Köstritzer Kellerbier - Yes, Kellerbier!

Dear beer enthusiasts, 

you might be finding the title a bit odd, for either one of the following reasons:

1. You don't see any reason why I should reassure and stress the fact that this is a Kellerbier

2. You knew Köstritzer already but had only seen their Schwarzbier :)

If you fall in the second category, don't be ashamed, I was surprised by it when I found it at the market, and my good friend Conrad Rössger was surprised by it when he first saw it in my fridge - "I didn't know Köstritzer made kellerbier too!"

The truth is that Köstritzer is not particularly famous for this 500ml bottle of 5.4% cellar beer... which is quite unfair! Unfair because in my humble opinion, this is a quite tasty beer!

But then again, I am quite biased when expressing my opinion about Kellerbiers, afterall, as I said in a previous post, this is one of my favorite kinds of beer

Köstritzer Kellerbier - not the black one, the cellar one!

Kellerbier, as you might guess, means "cellar beer". This name comes from the fact that, being a bottom fermented (Lager) beer, it needs to be kept under cool temperatures during its fabrication, and the fact that it comes traditionally from Franconia, a German region with a strong culture of homebrewers. As those homebrewers didn't dispose of big industrial facilities, the location of choice to make their beers was - guess which - the cellar!

It differs from other beers for being unfiltered and unpasteurized, which results in a beer with a richer body and taste than a regular Pils, for instance. It has a cloudy appearance and retains more of its vitamins and yeast. It is usually also less carbonated than the others, once it is aged in wooden casks with the bung untightened... that means that the carbon dioxide formed during the fermentation is allowed to escape through the bung hole and is not retained in the beer.

I am not sure about how this features affect the drinkers memory, but the fact is that, two months after tasting that beer, Conrad saw it again in my fridge, and was amazingly surprised! -"I didn't know Köstritzer made Kellerbier too!"-. It took me a few minutes to convince him we had already had that conversation before.

I hope you now understand why I had to make it very clear on the title :D

Cheers!