Hollbeer Prestige - Beer with a "merry Christmas" touch

Dear beer enthusiasts,

As the end of the year approaches, celebrations start all over the globe. It can be of a religious nature -Christmas or Hanukkah- a national holiday -The birthday of the Japanese emperor, for instance- or merely the celebration that a new year is about to begin.

Even if you don't follow any religious tradition, neither is particularly aware that Mr. Akihito was born on December 23rd, you might still be surrounded by this festive mood... In most western countries, for instance, it is pretty much impossible to avoid the festivities.

Along with the celebration, come the special dishes, the cookies, the cakes and, of course, the seasonal brews!!

If you are in Europe, one of the best things to do in this time of the year is to visit the Christmas markets, and the French city of Strasbourg is rather famous for theirs.

It was December of 2010 when I, visiting Strasbourgs Christmas markets, came across this 500ml bottle of 7,0% Seasonal Christmas beer. It is product of a microbrewery called Brasserie du Vignoble, located in the city of Riquewihr, region of Alsace, France. The brewery doesn't really have a website, so this link should lead you to their facebook page,

Hollbeer Prestige - Honeybread beer

Although France is more known for its wine, and the village of Riquewihr is surrounded by many many vineyards, Alsace is also home to many microbreweries, which produce the most amazing beer.

This beer in particular has a taste that couldn't fit better with the season... Lebkuchen - a kind of Alsacian/German honeybread! It has a warming feel - due to the alcohol content - and a sweet background that brings cozy memories of past festive seasons.

While most breweries that try to somehow infuse a specific flavor in their brews usually end up going over the top, Brasserie du Vignoble managed to do it - in my most humble opinion - pretty much right!

They did it so right, that 5 years after drinking their beer, when I was thinking about the most adequated beer for a Christmas special post, Hollbeer Prestige, came immediately to my mind...

This year I was again in Alsace, but by bike, and couldn't get any beer. I gotta schedule another visit to Alsace, by car or by train (with an empty carry-on luggage...). After going to a wine fair to get kellerbier, I should step up a notch, and head to a wine country "just" for some seasonal brews

Happy holidays!

And cheers!

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!