Zwiesel Dampfbier

Once again Andy and the crew from Bier-Mania have got together with Zeitgeist at The Jolley Gardner's and put on another great German Beer festival. This time in order not to disappoint, Andy sourced over 1000 Liters of beer from some of Germanies best microbreweries.

Way back in 2006, BYO (Brew Your Own) magazine ran an article on a little known style called Dampfbier, which translates literally to "Steam Beer". The beer intrigued me, and was described as being very similar to a Hefe-Weizen, but with an all barley grist. Upon arriving at the beer festival, the dampfbier was the highest priority on my radar!Andy's commercial description is as follows;
"This illusive unfiltered top fermented amber coloured beer is from Zwiesel in the Oberpfalz/Bavarian Forest on the border with the Czech Republic. Dampf is colloquial Bavarian for yeast and essentially describes the primary fermention when the beer has a layer of yeast smothering it, hence ‚Dampf‘. The region has historically also been the poorest region in Germany."

The beer was a lot darker and sweeter than I expected, and didn't really have a lot in common with the flavour profile of a weizen except a banana aroma. However, this beer was awesome and a style I definitely want to check out some more. http://www.dampfbier.de/