Nov 22, 2015

Keiler - Land Pils & Keller - Beer in a wine fair

Dear beer enthusiasts,

about a year ago, on a lazy weekend, I was invited to visit a wine fair in the city of Offenburg. Offenburg is a city in the Black Forest, and this fair was gathering the best wine producers of the region!

Not that I really care that much, my business is beer and I don't know much about wine anyways... but a few friends were going, I would be in good company and I had nothing better to do on that Sunday anyways, so there I went.

I was pleasantly surprised by the fair! It had stands offering also other kinds of beverage, like whisky and gin, and quite a good range of food specialities, like truffled butter, delicious cheeses, nuts, several different types of mustards and stuffed olives and peppers. But what pleased me the most was to find, in the midst of all that wine, a beer producer!

Although he was there mostly to sell his hunting specialties, there was also a few six-packs for sale. The name of the brewery is Keiler, and I got a two six-packs of 500ml bottles, one of their 4.9% Pilsner and one of their 5.4% Kellerbier.

Keiler Land-Pils and Kellerbier

"Keiler" means "boar" in German, and boars are famous for being quite agressive animals. With their big tusks, they can seriously injure and kill an adult human being... it is definetly not the kind of animal you would be happy to occasionally come across in the wild (and the black forest has quite a population of wild boars). Nevertheless I was really happy to come across this Keiler... it is not everyday that I can simply stump into a new beer for my collection - and moreover, one of my favorite kinds of beer, Kellerbier! - in a wine fair!

That was not the only piece of luck I had that day... I also won a raffle for 15 assorted bottles of the best rose wine of the region, which came in quite handy, because then I had a stash of last minute gifts to bring to parties... I might also have traded in one or two of those bottles for beer, I mean, what else would I do with rose wine?

The organizers of the raffle asked me if I wanted to take the prize right away or receive it in 15 days at my place. As I was not there by car (for quite obvious reasons) the decision was easy "Please ship it!" - I said - "I don't care if it takes a whole month! Right now I already have 12 bottles of beer in my backpack, there's no room left for wine...".

I am not sure the organizers were really pleased by my enthusiasm about their wine... but what can I do :)

Cheers!