time, there have been several that have been decidedly worse than this one.

It is a bier that I could easily see myself having several of them, but that’s if someone else were paying for them provided I were drinking Shipwreck Pils only.  If it were on my own euro, I’d probably be seeking out something else, like a dunkel or a weizen, but for what it’s worth, this wasn’t bad at all.  If it means anything at all, of the three beers I’ve drinken out of my boot, this has been the best one.

Tomorrow marks the final day of the advent calendar, and I’ve already seen the color of the can, but know nothing else.  I really hope the box saved one of the best for last, but regardless, this has been a fun little exercise, and excuse to write daily.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bearjew Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Märzenbier (#20)
  10. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  11. Landgang Pils (#23)
  12. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  13. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  14. Kurpfalz Bräu Kellerbier (#22)
  15. Erl Hell (#19)
  16. Grandl (#11)
  17. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  18. Hell (#1)
  19. Tannen Hell (#8)
  20. Perlenzauber IPA (#21)
  21. Tradition (#10)
  22. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  23. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #22: Kurpfalz Bräu Kellerbier by Weldebräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

With just three days left in the journey, I’m really hoping to have at least one stalwart bier to drink out of the boot from, and I’m still kicking myself a little bit for not busting the boot out sooner, if not from the start.  And when I saw “kellerbier” listed on today’s can, I thought to myself, I’ve had a kellerbier before, and looking back, it was First Coral that was also a kellerbier, which sat at the top of the rankings until Day 16, so I felt that this might just be a worthy bier to be drinking from my boot.

Unfortunately, the fact that it’s also a kellerbier is about where all the comparisons end, because after beating the bubble and finishing off the boot, this one just wasn’t really at all that fantastic, and definitely not worthy of being savored from within the boot.  I should’ve seen the red flags of just how much of the can was actually translated into English instead of remaining in its native Deutsch, so a demerit goes towards Kurpfalz Bräu for Americanizing it up too much, in spite of having probably the most German name of all the beers there’ve been so far.

It wasn’t a bad beer, but it also wasn’t a great beer either.  Considering my first exposure to a kellerbier sat at the top of the rankings for over two weeks, I had higher hopes for this, and perhaps the expectations of the prior kellerbier was the downfall to Kurpfalz, because it was just kind of grassy and bitter, and had a dry finish that left me feeling thirsty and unsatisfied in the end.

It’s sad too, because I was having a good evening with a stomach full of Mexican takeout, mythical wife and I were bingeing the last few episodes of The Mandalorian season 2, my daughter was sleeping soundly which hadn’t happened in quite a few nights, I ran yesterday so tonight was a no-run relaxing night and an outstanding beer from my boot would have been the perfect topper to what was already a fairly pleasant day.  But the bier was a letdown, there’s only two more beers to go, and I only have hopes that the creators of the calendar had it in their minds to stack some home runs at the tail end to hopefully walk-off with, because boot or not boot, ending strong is going to be important.  FOR THE SAKE OF CHRISTMAS.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bären Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Märzenbier (#20)
  10. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  11. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  12. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  13. Kurpfalz Bräu Kellerbier (#22)
  14. Erl Hell (#19)
  15. Grandl (#11)
  16. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  17. Hell (#1)
  18. Tannen Hell (#8)
  19. Perlenzauber IPA (#21)
  20. Tradition (#10)
  21. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  22. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #21: Perlenzauber IPA by Privatbrauerei H. Egerer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that I was feeling like I was using my Sweetwater pint glasses too frequently, and for my own satisfaction of variety, I wanted to mix things up.  I have a bunch of other glasses in another cabinet, so I went to swap out some of the Sweetwater pints that I’ve felt were being repeated too much.  In doing so, I unearthed the absolute best, most appropriate glass that I should have been using throughout this entire journey, but simply neglected to remember that I had it.

This baby das boot easily holds 16 ounces, which makes it perfect in the sense that I can pour each day’s entire can into it without having to reload later on.  Plus it has that whole German tradition of drinking out of a boot thing going on, which is why this would’ve been perfect had I been using it from the start, but I just forgot about it.  At least for the final four days, I can make sure to be drinking my German biers from my German boot.

The bad news is that on the day in which I can start using my boot, the beer of the day is an IPA.  After twenty days, I was beginning to wonder if Deutschland even did IPAs since I hadn’t encountered any after this long, and I was quite satisfied with that assessment too.  Unfortunately, like a turd in the pool, an IPA decided to float to the surface, on day #21.

In addition, it’s also another encore from a particular brewer, since beer #9 was also from the same company, as indicative of the can design featuring an image of a woman presumably drowning outside of a porthole because I can’t think of any other scenario where another human being would be visible outside of a porthole, unless they were scuba diving or drowning, and the woman isn’t wearing any scuba gear nor does she have a fin which would make her an underwater breathing mermaid.

But yeah, it’s an IPA, and I winced like OJ Simpson in court when I discovered this.  Regardless, I made it this far drinking every drop of every beer, and there’s no point in throwing in the towel now, even if there was a shitty IPA in my path.  I poured it into my boot, disappointed that this would be the first thing to use my boot on, but hoping that the Germans do an IPA better than all the shitty ‘Murican hipsters who release a litany of shitty signature IPAs.

To the credit of Perlenzauber, or whatever the brewery is called, as far as IPAs go, this wasn’t turrible.  It actually had a fairly decent initial flavor, that staved off the vast majority of the bitter piss flavor at the end of most other IPAs, and I actually found it to be remotely drinkable as far as IPAs were concerned.  That is, as long as the beer were at its coldest.  As the time clicked away as mythical wife and I were catching up on The Mandalorian, as the beer got warmer, the more it turned back into IPA piss water, and by the time I got to the bottom of the boot, and the bubble had popped, I was struggling to finish it, and just kind of bottoms upped it, just to finish the job.

In spite of the not-quite negative first impressions, it’s still an IPA at the end of the day, and I simply don’t favor them.  The fact that it’s not dead last is a credit to the initial flavor notes that I did like, and makes me really try and remember just how bad the three underneath it really were to have been denigrated as worse than an IPA.

The funniest thing to me is that in spite of the fact that I didn’t hate this completely, the snobs at BeerAdvocate apparently have hated the shit out of this beer, in as equally new to them taste tests.  Clearly, my rubric for beer preferences are way off of the masses on the internet, but whatever.

Hopefully, tomorrow is back to another lager, or better yet another dunkel to pour into my boot, because today really was kind of a mulligan, and I’m hoping that the final three beers will be some good ones to close out this magical boozy journey with.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bären Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Märzenbier (#20)
  10. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  11. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  12. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  13. Erl Hell (#19)
  14. Grandl (#11)
  15. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  16. Hell (#1)
  17. Tannen Hell (#8)
  18. Perlenzauber IPA (#21)
  19. Tradition (#10)
  20. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  21. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #20: Märzenbier by Hösl

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Earlier in the day, I went to the grocery store to pick up some food stuffs to feed my infant throughout the week.  There was an unnerving amount of anti-maskers there, in spite of the fact that the entrance of the store explicitly says they are required.  Obviously, nobody wants to get into any altercations or get assaulted over mask policies, so this always slides, no matter where you go.

This is where I wish there were Luke Cages all over the place to enforce mask policies, and nobody could fuck with them or even hurt them, even they tried.  Get on that shit, Publix.

Coming home, there was a house with no less than eight cars out front.  I’m assuming someone was having a football party of some sort.  It’s not like coronavirus numbers aren’t on the rise, and large gatherings don’t have something to do with it.

The night prior, there was a house near me that had at least 16 cars parked out front.  The fuck is wrong with everyone?  I hope every anti-masker and every person who arrogantly is helping prolong this epidemic gets fucking coronavirus.  They seem to want it so badly, I think the world owes it to them to oblige them.

Anyway.  Twenty beers down, four to go.  My first impression when I pulled the can out of fridge my first impression was that this looked like the most German can that I’ve seen over the last three weeks.  With a font choice that makes me think of Wolfenstein 3D, and a crest that seems to have lederhosen with an H worked into it, it’s basically the most German design there’s been.

As for the beer itself, it was a nice dark caramel color, and I was beginning to wonder if I was going to get yet another dunkel, which made me excited.  The first sip was met with a toasty flavor, and I thought that perhaps I was getting another dunkel.  The snobs at BeerAdvocate however classify this as a lager, and I’m brought back to earth at how much of a novice I am at being able to classify my own beers.

Holy shit, that finish to TLC – Randy Orton just attempted murder on the Fiend, thus furthering the narrative that he’s completely incapable of putting anyone over, and the company remains implicit to his long-standing dominance.  Better punish that attempted murder with another title shot.

Anyway.  But the fact that I thought this was a dunkel was to say that I thought it was good.  The flavor reminded me of a dunkel since it was kind of toasty, kind of caramel-ly, and not too bitter.  But I guess the revelation that it was not a true dunkel crashes its rankings with me, and compared to all the ones above it, it doesn’t bring enough to the table to overtake.

Regardless, it still sits comfortably in the upper half of the biers, and this is one that I wouldn’t mind having more of again in the future should I come across it.  After all, I’d only have to look for the bier with the lederhosen in its logo.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bären Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Märzenbier (#20)
  10. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  11. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  12. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  13. Erl Hell (#19)
  14. Grandl (#11)
  15. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  16. Hell (#1)
  17. Tannen Hell (#8)
  18. Tradition (#10)
  19. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  20. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #19: Erl Hell by Landbrauerei Ludwig Erl

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m in a pleasant mood.  I’ve been doing some redecorating to my office since I’m in there for the vast majority of my work weeks, and I’ve been identifying lots of things that I think could use some reorganization.  Things have worked out close to how I was envisioning them, and I’m feeling pretty good about the work I’ve put in, and I’m like 90% of the way done.

That said, I was looking at the time when I was wrapping things up, and I thought to myself, I’m in a good mood, so I’m going to enjoy the shit out of whatever beer I pull out of the fridge tonight.  I can’t wait to prost.

I pull this green-ass can out of the fridge and take a look at the design.  “Hell”  WTF.  Another fucking Hell bier?  I already learned that in Deutsch “hell” means “bright,” so it’s safe to assume that this would be another bright and light lager like all of the other three hell biers preceding this one.  But my objection is that this is yet another bier called hell, and I’m wondering whom between Costco or whatever company boxed this advent calendar, if there’s a modicum of trolling going on with all these bright and light lagers all called hell, or if they’re trying to tell consumers something with all this shit called “hell” in an advent calendar.

Regardless, I’m still in a pleasant mood, and I thought to myself that I’d probably be lighter and more generous to whatever beer came from today.  And in all fairness, none of the hell biers were necessarily bad, it’s just that they all kind of fall into the category of light-bodied, light-colored, fairly easy to drink, Asian-beer types that are slightly watery, blander in taste but still easy to drink.  It’s just that none of them particularly stand out of the pack, and falls into a designation of good beers to keep the party going, but none that are going to be the star of the menu.

So I have good news and I have bad news as far as Erl Hell’s rankings go.  The good news is that thanks mostly to recency bias, I’m ranking this Hell bier as the best of the four (so far) hell biers.  This places it in the second third of the rankings.  The bad news is that, that doesn’t really say much because after 19 days, we have enough beers ranked to where the second third of the rankings still places it at a fairly middling #12 out of 19.  But as I said, I’m feeling satisfied with myself tonight and this is me giving it a little bit of a bump as a result.

With five more beers to go, I’m wondering if there’s going to be one more hell bier or not.  If I’m a betting man, I want to say no, but at the same time I can’t say I would be surprised if they had one waiting at #24.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bären Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  10. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  11. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  12. Erl Hell (#19)
  13. Grandl (#11)
  14. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  15. Hell (#1)
  16. Tannen Hell (#8)
  17. Tradition (#10)
  18. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  19. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #18: Jubiläums-Sud by Herrnbräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I pulled this bier out of the fridge, my first thought was “Herrnbräu?  Wasn’t there already a Herrnbräu beer already?”  To which the answer was yes, as bier #10 was also a Herrnbräu product, Tradition.  It did not rank well on my rankings, and it was kind of like the Miller High Life of Germany; as in the cheap, easily drinkable beer that you drink after you’ve got your buzz going and you want to keep it going.  It wasn’t terrible, but at the same time, it was entirely forgettable.  If I didn’t write about it, I wouldn’t have been remotely close to recalling anything about it.

Regardless, I do not waste beer if I can help it, and perhaps this Jubiläums-Sud which looks like it says “Jubilation Suds” could redeem Herrnbräu and make me not feel critical that a box full of beers from a country that’s known for its beer production would dare to double dip to one company when there are probably hundreds to have chosen from.

I thought the can design was boring and the green and gold in the logo make me think of O’Douls, the shitty non-alcoholic beer, and the types of middle-aged white men who want to look like they’re partying but don’t have the cojones to actually drink.  But that’s really where the criticisms end.

Cracking open the can, I’m met by an aroma that’s subtle but pleasant.  Pouring it into my pint glass, I’m pleasantly surprised at the dark, caramel color that’s coming out, and my mind is immediately wondering, is this a dunkel?  I don’t see the word dunkel or any variant of dunkel anywhere on the can, so I’m left wondering.

Intrigued, I bring the pint up to my lips and take a first taste, and I’m immediately greeted by a toasty flavor with not too much bitterness, and I’m fairly certain that this has to be a dunkel.  BeerAdvocate says it is a dunkel, and I’m satisfied that I’m able to identify that on my own.  Immediately my mind is placing this high on my rankings, and the real question is, is this the new #1?  Bearjew Weisse just took the #1 spot two days ago, and already a strong competitor has come out of locker room and is threatening.

It’s kind of like when Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs in 1998 to set the all-time single-season record* and everyone’s all like this is a record that will never ever be broken, and then just three years later, a juiced out of his testicles Barry Bonds cranks out 73 home runs and McGwire’s place in history is kicked to the curb just like that.

Well, in spite of the poor showing by Herrnbräu a week ago with Tradition, they’ve not just redeemed themselves with Jubiliation Suds, but it’s also Barry Bonds and it’s the new #1 beer in my list, with six days to go.  Bearjew McgWeisse can go lie to congress about being all-natural and get comfortable at the #2 spot now.

It’s got that almost sweet toasted caramel-ly flavor, it’s not too bitter, it goes down smooth, and it’s everything that I grew to love in dunkels while traversing through München and Wein.  When I first embarked on this bier journey, I was really hoping that there would be some dunkels in the mix, and this is proof that they most certainly are worth the waiting out for.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bearjew Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  10. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  11. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  12. Grandl (#11)
  13. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  14. Hell (#1)
  15. Tannen Hell (#8)
  16. Tradition (#10)
  17. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  18. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #17: Alpen Stoff by Bürgerbräu Bad Reichenhall

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not a fan of IPAs.  They’re bitter, they taste like piss, and it’s obnoxious that every microbrew and craft beer maker in the country makes their name off of some signature IPA.  Every home brewer seems to make an IPA, and from what I understand, it’s mostly because IPAs are some of the easiest beers to manufacture, which is why everyone who makes beer always tries to put their own twist on an IPA, when to people like me they’re all basically goat piss in the end.

When I first took a pull of Alpen Stoff, my taste buds triggered my mind to go “oh no, it’s like an IPA,” but before the thought could really finish, the bitter note at the end of it came to an abrupt ending, right before the point where I’d go “fuck I hate IPAs” but not before I could identify the bitter note at the very end.

So it kind of tasted like an IPA, but without that piss-like bitterness at the very end that usually makes me resent IPAs in the first place.  According to BeerAdvocate, this is classified as a lager, but what the fuck do I know about classifications beyond a rudimentary level, but I would’ve pegged this as an ale, since it kind of tasted like an IPA without being complete shit.  It definitely has a grassy, hoppy flavor to it which makes me think that, but I guess it was fairly smooth and fairly light-bodied like a good lager.

Ultimately, it’s not my favorite beer of the month so far, and I’d definitely slot this in the lower half of my rankings, but when the day is over, I feel like I want to give it some credit for almost tasting like an IPA, but being one that was actually palatable to me, and taking out just enough properties of a shitty IPA to make it remotely drinkable.

I also realize that I’ve made enough allusions to drinking piss to the point where I must actually disclaim that I’ve never drank piss in my life, of any species.  Unless you count IPAs, because they’re basically the same thing, and I’d frankly find more satisfaction in saving my taste buds and my digestive system the trouble by just pouring them down a urinal instead of drinking them.

Current Rankings:

  1. Bären Weisse (#16)
  2. First Coral (#2)
  3. Kirta (#5)
  4. Turbo Prop (#6)
  5. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  6. Perlenzauber (#9)
  7. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  8. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  9. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  10. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  11. Grandl (#11)
  12. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  13. Hell (#1)
  14. Tannen Hell (#8)
  15. Tradition (#10)
  16. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  17. Käuzle (#3)