St. Georgen Bräu Kellerbier

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

The beer is light amber, a touch cloudy, and topped by a weak frothy white cap that disappears shortly after serving. Cereal and bready malts abound, along with notes of floral hops, light apple, and yeast. The flavor is on the grainy side with a very malty base and a light bitter hop bite to end it.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

An excellent German kellerbier. A beautiful medium golden pour with a tight foamy white head. Aroma is biscuity with generous notes of floral hops. Flavour is crisp and malty with great hop flavouring in the mix. The swing top bottle is a nice touch as well.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Bottle. Poured a hazy deep amber colored beer with a good one finger slight beige creamy foamy head that had a long retention. Pleasant carbonation. Great lacing. The aroma is herbal hops, caramel malts, spicy, gingerbread. The flavour is a herbal hoppiness, sweet roasted malts, caramel, sweet fruits. The mouthfeel is crispy and smooth. This medium bodied beer has a lingering bitter and malty end. A nice easy to drink and refreshing Kellerbier.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

Out of all my ratings, kellerbier’s seem to be a stranger to me. I just don’t have the opportunity to try them like other more prevelent styles, so it’s hard to tell if I got a good one or not. This one really didn’t do much for me.

The beer pours out a dark copper color, hazy with a piss-foam-like head that melted quickly. Aroma is medicinal, wet moldy leaves and grainy. Flavor has some herbal hoppiness, like basil meets cut grass. Light sweet malts and a slightly dirty finish.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

My first kellerbier; another style checked off the list. My friend had a four pack sampler from this brewery, and I gave this one a shot. Color of iced tea, faint carbonation, no head. A bit sour tasting. Easy to drink, but there just seems to be a whole lot of nothing happening in this beer.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Fränken Bierausflug, Day#5, Brewery#23, Beer#50. Poured into a beautifully designed krug vom faß at the brewery; produced a lively off-white head above a cloudy deep amber body. An unusual but not unpleasant aroma of sour hay leads to a initially crisp mouthfeel that smooths in the finish. Excellent fresh flavors of grain, grass and lightly bitter hops, all very well presented and balanced. This proved to be a very tasty, fresh, lively brew. A great example of the Franconian Kellerbier.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Pours out in a clear amber colour with a small bubbly tan-coloured foam. Malty aroma of fudge and straw with notes of cellar and herbal hops. Medium-bodied with notes of nuts, caramel, cellar and toasted nuts with crisp hoppy notes of spicy and herbal hops. Medium-bitter finish of spicy, mineraly and grassy hops.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

500 ml capped brown bottle, courtesy of Cardinal pub, Stavanger. ABV is 4.9%. "Ungespundet - hefetrüb". Deep golden to amber colour, large and creamy lingering head. Lovely aroma of hops, caramel and bakery. Moderate carbonation, soft mouthfeel. Mellow flavour with a delicate balance between malts and hops, notes of rye bread, hints of butterscotch. I’d like a tad more bittering hops for the aftertaste, though. Definitely a recommendable beer.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Beer pours golden brown with big head that disappears as quickly as it appeared. Aroma is "lagerish", very nondescript. Flavor is toasty, caramel, biscuity and a touch of butteryness (is that a word?). This would be a good fall brew...football, raking leaves, that sort of thing.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 4

*Sigh*

Why the long face? Only in that I've given this beer not one, not two, but three different chances to impress me -- no dice. The first two times, I kept on getting the impression that this was a worthwhile beer, only hampered by the fact that the sample(s) in question were a bit on the old side of things. There's no "Born On" or "Drink By" dating on these bottles, so it's hard to say. But I felt sure that "third times the charm" with this bottle, seeing as how I purchased it on the East Coast (i.e. that much closer to it's homeland).

And while I'm not 100% convinced that this is any fresher than previous samples I've run across, I'm now convinced that it's just not a very good beer. I've given this beer too many chances for me to conclude otherwise.

Pours quite dull and staid, with little in the way of foam build-up or retention. And the aroma? Nothing foul, per se, but not much that draws me in, either.

I can forgive the appearence of this easily enough -- it's not per style, but I can look past the boring appearence if the flavor profile does the job. Again, sadly, no dice. Fleeting hints of malt in the middle and backend, and some even more vague hints of sweetness (fruit?) in the front. But with the carbonation level so flacid, and the mouthfeel in general really dropping the ball too, it was a hard sell for me to really want to grit my teeth and power through this one. Finished, but only with the help of dinner "to wash it down", as it were.

I dislike posting reviews of beers that I suspect are off due to age or mishandling. It's not entirely fair to the brewer. *But*, along those lines, reviews such as this do serve the purpose of spreading the word that beers like this may not travel very well, and that the potential customer might want to investigate the freshness of this beer a bit before plopping down the cash.

Maybe this beer (when fresh) kicks serious ass, or maybe not. But with three different lacking samples, purchased at three completely different locations, on two different coasts, it's hard for me to have a huge amount of empathy for this beer, in the end....

Music: Sonata Artica's "Songs Of Silence: Live In Tokyo"
//TB