Advent Calendar days 4 and 11: Gutenberg and Graf Arco

The two advent calendar beers I got to enjoy with my tea tonight were both totally typical examples of a Bavarian pale Hefeweizen. Strangely, Einsiedler's Gutenberg Original Hefe-weissbier doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere on their website. If it were, the tasting notes would undoubtedly go on about how theirs is the most typical wheat beer of its type. And that would be a reasonable description. Based in Chemnitz, Einsiedler brew with water from their own spring, but that's the only old thing about their brewery, which is modern, though small enough for them to claim the product is hand-made.

The brewers of Graf Arco Braubursch'n Weiße Hell, in contrast, give their wheat beers a web site all of their own. They stake a claim to great age by noting the long history of brewing locally, and they too have their own spring. Their own tasting notes proclaim that this, along with their choice of malt and yeast, gives their beer an exclusive flavour profile. To me, though, it's outstanding in the degree to which it conforms. Many other Bavarian Hefeweizens would be looked down upon by American beer judges for not sticking to their definition of the style. Not this. It's as if this is the only example that the people who came up with the style definition had ever tasted.

I should take a moment to draw attention to my new wheat beer glass that I got in Germany earlier this week. It's a design by Austrian cartoonist Auge, and was released by Ritzenhoff in 2014.

Advent Calendar, days 3 and 10: Arcobräu and Wolferstetter

I'm catching up on the advent calendar by having two daily beers - the one for today, and one that I missed, in order. Had I not been on my way to Germany on the 3rd, I would have been drinking Arcobräu Weizen Dunkel. Now, a little bird, or rather the internet, tells me that this beer is also available as Waitrose's own label Bavarian Dunkel Weissbier. When I had that beer last May, I felt it was a little dull, so either the Waitrose beer is a different recipe, or it's improved since then. This bottle, under Arcobräu's own branding, was a full-bodied dark wheat beer with noticeable, though subtle, berry flavours. Back to Waitrose then, purely to be sure, you understand.

Arcobräu also produce a highly-regarded alcohol-free wheat beer, which is on my "to try" list. Given that most of the Weizen Dunkel went over me, and the floor, perhaps that's what I should have been drinking last night!

One of my hopes for the advent calendar is that it would introduce me to some beers I'd not had, and some breweries I'd never heard of, and so far it's doing a good job of that. The folk over at Wolferstetter introduced themselves by presenting a free lesson in distinguishing between an f and a long s in Fraktur. Once I'd worked out the name of the brewery, I could check them out. They brew a wide range of products - all of the usual suspects and a few others too. They consider their Export Hefe Weizen to be an absolutely typical example of the style. It certainly had all the citrus excitement going on, though I felt it was a little thin. Perhaps a beer for the summer months?

An opinionated evening in Cologne

Cologne is one of the great brewing cities, though its associated style, Kölsch, is of no great antiquity. Most of it is also too cold, too fizzy, and completely uninteresting. Part of Kölsch's problem is the "Kölsch-Konvention", which defined what may be called Kölsch. This happened at the nadir of quality beer in 1985, and so it insists on industrial processes such as filtering. A compliant beer is also thin, with very little by way of body or maltiness, and emphasises the hops, though the big brewers ignore even that last bit. Other, more reasonable, requirements are that the beer be top-fermented, and it be brewed within the bounds of Cologne.

So, no surprise, then, that the vast majority of Kölsch is as bad as mass-market lager. But some of it is worth drinking, and the glasses are small enough it quickly warms up to a temperature where you can taste it. The best examples are served from a cask on the bar, though with CO2 added to is as the filtering means it can't come to a natural condition. 1985, remember.

So where does a beer snob go when they have a free evening in Cologne? In my case, to not as many places as you might expect, because this is December, and the Christmas Markets are open. The ones in Cologne are particularly magical, enough to distract me from beer.

First stop was Hellers (Roonstraße 33), a brewpub a little out of the way, but very convenient for my hotel. Unlike most places, Heller make a range of beers, so I had to stay a while. Their products are organic-certified, and pretty damn good. The Kölsch looks unpromising, but the hops are carefully considered, being mostly fruity but with a dry, spicy finish. Or maybe I still had the remains of the curry in my teeth? For a taste of what Kölsch should have been, had the style definition not been nobbled by big brewers, go for the Wiess (a common name for the unfiltered version of the beer). Take all the things I said about the Kölsch and multiply them. Multiple layers of citrus and spice, with an underlying drone of bitterness. Heller also do a bottled seasonal beer. At this time of year it's the Weizenbock Winterbeer. Despite using no added spices, it's the festive season in a glass: dark, strong and tasting strongly of Lebkuchen. There were other possibilities to be had, such as the Weizen, and while tempted to stay all night, I felt I really ought to revisit some other places.

Not too far away is the Päffgen Brauhaus. Now, the usually reliable Ronald Pattinson describes this place as a must visit (not a Cologne must visit, but a European must visit). That's stretching it rather a lot. If what you want is a totally typical experience of a Cologne beer hall, then yes, this is the place to be. The beer, though, is not particularly exciting. Looking back on my notes, I see I couldn't think of anything to say about it at all, neither good nor bad. I didn't photograph it either, but the building is quite interesting, so feast your eyes on that instead.

Next up, I went into town, and the legend that is the Malzmühle. Now, the Mühlen Kölsch is about as good as you can get while complying with the blandifying requirements of the Konvention. Yes, it's pale, fairly, dry, thin and the flavour comes primarily from the hops. But the hops lift the beer without ever coming anywhere near overpowering it. The result is delicate, easy-drinking, and definitely not bland. I wish they'd do an unfiltered version. I didn't try their Weizen this time round, and in the absence of someone with whom to share it, I wasn't able to try the Von Mühlen - a bottled beer made with champagne yeast. The bottle is 750ml, and costs €20.

The Brauhaus closes at midnight. Next door, the same owners have a bar which opens much later. I gave it a miss as I had other plans, but a friend who ended up in there with work colleagues says it's loud, brash and only saved by the beer — Mühlen brews and some of the usual "craft" beer suspects.

I saved one of my favourite places till the very end. Over at the other end of the Heumarkt, in tourist central, lies Brauhaus Sünner in Walfisch. It's the pub you should leave till last, but only because it's open much later than the others - they do not specify a closing time, but it will be between 1 and 2am at the weekend. It's a very traditional looking place, busy enough but usually free of the sort of people who should choose some other drug of choice over alcohol rather than ruining it for the rest of us. You know the sort. So, imagine my surprise when I arrive, late enough on a Friday night for it to be technically Saturday, to find an altercation going on between a drunk young man, one of the bar's Köbes, and another man. Imagine my further surprise (and relief), given his behaviour, when I realise that this altercation is going on in German, not English. For some reason, i.e. the usual, the young drunk man had been asked to leave the premises and was not open to the suggestion that he had had enough, and it was time to go home and sleep it off. And so it came to the traditional means of persuasion, one that will be familiar to anyone who drinks in a British city at the weekend. The final shove out the door came as I arrived. Drunk Young Man was busy shouting at the unidentified other man, I know not what for while my German improves with alcohol, other people's does not. Or maybe he was Bavarian. But he was trying to photograph the unidentified man, demanding his details, at which point the unidentified man identified himself and pointed out his name was written in large letters on the front of the building!

I tell you this not to scare you, but because of the rarity of such incidents. It's one of the joys of drinking in Germany that the locals, even when incomprehensibly drunk, are not usually Arschlöcher. To my shame, incidents of arseholery are usually accompanied by shouting in English. And so I made my way between the Köbes and his boss, and turned immediately right into the snug. Usually crowded, and with standing room only, that's part of the fun. The chap behind the bar has always been the same chap as long as I can remember, and he speaks very good English. Don't bother trying to practice your German here - he won't let you. I wonder if he's half-Dutch or something? Anyway, he's part of the character of the place and for most English-speaking tourists, an utter gem.

Sünner claims to be the oldest Kölsch brewery around, and unlike most similar claims, this one is probably true. They were the first brewery known to have named a beer Kölsch, in 1918. Theirs is one of the brews I remember from my very first trip to Cologne as a grown-up. Like all the Kölsches of note, it's served straight from the cask, and the hops are what make it special. Imagine walking through a maple forest in autumn, kicking up the leaf litter. Continuing the theme, what little sweetness there is hints at maple syrup. I stayed till closing time, and had several, then left in an orderly manner before proceeding to get lost on my way back to an hotel I'd chosen on the basis that I knew where it was. Sünner Kölsch is so good, it messes with my sense of direction — not many beers can claim that!

Advent Calendar, day 2: Weideneder Weizengold

Yay! It took till day two to get a beer I'd not had before. It's also one I've never heard of before, so I needed to look-up the brewery. They claim to be old, sort of. The actual brewery has been in the family about 100 years. But, but, the brewery itself has some kind of heritage going back to the 15th century, and there have been brewers in Tann for at least two hundred more years than than. So, old. Honest. Tann? Where's that? So, go east from Munich until you are exactly north of Salzburg - it's there.

The beer is interesting. It's mostly typical, except for the hops. There are more of them than you'd expect, and they're sort of, well, Mancunian. That autumn leaves kind of aroma, with hints of socks after a good day's geocaching, and a nice, festive tangerine flavour rounding it all off quite nicely.

The same brewery also does a beer to honour the current Pope, and their Schlankl Weisse promises an old-style Bavarian Hefeweizen. There is about to be an eight-day hiatus in advent calendar tasting, due to a trip to Germany, so I'll have to look out for those two.

Advent Calendar, day 1: Maisel's Weisse Original

The first day of December brings a classic beer, one that I know well enough to write about while it is still cooling in the fridge: Maisel's Weisse Original. Once upon a time, this was one of the obscurities. It would show up rarely in a specialist off-licence, or German beer bar, but there was no reliable source. Things have changed and the beer is now available (in teeny, tiny, expensive bottles) in those Punch Taverns houses that try and have a decent beer range despite the best efforts of the chain's management. The beer itself is at the darker, amber end of the Weissbier spectrum. It's not the deep, traditional colour of Schneider, but the brewers have ignored fashion and let their product stand on its own. After all, if they want to do a trendy experiment, they have the "Maisel & Friends" range to play with. Disappointingly, I don't get to comment on how the beer is unchanged since Wagner drank it. The brewery makes no claims to great age, having been founded in 1887, three years after the composer who made Bayreuth famous died. I suppose I'd better invent some waffle about it being served at the early festivals instead, or perhaps comment on the sheer size of the brewery and its museum. But I haven't been there. The beer? Ah yes, the beer. It's a complex brew, with fruit, and pepper and exactly the sort of sourness you'd expect, lurking quietly. I'm looking forward to drinking it later, when I have nothing to do that requires I have my wits about me.

I've been a little quiet, haven't I? Never mind, I have an excuse to post regularly in December, as my advent calendar has arrived.

Iain Turnbull 1949-2015

I first met Iain Turnbull at an Edinburgh and SE Scotland CAMRA beer festival at Meadowbank in the late 1990s. He was there with his colleagues from Restalrig Village Brewery, promoting the new venture and enjoying the beer. They seemed to be an amiable bunch and we got chatting. Several brewery visits and many pints later, I found myself as his assistant at the brewery where he constantly astonished me by his ability to estimate the temperature of wort by looking at it, and being able to convert between systems of measurement in his head - part natural talent; part decades of experience. He had first arrived in Edinburgh as a brewing student at Heriot Watt in the 1960s, but never graduated because he got a job with a major brewery and learned first hand from some of the greats of that period. At Courage, he seems to have ended up as the last brewer at many a brewery, and developed a healthy disrespect for accountancy-led brewing.

One of my favourite of his many stories comes from his time at, I think, Bristol, where the UK version of Fosters was made. At this time, the gyle numbers were a letter-number-letter sequence that between them indicated the date and some other information about the product. One day in September, there was a commotion in the loading area. The draymen were refusing to take the latest batch of Fosters out for delivery. The head brewer, accompanied by Iain, went down to find out what the fuss was about and were shown the number on the kegs: K9P. "Dog piss? Sounds about right! Send it out!" Alas the draymen were not swayed by the Head Brewer's argument and the beer eventually went out as batch K8aP. But K9P was later recycled by Iain as a beer name at least twice.

His time at breweries closed by Courage was supplemented by time at breweries closed by other companies. When not brewing, he was selling cement and did a stint running a pub. After Restalrig went pear-shaped (having the business management side done by someone who, despite extensive experience, had an alcohol problem so serious it killed him not long after, was part of the problem), Iain, David Murray and I set up Fisherrow Brewery, which lasted a couple of years until David's sudden and untimely death from an hereditary heart problem.

In the time since then, he worked in a number of smaller breweries, and did a six month stint in Nigeria helping to restart a large lager brewery there. He ran a business sourcing and building plant for small breweries.

And in 2009 he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

His response was a big two fingers to that, and with the help of other brewers he produced a series of brews in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. My last time brewing with him was for one of his Brewer's Swansong brews at Tryst Brewery in Falkirk. But he pointedly failed to die and there were a good number of fundraising brews including a revival of Fisherrow favourite, Portobello Porter. But, cancer sucks, and does not play well with other conditions. He spent an increasing amount of time in hospital after a stroke and a bladder condition that necessitated brutal surgery. And he was never the same. He always was an awkward, stubborn bugger, with an off-colour sense of humour that never quite stepped over the line. He delighted in making life difficult for jobsworth bureaucrats, often by having read the relevant legislation or regulations. He was, for a couple of years, the official "Token Heterosexual" at Pride Scotia events. But illness took the pleasure out of life. We were concerned when he didn't fill in some forms in a way designed to create headaches for bureaucrats; when the humour stopped and antipathy took its place. It was obvious living was now a chore.

The last time I saw Iain was at the New Year, where we shared bottles of early 1970s Courage Russian Imperial Stout that he had brewed back in the day. He was very frail. This morning, we learned that we will have to retrieve the special beer he made a few years ago for his own funeral so it can serve its intended purpose.