Bavaria Holland Beer
By John & Dad on February 10, 2011 @ 7 PM (3 Comments)
Bavaria, for those not in the know, is a state of Germany located in the southeast corner of the country. It’s the largest German state by area accounting for about 20% of the total land of Germany (compare that to Alaska at 21% of the total land of the United States). Now forget all that. The most important fact you need to know about Bavaria is that Munich is there (it’s actually the capital). That’s where they make great beer. Unfortunately that has absolutely nothing to do with this review.
It is actually in Bavaria (this will shock you) that they established the Reinheitsgebot, or Bavarian Purity Law of 1516. This law states that the only ingredients that can be used in the production of beer are water, barley and hops. This was a particularly harsh law as the penalty for making impure beer was death. Not really, but the brewer who used other ingredients could have the questionable beer confiscated with no compensation. Let’s put it this way – Sam Calagione wouldn’t last 10 minutes over there. Again, this has nothing to do with this review.
The beer at hand today is Bavaria Holland Beer, also known as Bavaria Premium. It’s brewed by Bavaria Brouwerij in the Netherlands. I have no idea why it’s called Bavaria beer if it’s brewed in Holland, it’s just the company brand they put on the beer. A smart move no doubt – associating a stand out product (Bavaria beer) with a mediocre product (Holland beer). It would be like Chrysler calling themselves BMW Chrysler. Or tofu calling itself porterhouse tofu. Okay maybe it’s nothing like that. What we’re saying is don’t be fooled by the name – Bavaria Holland beer has little to do with Bavaria in terms of the beer – it’s more like your traditional Holland beer than the good stuff that comes out of Bavaria. And that just makes us sad in our hearts.
So, on to the review, eh? Bavaria Holland Beer (that would be like calling it Mexican United States Beer, no, wait…) comes in a 12 oz green bottle with an ABV of 5%. We got ours at Cost Plus World Market. For our test we used a British pint glass and got a starting beer temperate of 45.9 F.
You get an immediate bubbling carbonation when you open up the bottle. For our pour we got an average 2″ foamy white head that left a good amount of head lacing as it dissipated quickly. There was a medium amount of carbonation and the body was a clear sparkling yellow/gold color.
The aromas come in with barley, hay, lemon, pine, yeast, light ginger and a light skunkiness. It smells an awful lot like a Heineken and that’s not a compliment.
The initial flavor comes in with a light to moderate bitter that evolves in the finish to a light to moderate sweet and a light bitter. The tastes come in with grain, lemon, resin and some more of that skunkiness. We’re unsure how they get the whole skunk into the bottle with the small opening, but they do.
The finish length is average, the mouthfeel is watery and the tongue hit is in the middle. There’s a fair amount of body lacing left on the glass as you work through it. On the patented BeerFathers malt to hop scale it comes in one click to the right of balanced on the hoppy side.
For our bottom line notes we got a yes to drinkable, repeatable and balance. We got a no to harmony, memorable, wow factor and buy again.
Overall we’re not impressed. The taste goes hop-sweet-hop giving an odd 3 step taste to it. The malts are super thin. If you like pilsners (we notoriously aren’t huge pilsner fans) this is a mild example of one that makes you appreciate something like a Pilsner Urquell an awful lot. About the best thing we can say is its mild enough to be a textbook session beer, but there’s a lot of other beers we’d rather go to first in that category. This beer deserves to be on the shelf, so if you see it on the shelf at your local beer store just leave it there.
Bavaria Holland Beer Rating: 2 out of 10 (?)
3 Comments (Add Your Comments)
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Lets just say had the guy who brewed this been a football manager he would have been sacked.
Bavaria is a very good brand, no doubt.
listen to all you pretentious wankers . bavaria is a good beer. its cold, refreshing,easy to drink and does not give much of a hangover. good price too.