Bottled. Hazy brown colour with a mediumsized foamy white head. Aroma is smoked meat, some bacony tones with some berry sweetness and mild toffee. Flavour is smoky, some mild toffeeish tones with mild grains and rye as well.

On the label: Altenmünster Steinbeer. Dark amber color, smoky aroma. Full bodied. Smoky flavor. Beechwood. Malty. Shorting smoky aftertaste. Nice beer.

1 pint swingtop purchased at New Beer in NYC - considering that at least 60% of the ratings for this beer in the last year were entered by NY/NJ folks, I’ll assume they all got this beer there, too, so who knows how long it’s been sitting on their shelves (damn you, New Beer!) - the top made a huge pop and beer gushed out of the top of the bottle - really cloudy amber beer, with a frothy, well-sustained head - a lot of oxidation and mustiness in the aroma, woodsy campfire smells, and an underlying sweetness that makes the overall aroma remind me a bit of toasting marshmallows on a damp spring night - the flavor shows more signs of age than the aroma does - quite a bit of cobweb and earthiness - a bit of oxidation and acidic character - a little bit of over-ripe fruit sweetness, combining with the acidity and smoke to make it taste like baked apples wrapped in bacon (yea, weird) - too old, or just poorly kept (New Beer!), but I don’t imagine this was that good fresh either.

Swingtop pint bottle from Foremost Liquors, Oak Forest. Well, it’s been a rough evening: a toilet overflowed upstairs, filling the globe of a light fixture downstairs. Plumber snakes it out, I bleach two rooms and do lots of laundry. Now I can just settle down with a real "old style" beer poured in a straight .2 l Stiegel glass. My first steinbier. Didn’t think it’d be smoky, but what should I have expected with this method. Pours nice brown with gold in narrow part oif the glass. Tiny floaties visible in the glass. Smell is smoke, but not bacony like Aecht Schlenkerla. A nice caramel nose too, under a thin clingy head. Smokiness returns in the tasting; like a smoked Edam cheese. Malts are like caramel wrapped around campfire marshmallows. Just enough bitterness to keep the sweetness in check. Lots more particles toward the bottom of the glass give it something of a campfire flavor. Too bad this isn’t date-stamped; I wonder how old this one is and how it changes over time.

(Bottle 50 cl) Dark golden with a handsome, lacing head. Distinct smoked notes, but otherwise surprisingly thin-bodied, almost watery. 140200 (Bottle 50 cl) As "Altenmünster Steinbier" by Sailerbräu Franz Sailer in Marktoberdorf. Clear reddish brown colour with a beige head. Notes of caramel and smoke and a lasting, long bitterness. 130101

Bottled
Hazy brown. Medium white head. Aroma is sweet berries. Medium-bodied. Malty, roasted, smoked and slightly sweet.

Amber color. Light smokey aroma. Dry and poor, just with a nice smokey note, but the malt is not enough.