6.4/10
—
Appearance 4
Aroma 7
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 5.5
My first Dampfbier, a historical beer style I hadn’t even heard of till very recently; basically an all-barley ale fermented with Weizen yeast, going extinct a century ago but revived around 1990. This American interpretation of this all but lost style has a thin, finely structured, light beige, lightly lacing head dissolving after a relatively short while, and a cloudy brownish-orangey amber colour with vivid sparkling, totally murky with deposit. Aroma is very estery as well as a bit oxidized - I apparently got an older bottle. Impressions of peach, cloves, cashew nuts, honey, banana, biscuit, orange peel, floral hops, baker’s yeast, hint of refreshing lemony acidity, caramel, bitter herbs. Fruity, crisp onset, dried apricot, dried orange peel and redcurrant, sourish touch probably from the yeast, medium carbo, light and rounded, smooth mouthfeel, pleasant soft bready malt sweetness, caramel, toasted accent bittering a bit, with more bitterness in the end hauling from earthy, ’deep’, leafy hops, leaving a delicate bitterness on the root of the tongue but otherwise allowing the malt sweetness to persist; a powdery yeast feeling also persists, quite strongly even - it is clear that fermentation has not been a great success here (which was already apparent upon opening the bottle, in the form of light gushing). Malty, straightforward beer but too yeasty, quenching though, and interesting to taste for its style alone.
Tried
from Can
on 23 May 2015
at 09:18