Hofbrau Original
By Dad on December 1, 2008 @ 12 PM (1 Comment)
 Who wants to go to Munich? I see a lot of hands up and somebody standing in his chair waving both hands yelling “YES!” Sorry, that’s me. You’ll need a passport and a big fistful of money. If you have two big fistfuls of money I have my own passport. Barring that we’ll just grab a couple of Hofbrau’s and gaze at a picture John snapped at the Hofbrau Festzelt tent at Oktoberfest in 2006. I found this at CPWM for $1.89 a bottle and then got 3 of them in a Beer Of The Month club the next day.
I served this up in a .5L Hofbrau dimpled mug I brought back from Munich. It had a 3 1/2 inch huge foamy white head. Bier temp. was 48.4F-9.7C and had 5.1% ABV. It had good head lacing and dissipated slowly. Carbonation was lively, the body was a clear sparkling yellow. Aromas were barley, hay, citrus, lemon and yeast. Tastes were only barley, lemon and yeast. Initial flavors were light sweet and light bitter and finish flavors were light to moderate sweet, light to moderate bitter and a light tartness. Finish was short, mouthfeel was watery and body lacing was good. On the malt to hop scale it came in at a 5 which is balanced. Yes to repeatable, drinkable, balanced, harmony and buy again. No to memorable and wow factor.
This may have been the quickest bier review I’ve done. Is this the best helles we found in Munich? No. But it’s a good example of the style. This is as smooth and beautiful as a female Lufthansa flight attendant offering you a free bier. At the Hofbrauhaus restaurant we both had a liter of their dunkel with lunch on our shopping day and loved it.
If you do make it to Oktoberfest here are a couple of hints we learned on the first day: the difference between 3 liters of bier and 2 liters and a liter of radler (half bier and half lemonade-actually Sprite) is the difference between a 4 hour nap and a 2 hour nap and after 2 liters pay a visit to the bathroom even if you don’t think you need to, trust me on this one.
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Drank some fine beer in Germany but have never been there during Oktoberfest though that along with Belgium (Trappist beers) are on my must visit soon bucket list. In the meantime, I’ll be in Vegas in a few weeks and will have to settle for the Hofbrau House there.