15-03-20 // 330ml bottle from the brewery. Clear golden. Small white head, quickly fading. Sweetish wild apple nose. Lower carbonation with a mild fizz. Light apple sweetness, subtle quince. Dry finish with a sweetish honey touch. Lovely.

0.33 l bottle from 'Beyond Beer', 2018 vintage, bottled in January 2019. Drunk on the occasion of my son Karl Levi's 1st birthday, could there be any better beer for it?! Slightly hazy, ruby with a thin, frothy almost stable, beige head. Sweetish-malty, gently fruity, slightly funky aroma of marmelade, molasses, raisins, figs and brett. Gently sweet malty, gently funky and slightly fruity taste of marmelade, raisins, figs, molasses and brett, followed by a medium long, moderately bitter, gently funky finish. Medium to full body, smooth and slightly effervescent mouthfeel, soft carbonation. Really well done, the malty sweetness and the brettanomyces are perfectly balanced. I had hoped for a bit more depth but it's a bold beer nevertheless.

Brett IPA from a brewery in Frankfurt am Main that I first discovered at BXL Beerfest last year, one of these new generation German brewers adopting the originally Anglo-Saxon styles from the American craft beer revolution; often these IPAs, stouts, porters and so on are embedded in the Reinheitsgebot tradition (even if this is no longer legally obliged in Germany since the eighties), but this brewery clearly could not care less about that, as this beer contains wheat malt and oak flakes next to New World hops (Cascade, Citra, Azacca and Columbus) and wild yeast (the 'lambic' yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis, allegedly responsible for 100% of the fermentation here). Medium thick, snow white, mousy, irregularly lacing head, opening in the middle with a few flat 'islands' of foam here and there; misty ochre-tinged straw blonde robe, turning into a milky ochre-yellow with sediment. Indeed funky, but also fragrantly hoppy aroma of lots and lots of Brett effects combined with citrusy New World hops; I get impressions of stale sweat, 'horseblanket', moldy old grapefruit, dried wormwood leaves, old cheese rind, wet dog, musty grapes, old urine, dried lemon peel, baker's yeast, green bitter dandelion leaves, bread crust, parsnip, fermenting potatoes, dried dill. Spritzy, estery, crisp onset, very fizzy carbonation bubbling away on the tongue without 'numbing' too much, hardly any sweetish but lightly sourish with hints of gooseberries, white grapes, plum skin and unripe nectarine; soft bready 'bed' of malts, cereally and bread pulp-ish, dried by the Brett having eaten all sugars, whilst also producing a lot of Bretty funkiness - Michael Jackson's proverbial 'horseblanket', stale urine, moldy citrus peel, wet tree leaves, damp leather; the New World hops still pierce through a bit, with a bright orangey citric note, however subtle, lighting up this 'dark' and damp 'Brettiness'. The hops also provide a leafy, 'mossy', 'wet' and lasting bitterness in the end, matching quite well with the dryness and funkiness of the wild yeast, its soft bready effects and its spicy phenols. 'Dirty' estery notes lingering in the end, amidst dryness, funkiness, hop bitterness and a lot of absorbing breadiness. This is Brett IPA indeed, taken to its extremes: I have no problems believing that the fermentation has been carried out by Brettanomyces bruxellensis alone here, but Brett eats everything as we all know, so the whole idea of wasting a bunch of complexely expressive New World hops in a fully Brett-fermented beer still seems a bit strange to me. The hops do add a citrusy aroma, sure, but the last glimpse of this brightness will soon be gone forever - leaving behind only the Brett effects. Also: this Brett effect, the dominant factor here, has this 'powdery' and phenolic yet relatively 'superficial' quality to it, clearly grown in a lab rather than feeling natural (the way it does in lambic style beers). Nothing wrong with that per se, but in this case, it is perhaps a bit des Guten zuviel... Still, I find it very fascinating that even in self-protective, 'clean' and extremely traditional Germany, a growing number of breweries are decidely breaking with local traditions - and with a dash of German 'Gründlichkeit', more and more impressive non-German style beers are popping up. This brewery in particular is audacious enough, but still lacks a bit in finetuning the details, though I certainly enjoyed the few beers I had from them by now.

330ml bottle. Murky, purple-brown colour with small, frothy, half-way lasting, moderately lacing, beige head. Fruity, lactic, minimally bretty aroma, notes of blackcurrant, a touch of sauerkraut, yoghurt, laurel. Taste is sour, lactic, fruity and moderately bretty, funky, notes of blackcurrant, hints of vinegar and sauerkraut, some yoghurt, chocolate yoghurt, a herbal touch of laurel. Mushy-watery texture, slightly astringent palate, fine, prickly carbonation.

0.33 l bottle from 'Bierothek', bottled in November 2019. Clear, dark ruby with a medium large, foamy, stable, beige head. Sweetish-malty, moderately roasty aroma of coffee and caramel. Slightly sweet, moderately sour, gently fruity and a little roasty taste of mainly coffee, some lemon, caramel and a touch of nuts, followed by a short, moderately tart, minimally roasty finish. Medium body, slightly astringent and gently effervescent mouthfeel, soft to average carbonation. Interesting beer but the combination of coffee and sour doesn't really grow on me, nevertheless well done.

@Mainz 2019. coffee sour. Smooth fresh sourness. Coffee in the back. Easy to drink, fruity sour with a mild finish.

@Mainz 2019. Fruity grainy beginning. Easy to drink, fruity, sourish. Easy to drink, grain, sourness. Nice.