Fürstenberg Pilsener

Here I am back to writing about (and tasting, of course) Pilsener: back to German beer - on familiar ground and in familiar company. Fürstenberg - the beer here in the south, as they call it in Germany - comes from the Baden-Würtemberg region, rather than from their more famous southern neighbours of Bavaria. Fürstenberg is actually located just on the edge of the Black Forest in Donaueschingen, and while Pilsener is not exactly the beer style of the South, this brand has some tradition. The brewing rights were granted to the von Fürstenberg principality in 1283, according to the company's webpage, even though they were hardly brewing Pilsener at the time. At the turn of the 19th century, what was then the Pilsener was declared the dinner beverage of his Majesty, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Now that has to be a more than dubious distinction given old' gimp arm's many foibles, notorious penchant for self-aggrandizement, and his insane political choices. Can you imagine a ruler today who gives an impromptu speech to his troops in which he explicitly tells them to violate the Geneva Conventions and, when this is pointed out to him, still insists that the speech be published uncensored in the news papers? I do admit that I when I was asked whether I'd consider trading my beard for a moustache this month (to go along with Movember), I considered the Kaiser Wilhelm moustache type the only viable option. But we are here to think and drink beer, not deliberate and grow facial hair, so let's move on!

All that the royal bullshit, long in the past yet endlessly replayed for marketing purposes, has now been thrown out the window (like the one below) and culminated in the same old story: Boy meets brewery, boy makes brewery famous (and vice versa - see above), and then boy sells brewery to a public holding company for it to become part of a larger group that sells a large portfolio of beers throughout the world. Fürstenberg is now member in the same joint venture between a German company and Heineken that brings us Hacker-Pschorr. Funny for North-Americans will be that to enter the website of Fürstenberg, all you have to do is click the option that says "Yes, I am 16" - a more appropriate age for being permitted to have a little beer than 18, 19, or (gasp) 21. The website of Fürstenberg also says that there are several other regional brews made by this company, but sadly, we do not get to taste them over here in the Great White North - too southern for us, I suppose.

Yet this beer does live up the reputation of a princely beverage in many respects - very little of that paper-sweet taste that economies of scale tend leave in beer. The nose is slightly citrus hop mixed with a good wallop of barley sandwich. The palate is rich and bready, and balanced well with generous yet measured hop bitterness throughout. Indeed, the hops almost, but never quite, reaches a citrus flavour, especially at the back palate, which I thought made for a delightful sensation because what was leaning to spill into the acidic regions stayed just on the bitter side of my tongue. Very nuanced!


I found this amazing location in front of a round window, in which the reflected tree branches looked as if they were continuations of the vines growing around the sides. With a sunny day and clear blue sky to off-set the can this beer comes in, this was a princely place for a princely beer.

 

Then, oh horror, the battery of my camera went too low to operate the shutter release, and I had to borrow my wife's point-and-shoot camera for pictures with a fully developed foam head. The colours just are not the same as with with SLR (especially the blues), but at least I was able to get the shot in.

Blanche de Trois Rivières

I will continue this weekend with a recent effort to review a number of different wheat beers, the wheat beer being the exception style that proves the rule of the Reinheitsgebot passed by Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria in 1516 that "no other items be used for beer than barley, hops, and water." Note of course that because it was not yet known with certainty until Louis Pasteur's work in the 19th century that yeast is an essential part of beer making, this magical micro-organism is omitted from the list of acceptable ingredient. But more to the point of this post, wheat malt was included as a notable exception in Bavaria even during the old days, when the Reinheitsgebot was used more for taxation purposes and granting monopolistic power to brewers than for ensuring that what beer drinkers got in their beer was not made from saw dust porridge flavoured with dandelion.

I'll take this opportunity for an initial jab at the Blanche de Trois Rivières, made by the Frères Houblon brewery from Trois Rivières in the Mauricie region of Quebec, since they state on their website that this wheat beer is made with not just barley and wheat malt, but also with oats. Now I do not mind the use of oats at all, and my experience as a home brewer has taught me that using oats in your beer gives it a wonderfully creamy foam head. I have to say that this beer did not pour a nice foam head at all and was surprisingly fizzy from the moment it left the comfy confines of its 500 ml bottle, a home that enticed me to pick up this specimen in the first place (regular readers will be well aware of my aversion to midget extinguishers). The Blanche de Trois Rivières is of course also a Belgian style wheat beer (wit), and made in part from organic barley malts, which is quite laudable. However, with the notable exception of Beau's, I have yet to taste a beer made with organic ingredients that has quite measured up to the standards of those made with regular raw materials (I suppose inorganic would be an entirely inappropriate choice of words for the opposite of organic in the modern sense of the word).

Rarely have I given poor reviews to beers, but this one simply does not measure up to what my humble, if snobbish, palate demands (is a humbly snobbish palate an oxymoron?). I do expect certain malt notes from all my beers, but especially from my wheat beers, and when I sampled this beer all I could think about was Homer Simpson saying "Hello, taste, where are you?" Other than the foam head, the beer did have a very nice appearance, but despite the visual evidence of abundant suspended yeast particles, there was no discernible flavour of fruit, spice, bread or other yeasty goodness in this concoction (or rather, decoction). There was an acidic yeast flavour akin to plain yogurt, as well as plenty of ashtray flavour, which is hard to describe because most of us don't go around licking the remnants of ashtrays, but think of the effect on your palate of someone blowing the contents of an ashtray into your mouth. And given the lack of sweet malt flavours in this beer, the hops were also out of balance, with too much lingering bitterness than is appropriate for this style of beer. Blah - I think the Frères Houblons would bet better off sticking to making what their name implies - hoppy bitter beers.

Belle Gueule Hefeweizen

You just know by the title of this post that something special is going on here: A French - or better, Quebecois - beer brand name together with the German wheat beer style. Not long ago I have ranted (or at least lamented) about the inferiority of Belgian wheat beer compared to German wheat beer, and living in Quebec, one has to accept the fact that most brewers here are inspired by the former witbier/blanch style, rather than the latter. But to the rescue come my good friends at les Brasseurs RJ, whose Belle Gueule Pilsner I have previous featured on this blog. These guys are truly amazing - one of two breweries in Quebec that appreciates making authentic German style beer, the other being of course Les Trois Mousquetaires. I used to play soccer in a park right next to the RJ brewery, and as you might imagine, the best time to play was when they were mashing and the wind would blow over the fabulous aroma of steeped barley, sending an extra spring into my legs.

The brewery, located just at the edge of the still-trendy-although-now-somewhat-less-so Plateau Montreal's neighborhood, certainly has grown up since they were formed from a merger of three older microbreweries, as can be seen by the age validation function on their website, which appears on the webpages of all major breweries around the world these days. While I understand that having to enter one's birth date as "proof" of legal drinking age to visit a brewery's website may satisfy regulative requirements, both the requirement and the method of meeting its demands seem absurd to me. If it there is a legal drinking age, why should this age correspond to a legal age for reading about beer and seeing pictures of beer? And anyone with the skills to type and enough brains to know his or her age can probably figure out what to do to see the website regardless of their actual date of birth. It's the ugly truth about corporate life: Pretend that you are trying to do what you are supposed to and regulators, customers, or other stakeholders will acquiesce and leave you in peace.

Getting back to les Brasseurs RJ and their Hefeweizen, they have done a fine job interpreting the Bavarian style, the main shortcoming of this lovely beer being that it comes in a midget extinguisher format. The nose and overall character of this beer screams "Freistaat Bayern" out so loudly that you may as well cover it in a blue and white checkered flag. Gentle banana and orange peel aromas dominate the nose and mix together with delicious white bread malts at the front of the palate. This is real Bavarian wheat beer yeast! Even the colour of this beer reminisces a fine Bavarian style, like Erdinder or Hacker-Pschorr, with a pleasing orange-hazy appearance. I'd have to say that the middle palate could do with more bread and less yeast flavors. There is also an ever so slight ethanol note here, which is common in many Bavarian Hefeweizen brands. The magic of yeast and the many mysterious flavours it produces!! The finish is nicely fruity-acidic and carries some lingering malt notes in stylish fashion that it makes me want to put on my Lederhosen and engage in some good old fashioned shoe-slapping.

Samson Tmavý ležák

I have an intriguing star for tonight - and it could hardly be a starlet, with a name like Samson. An initially suspect character, who, much like many other beers on the shelves in the provincial Liquor Stores (SAQ), appeared to be yet another brand from a small brewery, bought up by a giant brewing concern and its beer production made more efficient, and then sold all over the world devoid of its original balance and surprises. But at least I found something that seemed to be entirely different than the usual riff-raff off the store shelves: a black lager. According to this website, it is a "Dunkles Lagerbier" - a dark lager - which is also its designation on the label. Better still, a dark lager from the Czech republic, one of the finest nations in the world of beer brewing. Apparently, this is a beer style that in the Czech Republic may come in all kinds of strengths, colours, and sweetness. This specimen certainly came in a distinctive bottle, with a nice tin foil wrapper, regal label, and in an appropriate 500 ml bottle. How seductive, I thought, but I was still suspicious that this would be another beauty turned into a brute.

When I poured this beer, I was a little disappointed by the foam head, which fizzed away relatively loudly at first, then settled, but finally did not sustain itself for long. Soon though, this beer turned me by the palate - there was something that made me think of it as a nice alternative to a porter and maybe even a stout. It had a remarkably complex malty character, one that created a rich sensation of creamy dark roasted barley. At the same time, there was a very sweet overtone at the tip of the tongue that seemed to capture the essence of efficiency gains. Still, the beer was well balanced on the whole, combining a malty mash with very gentle hopping that produced no lingering bitterness and cut the palate just at the right time.

I was intrigued by this beer and wanted to find out its provenance. This proved to be a difficult undertaking, the conclusion of which is ongoing suspicion about this being a brute Samson, not a beautiful Samson. There is a Czech website, in Czech only, from which I gather that what I have savoured is either a separate export brew or, more likely, the Tmavý ležák 12° brand. The website itself is designed in a Western business style typical for other larger or international breweries, with age verification, a responsible drinking page, and description of the brands as well as the generic brewing process. The name on the website is Pivovar Samson, a.s. But when you search for the brewery that is listed as the producer on the SAQ website (apparently misspelled, of course), you find out about an original Budweiser Bier or Budweiser Bürgerbräu Brewery (Budweiser citizens brewery) founded in 1795 by Germans. Oddly, the beer label prominently displays that date but lists Pivovar Samson as the brewer and claims emphatically "original Czech lager." Finally, I found one Czech newspaper article from 2011, which I more or less deciphered with the help of Google Translate to report that the Samson brewery had been sold to a company called JD Beer Invest, which itself is reported to be linked to a Dutch company called Collis. 

This is where the trail ended for me, and I handed the task over to speculation. It is possible that this beer is still made by an independent brewery, given information that they have been exporting to the United States for over a century, and that according to the Wikipedia entry, they were a third company involved in the trade name dispute of the Budweiser name with Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser Budvar. But what about the discrepancies in company names, the marketing style, and the sleek website, not to mention the simple wisdom that if this beer shows up at the SAQ, it is most likely to belong to a major global brewing group? I'd like to think differently, but something is definitely skunky about this story, which is symbolized by the fact that this beer comes in a green bottle.