It's payday, woo-hoo. It's also October. That can mean only one thing - and that is Oktoberfest. Next friday, the wife and i shall be heading off to the Princes Street Gardens version of this, for some Weissbier, Brattys and Schlager music. In the meantime however, i thought i'd take advantage of the increased volume of German beer available in the UK during this month.
A few weeks ago, whilst browsing about in Comely Bank, i had noticed that what was once Winehouse, was now
Appelation Wines and that they had a fine range of beers in. I resolved to make sure that come pay day i would get me some. I e-mailed them to ask if they could reserve a case of something for me, and if they could give me an overview of the lines they had available. They were excellent, and replied promptly and with a great deal of information (i couldn't rate them highly enough for their customer service). I perused the list and as i love Paulaner, i thought i'd play it safe and ask them to reserve me a case of the Oktoberfest variety for pick-up on
This was on wednesday that i reserved my bier. That evening out of interest i thought i would Google and see what people were saying about all the biers on the list they had given me. Given that recently i have been crazy for the wheat bears, i was a little disappointed to learn that what i had plumped for wasn't one and it seemed that i'd have been better plumping for the Weihenstephaner Vitus out of what had been mentioned. Then i pondered as to what was available to order online for delivery. This is where i came across the wonderful
Beers of Europe website. They had a massive range and i quickly found myself with a basket of 24 bottles (2 each of 12 varieties) to order. I thought this would at least take til next week to arrive to thought nothing more of it.
Imagine my disappointment when i see this on my doorstep when i get home from a little lunch out with the wife today.
Now, because they don't deliver weekends and i'm not off work again til Friday - its another week before i gets my beer. Boooo. So to stave off the disappointment I headed off to Comely Bank to pick up my Paulaner a day early....and because it looked so good from the reviews, I added a bottle of the
Weihenstephaner Vitus to try out as well. So how was it?
Well, the reason i wanted to try it was that it was described as being multi-award winning - indeed it was 2011 beer of the year. It also fitted the bill of being a wheat bier and being a weiss bier. It was Weihenstephaner's Kristall Weissbier that first got me interested in German biers after i added it once to my basket during an Asda shop, so i know they a brewery to trust.
On, first taste it was very similar to a Leffe or Hoegaarden. Very citrusy and a refreshing but lacking that smooth finish that you would normally get from a weissbier. As i worked my way throught the bottle though i grow more complex and certainly seemed to form a darker and heavier aftertaste that was definitely more like a wheat beer. Nice, but nothing outstanding in my opinion, certainly not worth the £3.90 a bottle that they were charging for it. I will concede though that it does seem like a bit of a grower in terms of taste and if i had more than one bottle it'd maybe have impressed me more.
Overall, i would give it a 7/10.
Next up will be a review for the Paulaner Oktoberfest bier.
Aroma: Almond, Honey and Lime
