Kronenbourg 1664

Kronenbourg 1664 (5%) is a continental lager of ambiguous French-German ancestry originating in the Alsace region (originally Germany, now France). I think to show my respect for the French people (aka surrender monkeys); I am going to say that it is a German beer! The 1664 in the name comes from when the first master brewer received his ticket to brew. The beer is a decent lager for one that is brewed in the UK under licence and uses ‘special’ hops from the Alsace region. People keep telling me that Kronenbourg is a very malty beer, but I can’t really taste that much malt, but it is the only widely available ‘standard’ lager here in the UK that you can actually taste the flavouring hops. It is actually rather hoppy for a lager! The beer is reportedly the beverage of choice for the French Foreign Legion where they drink it by the gallon and it even gets a pretty good rap here in the UK considering that its French – ur um German. The brewery even has its own wacky website: http://www.k1664.co.uk/
I enjoyed mine in can form which I picked up from the 7-Up, which is the mother of all off-licences. As a special bonus, I even got an extra 60 mL free of charge, which is very generous seeing as it’s brewed by Scottish and Newcastle. I have never received anything free from a Scot before. Anyhow I will put my prejudices aside for now and focus on drinking some new beers to write about next week!