top shelf

Besides acceptable pickles, the German import store sells beer, naturally.  Up on the top shelf I saw Bergbräu Altstadt.  It seems to me like I've seen this one before in some bar, possibly Casa de la Cerveza, but hadn't had the opportunity to pour for myself right from the bottle.

Hats on

It is a dark beer, but a translucent tea kind of dark.  It's not especially foamy and leaves very little head.  There's a typical German dark beer sweetness in the smell, which promises a rounded sweetish taste.  It is indeed sweet, with a honey-like flavor, and totally lacking in bitterness.  There's a slight, grassy taste underlying the honey, something a little like the aftertaste of horchata.  It makes me think of health drinks and their insistence that pure plant life makes the healthiest thing you can consume.  It stays crisp and clean from the top to bottom of the glass, without any kind of build-up of the grassiness or getting syrupy.  For a dark beer, it's a very mild and unassuming one, but something good for drinking with a snack and a movie or conversation.

Hats off and bottoms up