A hoppy weekend in Lower Saxony

We're in Germany on holiday, and last week I spotted an article in the local free newspaper* mentioning that nearby microbrewery Sommerbecker Dachs was having a family-friendly** summer festival for its fifth birthday. So on Saturday afternoon we headed out of town to the tiny village of Sommerbeck.

When the boy and I walked in, 30 minutes after the nominal 3pm opening time, we could only see two other visitors and the staff were still setting up the tills. He jumped onto the (free) bouncy-castle and I went for a beer.... I hadn't tried the Dachs Pils before – it proved to be a Landbier Pils in the northern style, so slightly hazy with a yeasty note, and with lots of bitterness but very little actual hop flavour. Not really my thing, in other words.

Once the girls arrived and we got a table, things picked up. The boy got his face painted (also free) and played on the slackline/tightropey thing, the baby was passed around and much admired, we were assumed to be local because, well, everyone else was, and my choices of beer improved. The Märzen was darker than the last time I tried it – more orange-brown than gold, with nutty and toffee notes and a touch of orange marmalade, while the Schwatt – their version of a Schwarzbier – was creamier and more Stouty than I remember.

Also interesting was the Hopfenstopfer – basically a hopped-up Helles or Pils that actually tastes and smells of hops, and in particular of hops other than the usual grassy German and Czech types. I think it translates as hop plunger or hop tamper, and to me it signifies that the brewer wants to do something a bit crafty, but doesn't want to "go foreign" with a Pale Ale or IPA. It was a nice example anyhow, with citrus and melon aromas and a spicy, tropical fruit accented body.

Also on tap, slightly unusually for the time of year, was the Dachs Bock. (Dachs – as in Dachshund – means badger, and the brewery mascot is indeed a stuffed badger.) Dark mahogany in colour, it had a malty nose with sultanas and cocoa notes, then a spicy-bitter body with touches of toffee, dried fruit and orange marmalade. Rather like a stronger version of the Märzen, and pretty tasty, hiding its 7.5% ABV well.

Then on Sunday we had planned a visit to Klindworths, easily the best brewpub I've found in northern Germany. Yet it's one that's not much known outside, in part because they don't sell their beer anywhere else – apart from a few beer festivals and parties where you might find their Beer Bus, an old VW camper converted into a mobile two-tap bar.

Things nearly went awry when the rest of the tribe announced that they wanted to go swimming first, but fortunately I remembered there's a Freibad, or open-air swimming pool, almost next door to the pub. So we were lightly sunned and watered by the time we sat down in the beer garden – and started batting away the flies while we waited for our dinner....

On tap were the Landbier Pils – a far better example of a flavoursome bitter lager than the Dachs one – plus the Weizen, the Keiler German brown bitter, the Pale Ale and the IPA. I went first for the Pale Ale, as I already knew it to be excellent and I thought going for the 6.7% IPA on an empty tummy might not be wise. It did not disappoint – refreshingly dry-bitter, with loads of hops and a malty body. Brewer Niko calls it his interpretation of British Pale Ale; I'd say it is as hoppy as an American Pale Ale, but fuller bodied than the average APA.

Then it was time for the IPA – the only one of his regular or seasonal beers that I'd not tried yet. It's a chunky and thoroughly moreish IPA in the American vein, full of hops and with a warming alcohol bite, yet malty enough to not be overpowering. Even at 6.7%, it's balanced enough to go back for seconds, which I duly did.

Thankfully I wasn't the one driving back – one of the challenges of Klindworths is that it is awkward to get to unless you're already in the area (there's a campsite by the Freibad, and the pub does B&B). There are buses from Buxtehude, but the service is not very frequent and it stops running quite early too. I'd have gone there a lot more often otherwise!


*These still report stuff and are widely read, unlike the UK equivalents which are almost all run now by bread-heads too stupid to realise that if they cut or de-skill all the running costs, ie. journalists, no one reads the result and they lose all the advertising revenue that they're so greedy for.

**One of the things I miss in Britain is that very few beer festivals seem genuinely family-friendly.

German beer is not all blond

When I was last back in Germany, earlier this year, I had an idea. I've spent quite a bit of time in Germany over the last 20 years or so, and then lived there for over a year. I quite quickly got bored of Pils and Helles, so I started looking for something more interesting, and in the process I learnt quite a bit about the beer heritage that most Germans have forgotten.

For instance, German beer being blond lager is relatively recent, about 100 years old. If you go back to the mid-1800s, it was mostly an ale country, and even the lager was brown. You can't see it on the surface now, but it's still there when you look deeper – the imposition of the alien Reinheitsgebot did a lot of damage to traditional ale culture, but some survived.

So I thought, why not put it to the test? I've a bunch of beer-loving friends and colleagues, most of whom have probably heard me bang on about this at least once. So let's buy a crate of historically-inspired beer and show them what I'm talking about – testing my ability to run a guided tasting at the same time...

I couldn't get everything I wanted, but I found good alternatives for pretty much everything, and then a few weeks ago I finally got off my arse and booked a venue – the swish mezzanine at the very friendly (and excellently beery) Kew Gardens Hotel. Needless to say, several of those I invited were out of the country, working or otherwise unavailable, but in the end eight of us sat down to enjoy some German beer that you can't usually get outside its area of origin.

Here's the list of beers we drank our way through, along with a few of my notes:

Unertl Weissbier
This is an ur-Weisse (original-style Weisse), intended to be like the 18th century Bavarian Weizen before pale malt (an English innovation, by the way) was introduced. Brown rather than gold, and faintly smoky, with caramel and fruit notes, and just a hint of winey sourness.

Brauerei Simon Spezial
A Franconian braunbier (brown beer), this is the historic style of Franconia – most country breweries still make one. They are bottom-fermented now, but must once have been ales, I guess. Nutty and spicy, with a little toffee and bread.

Veldensteiner Landbier
A lightly smoky country-style brown beer. Landbier is not a type of beer, it's just a qualifier, like “traditional” or “real”. Sweetish and malty, with touches of plum and a dry-bitter finish.

Hövels Original
Akin to Alt and formerly called Hövels Bitterbier, this really is a rather nice German brown bitter! Earthy and hoppy, with slight roasty notes.

Only as I unpacked did I realise I'd actually included not two but three brown bitters. Yes, once upon a time Germany, like England, was a country of brown bitter beers. The Einheitsgebot (German joke – it means Law of Sameness) and the ensuing lager flood murdered many of them, but a few survive in pockets in various parts of Germany.

You can find dark beers in most of Germany. As with the pale lagers, they have tended to verge towards their Bavarian equivalent, which is Munich Dunkel, but not always.

Vielanker Schwarz
A classic East German black beer. Tends to be quite roasty – this one has hints of coffee and plum, some roasty malt and burnt caramel, plus a light bitterness and a faintly salty and ashy finish.

Dithmarscher Dunkel
A dark beer in the northern (Nordisch) style, which means hoppier and more bitter than down south – think Jever versus the average German Pils. There's a light burnt-bitterness with hints of toast, and dry and grassy hops

Again, Dunkel by itself is not a style, it's a shade or range of shades – often it means the style Munich Dunkel, but sometimes it's simply a beer that isn't Helles or light.

Vielanker Winterbock
Originally a North German strong ale, Bock was adopted and converted to lager brewing by the Bavarians. Winterbock is a  variant of Dunkelbock, usually with toasted caramel notes, and it seems to be mostly a Northern thing – I wanted one in here both to show off Bock and to show how German brewers have evolved the style a little. Vielanker's version, from the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg, is toffee-ish with smoky notes, sweetish but with a lightly bitter finish.

Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel
This is listed on Ratebeer as one of the best beers in Germany, and I tend to think they underestimate it... I discovered I had a couple of these in store so I brought them along as an extra, to show what the best Bavarian strong Bocks are like. There's lots of sweet malt and dried fruit in there, plus a roastiness and plenty of alcohol – this is one dangerously drinkable beer!

Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, and the beers went very well. While I might well choose a different mix if doing this again, this one worked well and highlighted just how much more there is to traditional German beer than blond lagers – and of course if you add in the modern craft movement and the more innovative brewpubs, there is lots more still. Fun, eh?

Before German IPA, was there German brown ale?

Did I miss something, and there was a Bock festival in the UK last year? I've just enjoyed my second English Bock in not very long, the first being Bateman's English B Bock (part of its craft ale relaunch, and recently spotted on the shelves in Sainsbury's) and this one being a collaboration between Dark Star and Saltaire - it was brewed by the former in Sussex but bottled with a Saltaire cap.

Interestingly, both are top-fermented ales which means they are probably closer to the original mediæval north German Bocks than the bottom-fermented copies developed in Bavaria which are now the German standard. Equally interesting is just how much they remind me of a rich brown ale - but a rich brown ale brewed in the modern style and using German hops.

Part of that might be that they were made by English brewers of course, but I can't help wondering if there isn't also a historical message in there. That's because it makes absolute sense to me that there would be a similarity between English strong dark ales and German Bocks, because they were from related traditions. In this reading, only with the late-1800s Bavarian Colonisation and the ensuing Lager Flood did they diverge significantly.

It really makes me wish a few more German brewers would look back to their own heritage if they want to go all Craft and innovative, instead of simply aping the Americans. It's as if the first thing a German brewer does when they want to jump on the Craft bandwagon is an approximate copy of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - and I specify SNPA because it's the most widely available and popular US craft beer in Germany, so to many people it epitomises craft beer.

The Dark Star/Saltaire Bock is what a German brewer might get if (as suggested by fellow bloggers Boak & Bailey) they tried doing a modern twist on the North German classic. It's rich and earthily malty, with a decent and distinctively German spicy hoppiness, and with notes of toffee, liquorice and cocoa - and unlike many current German Bocks, it has a great bitter-sweet balance to it.

140 years on, Batemans rebrands as “Craft with heritage”

Batemans is one of those breweries I'm aware of as an old family firm, producing good quality ales in traditional English styles, with the occasional collaboration or other surprise. I don't pigeonhole it with the new craft micros though, so I was intrigued when I got an invitation to their 140th birthday party and the launch of what looked to be a crafty new branding.

It turns out there has been a lot more going on in Wainfleet than I'd realised: as well as all their seasonals and specials (Rosey Nosey is a favourite of mine), there's now a series of English Strong Ales infused with coffee, chocolate, Amaretto and such like, sold under the new Bohemian Brews brand, and another series constructed to taste like biscuits – the example at the launch was the Chocolate Biscuit Beer winter seasonal, and if like many people you think this beer tastes like chocolate digestives, well that's exactly what it's meant to do.

Even odder is the Black Pepper Ale, which isn't actually brewed with pepper, instead you get a bottle of ale (a 5.1% version of XXXB, I understand) plus a Batemans-branded sachet of pepper with instructions on how to add it. Then there's English BBock, Batemans' top-fermented interpretation of the North German (not just Bavarian!) classic, and so on...

The brewery has made other, more subtle, changes too. A big one is adding storage capacity so they can extend the ale maturation period from five to nine days. Stuart Bateman explained that the idea is to ensure drinkers don't get 'green' beer that isn't properly ready yet: “Our beer drops bright very quickly, but we don't want licensees selling it just because it's bright,” he said. “Not everyone will cellar-condition for four, five or six days now – if I was running my own pub I'd do it for 10 days! – so we have taken it on for them.”

Introducing the new beers – there's also Black & White, which is an uprated 3.6% version of the former 3% Dark Mild – Stuart was keen to stress how much Batemans is already doing in terms of variety and innovation. Having been quite surprised when I saw just how many beers it has listed on Ratebeer and Untappd (at least seventy!), I'm inclined to agree.

Stuart Bateman

“We want to prove you can be a craft brewer with tradition, with heritage since 1874,” he declared, in a direct reference to one of the problems the 'craft beer movement' has here, i.e. that while the term makes sense in America, where 'craft' pretty much equals 'innovative and new', in Europe we still have plenty of brewers who fit all the dictionary definitions of 'craft', yet are centuries-old.

He added that Batemans last rebranded in 1979, so it's not like they've rushed into it, and that it's all been done in-house – or perhaps I should say in-windmill, since the iconic mill is still there, albeit in a cleaner, more stylish form.

“The days of just brewing fairly standard pale ale style beers, all fairly similar in flavour, but with slight colour variations, called ‘funny’ names and often with ‘funny’ pictures on the pump clips, bearing little relevance to the beer style or flavour, are gone,” he continued. “We want our customers to see our new branding and know exactly what we stand for as brewers – craft brewers since 1874 – and from the beer names and pump clips, to know exactly what the flavour characteristics of any of our beers are: 'it does what it says on the tin'.”

So what are the beers like? To some they might seem well OTT – the Orange Barley beer smells rather like Fanta and tastes like a mix of Fanta and a fine and spicy Rye beer, you can taste the hazelnuts and chocolate in the Hazelnut Brownie beer, and the Amaretto Mocha beer is full of almond and coffee. Yet they all seem to work, and achieve a pretty decent level of integration. Sure, for some people a 330ml bottle will be plenty, but others are already happy to drink them in pints – and it turns out that black pepper is an intriguing match for XXXB.

Not too surprisingly, Stuart energetically denied that they are in any way gimmicks. He cited the awards they've already won – first prizes in both the 2013 Sainsbury's Beer Hunt for Batemans Mocha, and in the 2014 one for BBock, a win for cask Hazelnut Brownie in the JD Wetherspoon Autumn Beer Festival, and now first place for cask Mocha Amaretto at the CAMRA Manchester Beer Festival. He pointed out too that if you are trying to get new people interested in beer – which he is – then you need to allow for a certain sweetness of palate. And it has to be said that on the evidence of the quite excellent XXXB on cask at the party, and of other excellent cask and bottled beers such as the Salem Porter and Dark Lord, there is no sign that the new stuff will detract in any way from Batemans commitment to fine traditional ales.

So, I wish a very happy 140th birthday to Batemans – thank you for all the great beers, and I look forward to drinking plenty more!

Saxon beer

So here's today's shopping - Saxon beer. Lots of Dunkel-y goodness, I hope...

I picked up this lot from one of the stalls at today's beer festival just outside Hamburg, Bier aus dem Norden. More about that later, once I've had some sleep, done a bit of work, and got my head back in gear.

Willemoes: when is a Stout Porter not a Stout?

I'd not come across Vestfyen Brewery's Willemoes brand before our recent trip to Denmark, although it turns out I had tried a beer from Vestfyen before, but it was a naff and forgettable Eurolager, Vestfyen Classic.

Thankfully, the Willemoes stuff – there's now five regular Willemoes ales, plus seasonals – is a very different (brew)kettle of fish. As well as these two, a 6.5% Stout and a 9.8% Porter, I also picked up a bottle of their very nice 200 år ('200 years'), a rich 6.5% Dunkelbock.

All were good, the Porter especially so: it poured a deep red-brown, with a rich treacley nose with touches of chocolate, coffee and tobacco leaf. The body was full and drying and slightly sour, yet balanced with sweet notes. Flavours I picked up included black treacle, burnt prunes, liquorice, and something pleasantly reminiscent of old leather and aged port.

The deep black-red Stout was notably lighter bodied, some might even call it a bit thin. It still had a good flavour though, with faint aromas of toasted bread and malt followed by dry fruit and wine notes in the body.

It's tempting to look at these two beers though and think that someone on West Funen (Vestfyn) has missed the point. After all, historically "stout" meant "strong" and in beer terms was a contraction of Stout Porter, so shouldn't a brewery's Stout be stronger than its regular Porter?

Some would say not. This pair do match the BJCP Style Guidelines for Baltic Porter and Dry Stout pretty well, and according to that guide, and to many modern brewers, historical differentiation by strength is gone now, leaving distinctively different beer styles with their own characteristics. That's even before we add Imperial and Double (and Double Imperial!) versions into the mix...

I'm not so sure though. These are historically-inspired beers, after all, complete with old wood-cut style labels and a historical name. Vestfyen's "speciality series", it's named after local hero Peter Willemoes, who distinguished himself as commander of a floating gun-battery in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen, in which Nelson's ships destroyed a Danish-Norwegian fleet - that's the battle where Nelson was supposedly ordered to withdraw, but put the telescope to his blind eye, saying "I see no signal!" (It wasn't quite like that, but that's another story.)

Indeed, the 200 år bock was first brewed in 2008 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Peter Willemoes' death in another naval battle, at the age of just 24. (Yes, as a 2nd Lieutenant a month short of his 18th birthday, he had been put in command of 129 men and 20 cannon. Different times...)

So it would be nice in a way if the beers followed 19th century norms, rather than 21st century. But whatever, Willemoes is a name I will be looking out for in the future.

In the merry merry Bock of Mai

It's spring – at last, after what seems like four months of snow and ice. That's not a lot to the Canadians and Scandinavians out there, but it is for northern Germany. Finally we can really enjoy the Maibocks that have been impatiently sitting on the shop shelves since mid-February. Yes, in Britain it's the easter eggs that arrive two or three months early, in Germany it's the seasonal beers....

A few Maibocks, left-right is roughly north-south

Maibock is a relatively recent addition to the German beer canon, although it is recognisably part of the wider Hellesbock (pale bock) family*, and is quite similar to Dutch Lentebock. Most of the Maibocks I see are Nordisch (Northern) ones – not too surprisingly, given that we're less than 100 miles from either the Baltic or the North Sea – but there are quite a few Bavarian Maibocks too. However, in the south they must compete with the tradition of Märzen, which historically was brewed up until April. For example. the Osterbiers (easter beers) I see from down south are mostly Märzens.

Also called Frühlingsbock (spring bock) by some, Maibocks are malty, but typically hopped up, drier and a little more bitter than other Hellesbocks. They range from amber to gold, and the hoppiness is often spicy, green, maybe lightly pine or citrus – and yes, it is intended to make you think of spring.

Certainly, the Einbecker, Dithmarscher and Flensburger examples are very much in this mould. There are exceptions of course – for instance, the Maibock from Vielanker, a microbrewery in Mecklenburg, just the other side of what was the Iron Curtain, is perhaps more like a Märzenbock, if such a thing is possible. (And if it's not, why not?!)

As I mentioned, look south and things change a little – the Maibocks are often maltier and, well, Bockier. Some claim this relates to a tradition that late April and May were the times when the first new Bocks of the year were tapped, though as with so many German "traditions" I'm not wholly convinced, especially since we have Doppelbocks and Winterbocks through January and February. It could well be that the fresh Bock of May is inevitably a hoppier beast than the aged Bocks of winter, I guess.

And no, I don't know why the northerners seen above are all 33cl stubbies while the southerners are 50cl long-necks. Nordisch quirkiness versus stolid Bayerish tradition, I suspect!

*Some people argue that Hellesbock (or Hellerbock) and Maibock are the same thing. I disagree – not least because Maibock is seasonal in availability, whereas the likes of Andechser Bergbock Hell are available year-round.

Royally confused, yet very drinkable

As I think I might have mentioned before, winter and seasonal beers are somewhat in vogue here in Germany. And also as mentioned, the multinational brewers aren't shy of spotting trends and jumping on them.

It was no surprise then to find the supermarkets selling a new weizenbock from AB-InBev, namely Franziskaner Royal Jahrgangsweissbier, or Annual Vintage Weissbier. Just to confuse things, it was labelled “Edition 2” - they also brewed a Royal Jahrgangsweissbier in 2011, but that one was a 5% blond hefeweizen and carried no edition number. Presumably the marketing guys failed to imagine that the brewers might want to do – shock, horror! - something different for next year.

A bit of fun ensued on Untappd, as I and a couple of others tried to unravel the strands in the support forum. Somehow the site had acquired three separate listings for Royal Jahrgangsweissbier – 2011, 2012 and Edition 2 – and to make it worse, each of them also had at least one rating for the 'other' version, put in by confused (or careless) drinkers.

Until recently I’d only tried the Edition 2 that was released late in 2012. However, I happened to be in Hol’Ab! a couple of weeks ago shopping for our trip to England, and I spotted a crate which had some of the tell-tale black foil caps as well as the red ones that were more familiar to me – this and the label colour make it easy enough to tell the two apart – once you know what to look for, of course, as the confused Untapprs had demonstrated.

So what are they like? To be honest, the first edition is fairly run-of-the-mill. Yes, it's a good Kristalweiss, but there is not a lot to mark it out from other good Kristals – and there's certainly nothing Royal about it.

The second edition is a different kettle of fish. Gone is the megabrewer mundanity and in is a spicy and tangy dark Weizenbock, somewhere between an amber and a dunkel. It certainly has a bit more character than the average Dunkelweiss – worth a try, I'd say.

Keep on Bockin' in the free world*

One thing even mainstream German brewers like to add a bit of variety with is Bock. The rest of the year it's nothing but boring Pils and Weizen for most of them, but come late Autumn and then moving into winter, many turn to a Bock or an even stronger Doppelbock** to be their seasonal special.

I've written before about the origins of Bock, and the strong dark ale that gave it the name. Today though it is really just a codeword for a stronger more flavoursome beer, hence the appearance of light Heller Bocks - most Maibocks, Lentebocks and Frühlingsbocks (Easter Bocks) fall into this category - alongside the more traditional darker Dunkelbocks.

For the best-known names in Bock, such as Andechser and Einbecker, it is a year-round thing, and we beerlovers are all the richer for it. For some, it is both year-round and seasonal, typically with a Winterbock and a Maibock, and perhaps a Festbock or strong Märzen as well.

But for others - such as Störtebeker up on the north coast, with its Stark-Bier that is technically a Bock but which is so dark, rich and flavoursome that it could easily be taken for a Baltic Stout - Bock means winter.

To be realistic, some of the newer Bocks smack of big brewers trying to ride a band-wagon. Straight off, I can think two unimpressive examples produced by Carlsberg at the Holsten factory, say. And as usual with anything approaching decent beer in Germany, you're extremely unlikely to find Bock on draught outside one of the more adventurous brewpubs - the draught market is largely sewn up by the golden fizz.

But for all that, there are some seasonal Bocks that are simply wonderful. Give them a go if you get the chance!


*Yes, it could have been "Bocking all over the world", but quite frankly once you get outside Germany and maybe the USA, there's barely a half-dozen Bocks worthy of the name...

**Talking of names, a common one for a Doppelbock is something ending in -ator. Think Salvator, Triumphator, Celebrator, Bajuvator in the photo above, and one of my locals, Nikolator. No-one seems to know why, except that Salvator set a fashion.

What does Winter Beer mean to you?

Winter and Weihnachtsbiers, part two: When you think of Christmas and beer, what comes to mind – something rich and dark, or something golden and perhaps even a bit flowery?

When last I looked at German Weihnachtbiers and Winterbocks, they were definitely in the former camp, but to my surprise there are other brewers who fall into the latter. One such is Kulmbacher Mönchshof, which is part of the German Brau Holding International group. Its standard beers – Pils, Bayerisch Hell – are well-made but fairly typical; where it redeems itself for me is with its excellent Kellerbier, an amber-coloured brew resembling a lagered bitter ale.

So when I found Mönchshof Weihnachts Bier, I didn't expect it it would turn out to be a golden Märzen, especially when there's already a Mönchshof Festbier to fill that slot. Sure, as Märzens go it is rather nice – lightly hoppy and peachy, with some underlying spice notes – but it doesn't say Weihnacht to me...

Mönchshof is not alone in this. Carlsberg is touting the bizarre concept of a Tuborg Weihnachts Pilsener (I'd like to try a bottle, having seen from Ratebeer that it's not a Pilsener but a Vienna, but so far I've only seen it on sale in six-packs) and then there's Oettinger's Winterbier, which is very nice with pleasing green hop and toffee-nutty notes, but is more of an amber lager – perhaps even another Festbier, given its 5.6% strength.

Incidentally, quite a few people are snarky about Oettinger because it sells its beer so cheaply – typically €0.50 (40p) for a half-litre – and operates big industrial breweries, all of which has made it the largest beer producer in Germany. On the other hand, it is still locally owned and operates a very efficient single-tier business – it is famous for not advertising and for cutting out the distribution channel.

Anyway, it has not one but two seasonals, the other being a Bock. Weighing in at 6.7%, Oettinger Bock is dark amber with a malty and slightly raisiny nose, and a nice balance of grainy sweetness, bitterness and roasty malt. Yup, that'll do nicely for a cold winter evening. 

Also nice stuff, though at twice the price, is Altenmünster Winterbier Dunkel. Packaged in Altenmünster's trademark decoratively-moulded 500ml flip-top bottles, it balances the typical toffee-ish Dunkel flavours with the spicy hoppy bitterness that's familiar from the various (and somewhat samey) Altenmünster blonds.

And in any case, Oettinger beer is cheap but not the cheapest. The discount supermarket chains all sell six-packs of beer in plastic screw-top 500ml bottles, often priced at just €1.50 a pack, or 50 cents a litre. It's so cheap that the 25 cent deposit per plastic bottle doubles the cost of your purchase...

By the by, the German word that these shops use a lot is "billig", which seems to have more of a sense of "inexpensive" than "cheap". And while no-one wants to be thought of as cheap, everyone loves a bargain. That means everyone shops at Aldi, Lidl, Penny and the others, albeit sometimes in addition to one of the more up-market chains.

Anyway (again), usually it's just the normal boring German choice of Pils or Weizen, but our local Penny Markt now also has Adelskronen Winterbier, at €1.99 for six plastic bottles. This is a winter Dunkel brewed specially for Penny by Fankfurter Brauhaus – that's Frankfurt an der Oder by the way, right on the (modern) Polish border, not the better known financial centre down south – and it is rather good. It's a proper roasty Dunkel, with nutty plummy hints and a dryish body.

Both are certainly better than Carlsberg's other seasonal attempt, which is Holsten Stark. The best thing about this 7% Dunkel Doppelbock is the cool can design, which takes the usual Holsten horseman logo and recasts it in black, silver and gunmetal-grey. The dominant flavour is burnt sugar, there's a bit of roastiness, and the alcohol cuts the sweetness a bit, but overall it is not terribly good.

Last but not least, and showing that the multinationals – in this case AB-Inbev – can produce something decent, is Hasseröder Fürstenbräu Granat, or Princely-brew Garnet. Claimed to be in the style of an 1899 Royal Festbier, which means it'd be based on an amber Vienna lager, rather than the Johnny-come-lately golden Pilsner-alike versions, it's roasty and quaffable, with hints of toast and marmalade.

I'm sure there more: I'll keep looking, and drinking! In the meantime, what's the best winter beer – German or otherwise – that you've had so far this season?

Winter beer, winter cheer

It's that time of year when North German beer gets a flavoursome and chewy boost – yes, as the nights draw in and the mercury plummets, we get ready for warming Winterbocks and Weihnachtsbiers. Of course there are other tasty Bocks produced year-round, but these malty, brown, and often roasty, nutty and/or spicy brews are much more seasonal in character – think of them as a dark step on from the lighter Märzens of autumn.

I didn't think to save a Flensburger bottle...

First to reach the shops this year – around here, at least – were two breweries from right up north , towards the Danish border: Dithmarscher and Flensburger. Both of them produce excellent Dunkels so I was looking forward to their Winterbocks. 

Both of them class as Doppelbocks, weighing in at 6.8% and 7% respectively. Dithmarscher's Urbock (=original bock) is chestnut brown with a little malt and a faint tang of orange on the nose. A little sweet at first, you then find hints of orange and apricot and it finishes with typically German herby-peppery hops and some burnt caramel. The burnt caramel is a bit of a theme with these beers. It's there in the 2012 edition of Flensburger Winterbock too, along with fruity malt aromas that feed through into a nutty body with a good alcohol bite, burnt caramel, and some peppery hops on the finish. 

I also briefly met a third example of the style at the Hamburger Craft Beer Day - Ricklinger Weihnachtsbock. Rather darker, this dark 7%-er brought hints of treacle and roast malt, with peppery notes. 

The next ones I spotted on the shelves were not one but two examples from Einbecker – a 5.3% Weihnachtsbier and a 7.5% Winter-Bock. The well-crafted amber Weihnachtsbier appears to be new this year but is typical of that style, being fairly dry and toasty, with burnt-bitter notes and some grassy hops layered over something resembling a Vienna amber lager. This year's Winter-Bock is vinous and slightly syrupy sweet, but the sweetness is well balanced with notes of burnt raisins and barley, some dryish hops and a good alcohol bite. 

Turning from the oldest to the youngest, Hamburg's Astra brand – now owned by Carlsberg and used as the trendy face of Holsten – has a 5.9% winter beer just out called Arschkalt. This literally translates to Arse-cold, which I guess is a bit like British breweries calling their winter ales Brass Monkey or somesuch. 

The label is designed to look like it's been torn off and a new logo scratched in. Fortunately, the contents mostly live up to this arty conceit – the dark amber beer has a nice balance of hops and caramelly burnt biscuit, with toasted fruit just about detectable in the background. There's no great complexity there, but it's pretty quaffable. Just don't do what the marketing idiots suggest and drink it chilled, because then it merely tastes thin and burnt. 

As you may guess from the above, there is a fair degree of similarity in all these beers, as if the brewers have been given a style guide and told to stick with it. I guess that means at least you know roughly what to expect when buying – and fortunately there is still a little room for individualism. 

The best of the bunch? For me it's the Einbecker Winter-Bock, though the Flensburger runs it close. Incidentally, Einbeck (which is not far from Hannover) is regarded as the origin of Bock. According to legend, its strong dark ale became especially popular in medieval times at the royal court down south in Munich, where the local accent turned its name into first Ein Bock (=a billy goat) and then just Bock. The Bavarian brewers then copied the style and shifted it over to bottom fermentation; even the northern examples are now bottom fermented lagers rather than top fermented ales.