It is time for Zurich Beer Tour's Top 3 beers for December 2021. Simona's pick is a #masterpiece of an imperial #stout, an amplified and #barrel aged version of a #Swedish classic. Sandro is going for another classic, actually a piece of German beer #history. This month's staff pick is another stout, even though it feels more like a liquified piece of #cake. Let's do this!
Simona's pick: Omnipollo (SE) - Noa Pecan Mud (Willet Vanilla Barrel Aged) Imperial Stout
The Beer:
The base of this beer is one of Omnipollo's most popular beers ever, the Noa/Aon imperial stout. This beer has it all, it was brewed with #ingredients you could also use to bake cookies (oats, pecan nuts and #vanilla) and was then aged in Willett Whiskey #barrels for about 20 months. All of this results in aromas of baker's chocolate, vanilla and a hint of licorice. On the palate the beer is really sweet with a lot of #whiskey flavors, but still super drinkable. The vanilla is also nicely integrated, the brew is really low on #carbonation and super #creamy. We think this is one of the best Noas ever.
The Brewery:
You can find out more about the brewery in this blog article.
Our food pairing recommendation:
Pecan cookies
Sandro's pick: Schlenkerla (DE) - Eiche Doppelbock
The Beer:
This beers is, as all beers brewed by #Schlenkerla, a so called #Rauchbier (smoked beer). So how is Rauchbier made? Rauchbier is brewed using #smoked malt. This malt is dried over an open #flame, this imparts a smokey character to the malt and later to to beer. This is a #historical method of drying malt, most modern malt is dried (kilned) using indirect heat, so there is no smokey aromas in the beer. If we think that the classic method always used open fire (sun dried malt also existed, but this was more time consuming and also not possible everywhere in the world) so at some point in history, every beer had at least a hint of smoke aroma. Schlenkerla uses beech #wood for most of their beers, which gives really intense wood and smoke aromas. This #Doppelbock on the other hand was brewed with malt kilned by an oak wood fire, which gives a more complex and layered smokiness to the final product. This beer is exclusively served during #Christmas time.
The Brewery:
The Schlenkerla tavern in Bamberg dates back to the year 1405 when it was called #pub "At The Blue Lion" (zum blauen Löwen). The building was sold, destroyed and rebuilt several times. Reports about the brewery building before 1678 are hard to find, but after the official founding of the brewery in this year, more records were made. The brewery had several owners in its history, but one worth mentioning was Wolfgang Heller (the official name of the brewery is until today Heller-Bräu, even though everyone just calls it #Schlenkerla). Wolfgang Heller built the brewery's rock-cellar in the Stephansberg, which is nowadays in the middle of the town. They also moved the brewery to that location during the 19th and 20th century, before that the brewery was in the #tavern itself. If you wonder where the name Schlenkerla comes from: in 1877 Andreas Graser became the new owner, he was a person with a disability and moved his arms in an unusual way when he walked. In the local #franconian dialect this is called "schlenkern", so soon people started to call the beer Schlenkerla.
Our food pairing recommendation:
Smoked sausage with sweet mustard
Zurich Beer Tour's pick: Low Frequency (RO) X Hop Hooligans (RO) - Witness The Thiccness Pastry Stout
The Beer:
This beer was brewed according to the brewers: "without any concern regarding anybody's fitness". And you can feel this from the first sip. This #Romanian collaboration brew was brewed with massive amounts of #chocolate, #coconut and #cherries, which makes it feel like drinking Black Forest #cake. The beer has a really heavy body, it pours pitch black, thick and creamy and starts to spread its aromas across the room as soon as you crack this cake in a can. It is #sweet but still feels balanced, balanced here means tons of everything. Worth mentioning is also the extremely cool can #design, making sure you won't miss this beer when it sits in the shelf of your local bottle shop.
The Brewery:
Low Frequency was founded by Bozhidar Asenov, who was born and raised in Bulgaria. When he met his Romanian girlfriend at a music #festival, he decided to move to Romania in 2018. He was a homebrewer, entered several contests and also pitched some of his ideas (all of them being pretty wild) to the Bereta Brewing Community in their #homebrewer collab program. The Bereta guys were fans of Asenov's ideas, and so in February 2020 his first ever beer under the name Low Frequency, an Imperial Stout, was released. He later started to contract brew at other breweries, especially at Hop Hooligans, where this beer was created. The name of the brewery is inspired by Asenov's love to hand crafting sound systems. Also he pays homage to his Bulgarian background, all of the visuals of the brewery (logos, labels etc.) were designed by NoPoint Atelier, an indie artist living in a 100 year-old house in Gabrovo, #Bulgaria.
Our food pairing recommendation:
Chocolate Cherry Brownies
These are our three beers. Which ones were your favorite brews in December? Tell us in the comments!
Stay tuned for our January recommendations and for our Top 5 breweries of 2021!
Cheers,
Your Zurich Beer Tour Guides