Wicküler Pilsener

As I mentioned earlier in the week I have been traveling for work. I had the fortune or misfortune of being layed up in snowy Wuppertal, Germany. For those of you who may not know much about Wuppertal it forms a triangle with Cologne and Düsseldorf in the Rhineland Westphalia region and is slightly south of Dortmund. It was once the richest city in Germany during the industrial revolution but like a lot of early industrial cities, it is now slightly lacking. It is also famous for the Schwebebahn, the worlds oldest suspension monorail which runs over the river Wupper.

Anyhow after an afternoon of traveling I finally arrived at my hotel, tired, exhausted and thirsty and swiftly checked out the mini bar. I managed to find a lone bottle of Wicküler Pilsener (4.9% abv) which I drained in two deep swigs. The beer was dry and thin like a Dortmunder style pils (which it is) but lacked the depth of other examples of the style such as Bitburger or DAB. Overall impression was ok, but not outstanding.

Wuppertal is geologically interesting as it really has no set beer style. The most popular style is Dortmunder Pilsener, Followed by Kolsch and Alt. Its proximity to the three beer epicenters of North West Germany provides a wide variety of beers.

The Wicküler Pilsener is in German, but you can check it out still. http://www.wickueler-pilsener.de/

A Nice Friday Afternoon

Last Thursday saw me back in Wuppertal, Germany on a client visit. This involved a 4.15am start and didn't see me back in the UK until well after the sun had set (OK it was about 10.15pm). The upside of this is that I enjoyed several Altbiers on the companies dime, but I had to travel to Wuppertal (the ass end of the universe) for the pleasure. Understandably I was dog tired on Friday morning and decided to work from home so I could have a lie in. Most people take the piss when they work from home, but for some reason I always end up being smashed with tasks flooding into my email inbox. Last Friday was no exception and I also had to deal with a solid back load of crap from Thursday as well. As I am a "work hard, play hard" kind of bloke I decided to knock off early and head down the pub for a beer and something to eat. My first choice is usually The Havelock for their excellent food and proper real keg from Meantime, but I missed their lunch service (which finishes at 2.30pm). In light of the stupid inconvenient food service hours at The Havelock, I opted to head down to Fuller's recent acquisition "The Queens Head" on Brook Green. This was a good move as they had the new Gales beer "Seafarers" on which is nice and hoppy and very drinkable at 3.6%. I decided not to get any food, but crumbled during my second pint and went for the steak baguette with horseradish mayo. If only all Friday's were this productive!

Gaffel Kolsch

As I have said previously Wuppertal lies in the vicinity of both Cologne and Düsseldorf and as my German colleague resides in Cologne he insisted that we get a few Gaffel Kolsch's (4.8% abv) down our neck whilst visiting a nice traditional restaurant called Kornmuller (which happens to be in an old 18th century corn mill).

Like all good Kolsch's it maintains a crisp bitter taste, while delivering a soft fruity aroma. I really am not a big fan of the style. I think if you are going to go to the effort of brewing one, you may as well as brew a nice German Pilsner, but then since Kolsch style beers have been brewed in Cologne since the 11th century (ok they were slightly darker back then), who am I to argue? http://www.gaffel.de/

Frankenheim Alt

It seems that the most widely available Altbier in Wuppertal is Frankenheim Alt (4.8% abv) and as far as Alt's go it is very good. Not as good as Uerige Alt which is my favourite, but certainly a good representative of the style. Still in the Kornmuller restaurant, I ordered this is an attempt to deliberately offend my Cologne dwelling colleague! Sadly my German friend actually had a sense of humour and my desired effect was not realised.

Frankenheim is not brewed in the Altstadt like most Alt biers, but is brewed in nearby Neuss by an old-established independent family brewery. It's a pale bronze colour with a good bubbly head, and richly earthy aroma with a touch of hop sharpness. The palate is very clean, light and biscuity with some sweetness and a splash of citric fruit, and a Weetbix-dry hoppiness develops in the finish, where nicely tangy, peppery and slightly nutty notes linger. Slightly lackluster compared to interpretations of the style by other breweries in Düsseldorf.

http://www.frankenheim.de/

You may have noticed that I have used the term weetbix rather than weetabix. that is because I am Australian and weetbix is the brand for this popular cereal down under. Weetabix are just try hard UK knock offs, just as Marmite is a poor mans Vegemite.

Newcastle Brown Ale 2

Ok, I am only posting this due to the fact that I enjoyed this particular bottle in the Gateshead Hilton Hotel, in Newcastle itself. I whisked my wife away for the weekend as it was our first wedding anniversary. Why Newcastle? Well we got married in Sydney, in a small church which overlooks Sydney Harbour Bridge. As we could not go back to Sydney, I decided to do the next best thing and visit the Sydney Harbour Bridge's smaller cousin in Newcastle.

We also went to posh noshery 'The Fisherman's lodge' for a nice meal. It was good weekend, before I had to return to Wuppertal on Monday.

I originally blogged about Newkie Brown back in February. You can read about it here.

BTW - we had our office Christmas party last night. It was a good night, but the beer was crap - Stella or Becks. I had a chronic headache this morning because of this. I did manage to get a couple of pints of Fuller's London porter in at The Counting House before hand though. Good times!

Sausalito's House Lager

As I have been neglecting the blog due to work travel, I thought I would pop in a quick post. Work has seen me be located in Wuppertal Germany over the last couple of weeks. As mentioned this place being in close proximity to both Düsseldorf and Cologne has both Kolsch and Alt beers being widely available. I went to dinner with a colleague of mine to a Mexican restaurant called Sausalito's. I ordered a pitcher of their home made house lager expecting something unique, instead I received a pitcher of lime juice with a fair whack of tequila in it. Apparently there is beer in there somewhere, but all I could taste is pure alcohol, plus Ice and Slice! It was easy drinking but tasted like shit. It also included a straw!
Sausalitos has a website: http://www.sausalitos.de/ If you watch the video on their home page you could confuse the Mexican joint with a strip club.