hobby drinker in hamburg

Say what you will about rainy cities, they're great places to go drinking.  Gotta keep people interested, after all.  With only a weekend to get a taste, I had to do my best to maximize, so the very first beers were a flight of Ratsherrn brews.  They were arranged in flavor from lightest to strongest, which does make some sense. 

We started with Matrosenschleck Oat White IPA, with a sharp citrusy aroma but only slightly citrus taste.  A very light color and mild flavor, not what I expect from my IPAs, but maybe the oats smooth out the taste.

Next up was the Seasonal, reddish color, kind of tangy smell.  Rather sweet, seems to feature a touch of honey, but not very strong.  Later on it would clash with the goulash, so not a beer to go with strong foods.

The Pale Ale didn't have a lot of scent to it either, but the color was stronger and the taste was definitely beerier.  It starts off with a good stiff bitter and leaves a little graininess behind.  This one was great with the goulash!

Of a similar appearance to the Seasonal, the Rotbier had more complexity about it.  The color was slightly ruddier, and the aroma more oaty than the Seasonal.  The flavor was mostly sweet again, but with a helping of sour, and a bigger feel than the other beers.  The texture had a certain amount of robustness that goes well with a blustery evening, but the sweetness lends itself more to conversation beer than to mealtime beer.

At the end of the flight was Zwickel, with a similar scent to the Rotbier, but lighter.  A dark gold brew, it also tends to the sweet and eschews the bitter.  Less work to decipher than the Rotbier, but also good for a sit with a good book, perhaps.

There's something fitting about a beer called Amerikanischer Traum at a museum of emigration.  In some ways it's quite a standard IPA, golden, heady, strong citrus perfume but not spicy or tangy.  Much like American IPAs, it's heavy on the fruitiness, which starts pretty softly but soon explodes into a tropical citrus fest.  I can't put my finger on the exact fruit, but maybe grapefruit?  There is a bitterness lurking in the background, like a kind of grounding for the high flying fruit basket.

Blockbräu

In a convenient brew house near the U-Bahn we had some more seasonal beer.  This one was a pale ale, but cloudy and dark gold.  Unfiltered, I would imagine.  The head bubbles off pretty quickly.  It's sweeter than expected, with sort of a dusty feeling to it, but with a smooth and even-tempered flavor.  Not a lot of bitter to be found, it leans to the sweet as well, more honey than hops.  But, from start to finish it maintains the same easy drinking feel.

Those beer stores are everywhere!  No complaints from me on that account.  This one had taps too, four of them, and the most promising was the dry stout.  It was an Irish beer, but to fill my need for black beers I will make a sacrifice or two.  The Black Pig came out almost entirely foam, but like magic, a beer appeared in the glass within moments.  The aroma is a little sour.  The beer is extremely smooth, what you would expect from a nitro.  The taste is only slightly bitter with a hint of gassiness that reminds me of balloons.

Finally, my bought bottle, Simean Hanseatic Porter.  Had to drink it before coming back, since I only had a carry-on.  No good beers at the duty-free store that I could see in Hamburg airport!  Anyway, the porter is a good rich dark brown, rather light head, and a noticeably hard-hitting alcohol smell.  It's like cherry liquor chocolates.  The first impression is quite bitter, but it lightens right up.  I feared a turn for the sour but instead the flavor went firmly into chocolate.  For me, it's just sweet enough to recall a nice dark chocolate, with some grit to make it feel like you've got a drink to tame on your hands.  Ausgezeichnet!

Maybe this should be my personal item

They'll let this go in a personal item, right?