Beer advent calendar

In 2020 I was given a beer advent calendar, so I thought I might as well keep some daily notes on what I thought of the various beers contained within it.

Each evening, starting on the 30th November, I open the following day's window in the calendar, take the bottle out, and put it in the fridge (these are mostly German beers, so recommended for drinking at fridge-temperature). Then, the following evening, I take that day's beer out of the fridge and drink it, take the next one from the calendar (and therefore find out what it is) and put that in the fridge…

Repeat until Christmas :)

Note: I like many British beers, and also many Belgian beers, and partly either because of this, or simply because I know what these beers can be like, I often find German beers rather dull or uninteresting, simply because they are legally required to be brewed with very plain and simple ingredients (due to the German beer purity law), and this severely restricts how creative German brewers can be in terms of the flavours they are able to end up with. I think this is a terrible pity, because when you look at the far wider variety of British and Belgian beers which are available, catering to so many more different tastes, the Germans really are missing out on the opportunity to brew many types of beer which people would find very worthwhile. Fortunately there's a pretty simple way round this problem - brew something delicious and don't call it "beer"; call it "ale" or "stout" or "porter" etc. Then you can put anything you like in it, and the beer purity law doesn't apply, because it's not beer.

Anyway, on with the tasting…

Day	Brewery	Beer	Comments
1	Ayinger	Jahrhundert Bier	Fairly bland - not much aroma, not much flavour; a bit dull, really. Quite a nice bottle cap.
2	Landgang Brauerei	Helle Aufregung	Much more interesting than yesterday's. Colour of apple juice; a very pleasant beery flavour without indicating any particular ingredient (such as chocolate, or a smoky porter).
3	Berliner Berg	Pils	I didn't realise there were mountains in (or near) Berlin. This beer is called Pils, and it's about as boring as that sounds. Straw-coloured, almost zero aroma, a little bit of flavour as it enters your mouth, but the after-taste diminishes immediately, and you're just left thinking "I'm glad it was cold".
4	Hallertauer	Hopfen-Cuvée	Another straw-coloured beer, very slightly darker than yesterday's, but with a damn sight more flavour to it. Quite pleasant, I think.
5	Fürst Carl	Schlossgold	Well, the colour lives up to its name - definitely a golden-coloured beer, and this time with a noticeable aroma. Quite a bit of flavour to it as well, which doesn't disappear immediately like that of the Berliner Berg Pils did. All in all, not bad.
6	Kraftbierwerkstatt UG	Götz Imperial Pils	This has the most boring bottle cap of the first 6 days, and I can't find the beer itself listed on the brewery's own website. It's even a slightly darker golden colour than yesterday's Schlossgold, and has quite a pleasant taste, even though it's called a Pils. Certainly the least effervescent beer of the lot so far.
7	Schloßbräu Rheder	HusarenTrunk	Just a little darker again than yesterday's (is this a developing trend?), and with a lot more flavour - although quite what of, I'm not at all sure… I think it's not something I'd choose to have regularly.
8	Bosch	Braunbier	The name suggests we're continuing the trend of "darker than yesterday's", and indeed the beer bears that out. Slightly sweet on immediate tasting, but quickly turns into a far more standard beer flavour. Could well benefit from being not quite so cold as the previous days' beers. Pretty pleasant.
9	Schwarzbräu	Marie Hell	The bottle is the wrong shape (short and too wide) to be able to get it out of the calendar box. "Hell" is also a good name - it's very pale in colour, and there's nothing else worth saying about it.
10	Aktienbrauerei Kaufbeuren	Allgäu Stoff	A very dark label on the bottle, but you can see right through the contents, so it's clearly not a dark beer. Once you pour it, it's very similar to yesterday's, possibly slightly darker, but certainly with more flavour. Quite refreshing.
11	Wieniger	Weißbier Hell	Quite a straightforward and pretty pleasant Weizen. Not much more needs saying. Very drinkable.
12	Kaiser Brauerei	Rotbier	I don't think I've heard of a red beer before, but it definitely is red(dish brown). It has quite a distinct flavour, although I have no idea how to describe it. Certainly pleasant enough, which is good. Very pleasant, in fact.
13	Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu	Kloster Starkbier	Another fairly pale beer, although this time with a bit of aroma to it before tasting. Not as strong a flavour as I had expected, and strangely feels a little "dry" on the tongue as you drink.
14	Störtebeker	Mittsommer-Wit	This sounds like an odd thing to find in an advent calendar. The beer is a cloudy amber colour, and fairly effervescent. A typical aroma of wheat beer, and a pleasant enough flavour, although certainly nothing special. I think this probably is best as a summer beer, being light in taste and fairly light (4.7%) in alcohol, best served cold.
15	Wacken Brauerei	Forseti Dry Stout	This beer is not just dark, it's black. You can't see through a glass of it. It's also the first beer with a decent aroma to it, and also an excellent flavour. Definitely my kind of beer.
16	Schweiger	Helles Export	A very pale and very clear beer - it looks like cider. Has a noticeable flavour to it, but it's not easy to say what. Not bad, but not quite my cup of tea.
17	Ladenburger	Zwick'l Naturtrüb	Another completely boring bottle cap, covering a fairly interesting beer. Looks like a Weizen, but smells and tastes quite different. A slightly astringent flavour to it, which is not my thing. If I were trying it in a pub, I'd finish the glass, but I'd like the next glass to be something else.
18	Hohenthanner Schlossbrauerei	Polar Winter	The brewery doesn't seem to mention this beer on their website - "Polar Sommer", yes, but not "Polar Winter"… Probably the most aromatic of the beers so far, but unfortunately at the expense of having a somewhat unpleasant flavour. Rather bitter (and not in the English beer sense of the word). Fortunately someone not so far away from me quite liked it.
19	Aldersbacher	Kloster Weisse Dunkel	Another quite aromatic beer, but much nicer in flavour than yesterday's. Looks and tastes very much like you'd expect of a dunkel Weizen. Possibly very slightly sweeter than a standard Weizen (but certainly without any banana-ey flavour). Quite nice.
20	Grohe	Kleiner Bock	The third totally boring bottle cap of the collection, keeping a reasonably dark beer inside the bottle. No aroma, but a strong taste, and an excellent one. Probably my second-favourite beer of the collection, after the Forseti Dry Stout (15th).
21	Wildbräu	Helles	The bottle is too wide to get out of the box (like Marie Hell on the 9th). You'd think someone selecting the beers would have thought about this sort of thing. Anyway, this one's the colour of a Kölsch, has no particularly noticeable aroma, and has a noticeable, although not especially strong, taste. For me, it's not an especially nice taste, so this is another beer which I'll finish, but choose to drink something else afterwards.
22	Riedenburger	Keller-Pils	Another pils, this time unfiltered (which I think is a bit unusual?). A slightly sour flavour to it, which is not entirely unpleasant, but is also not entirely delicious. Not a beer I'll try to search for in future.
23	Schnitzlbaumer	Export Dunkel	Yet another bottle which is too big to fit through the hole in the calendar. The beer is dark, certainly, and has a reasonable flavour, but not as much as several other dark beers I've found (leaving aside anything Belgian, there are for example Paulanter Salvator, Erdinger Pikantus, Köstritzer Schwarzbier and Kloster-brauerei Scheyern Dunkel). So, this is nice enough to try, but you can find better.
24	Schneider Weisse	Aventinus	The bottle has a little Father Christmas hat on it, although I suspect it's not always sold that way. The compilers of this advents calendar have clearly saved the best for last, though. This is an excellent "Weizen-Doppelbock" with a pleasant aroma, and an astonishingly good flavour. This is clearly the best of the box. The taste is like a Dunkel Weizen, but with significantly more to it, perhaps with slight tones of chocolate (although nothing so strong as Sam Smith's Chocolate Stout). All in all, though, an excellent way to round off the collection, and a beer I'll be looking out for in the future.

I hadn't previously come across any of the beers in the box.

Happy New Year :)

Go up
Return to main index.