Inventory for July 6th, 2014
Welcome to our latest inventory! This week Germany’s Pilsner beers were asked to step up to the taste test. Vogue Living announced their pick of the world’s 20 best bars and No. 3 Gin is now being distributed by Beam Germany.
What can we say, summer has finally arrived in Berlin. The sun is out and the beer is cold. Our summer drink of choice will probably be either a Flessa Bräu Pils or the Oettinger. Both top picks in this weeks taste test. Get yourself to a lake, bring a picnic basket stuffed to the brim with sandwiches and crack open a cold one, you’ll be needing it!
The German Pilsner Reputation
The story is as old as the sun: beer being brewed at an industrial scale beer will always be inferior to that produced in a micro brewery. To test this theory Rory Lawton, of Berlin Craft Beer Community, and Ludger Berges co-hosted a German Pils blind tasting event to which twelve experienced beer enthusiasts were invite to put their palates to the test. Experts included brewers, home brewers and other beer-related professionals.
Eight Pils beers, all poured from the bottle, were tasted. Four from large breweries and four from smaller, regional breweries. The results, to say the least, were surprising. Below they are listed in full, using the German scoring system of 1 (very good) to 6 (very bad).
Group Results:
Flessa Bräu Pils (average score: 1,7)
Oettinger Pils (average score: 2,25)
Waldhaus Diplom Pils (average score: 2,4)
Krombacher Pils (average score: 3,1)
Wagner-Bräu Kemmern Pils (average score: 3,8)
Hummel-Bräu Pils (average score: 3,9)
Becks Pils (average score: 4,2)
Berliner Pilsner (average score: 4,3)
The conclusion which Rory and his fellow testers came is that it is extremely difficult to tell the beers apart once the label isn’t in front of you. Oettinger, the most despised beer prior to tasting, came out on the top with a consistent high grade. Judging by this group’s particular results, the best beers and the worst beers were produced by small scale breweries while the mass-produced ones lay solidly in the middle.
One commentator, a German brewer named Robert, lamented the state of German breweries and subsequently their beers. He notes the British organization Camra, that Germany would benefit from such a movement and how the standard of Pilsner has drastically sunk within the last 20 years, that a Pils like Samuel Adams Noble Pils is far more interesting today than anything coming out of the German market. A conversation that we’re sure we haven’t seen the last of.
Vogue Living Says Cheers!
Vogue magazine is not only famous for its fashion, but it also boasts with a category entitled “Vogue Living”, which is presented as an online cultural lifestyle format and reports on design, architecture, art and culture. On the platform Vogue author David Prior took a closer look at the world’s best 20 bars.
The self-appointed criteria included the bars’ sense of history as well as service, quality of the drinks, atmosphere and a sense of glamor. The last criteria should be taken with a grain of salt as many of the named bars are home to more of a rustic interior design scheme and seem like throwbacks to speakeasies, dive bars or a homage to the prohibition era.
A seemingly random compilation saw bars well-known in mixologists’ circles like The Carousel Bar & Lounge in New Orleans, Paris’ Curio Parlor and New York’s own Pouring Ribbons bar listed next to unknown ones such as Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas and São Paulo’s Riveria Bar.
Berry Bros’ No. 3 Now With Beam
Starting July 1st Beam Germany will take over distribution for No. London Dry Gin, extending its position as the leading premium spirits supplier Germany’s. This is the not first time we’ve mentioned the growing popularity of the spirit, and this step only goes to prove the ever increasing demand for high-quality gin. No. 3 belongs to Berry Bros. & Rudd, London’s oldest wine store with over 300 years of experience.
Strictly following tradition the classic London Dry is produced in the Netherlands in a copper distillation flask, using only three fruits and three herbs. Manfred Jus, managing director of Beam Germany, is excited about the new deal stating that “No. 3 has the potential to become a modern classic”. For now, it seems like the distribution deal seems bound to Germany, and is not valid internationally.
The Language of Drinking
Over at at Punch, Regan Hoffmann delves into the variance of language which seems exceptionally large when it comes to drinking lingo. Booze talk: nearly everyone has their own idiom which wreaks havoc on their usually sophisticated language. As an expat Canadian the author has had her share of misunderstandings in her chosen home of New York she’s asked for a “mickey of gin” (a 375 ml flask shaped bottle) and received only blank stares. The article sees her pondering why drinks inspire such a hyper-local, specialized vocabulary.
Tackling several theories, including Sapir and Whorf, she arrives at the conclusion that the act of drinking itself is a communal one, and it is from communal activities from which shared language evolves. Hoffmann points out that when we’re away from home we use familiar terms to remind us of where we used to live. In fact, spend enough time with someone, in the author’s case her fiance, and over time they will pick up on terms once unfamiliar to them, and use them like they’re their own.
World’s Best Bar Presents A New Menu
The world’s best bar, the Artesian Bar in the Langham Hotel, London just unveiled its new menu. Throwing everything we know out they’ve started with a blank canvas as the world collectively holds its breath to see what the team behind the Artesian would come up next. Printed in Japan the menu resembles a traditional restaurant’s menu more than it does a cocktail listing. Its divided into three categories: starters, the “main course” and dessert.
A key of three lines guide the drinker, cocktails with a strong character feature three lines, a subtler one has two and the less challenging drinks have earned one. This allows the drinker to create his or her own tasting menu, so to speak. Jane Ryan tested some of the new offerings for Difford’s Guide.
