We started Beer 101 by learning a lot of general knowledge about beer and about German biers, but to become a real German bier expert I couldn’t just talk about beer; I had to try it. In Germany there is a saying, “Nur ein Schwein trinkt allein!” So I gathered up my fellow O-Girls to taste the German biers offered at the Alpine Restaurant while Todd taught us a little more about them. We started off with the most popular styles of beer worldwide: Lagers and Pilsners.
Lagers
- The lager has a pale yellow color typically with a nice fluffy head.
- Lagers tend to be dry, light, crisp and refreshing.
Pilsners
- The Czechs took the lager style of beer and in the town of Plzen, using new techniques and paler malts, refined the beer and produced the syle now known world wide as Pilsner.
- One of the reason pilsners are so popular is their light body and crisp taste.
Why is the head on a beer important?
- You want between two and three fingers of head because the explosions of these small bubbles that make up the head, release chemicals in the air and as you bring the glass up to take your first sip, you breathe in these chemicals through your nose and your brain interprets these as the beer’s flavor characteristics.
The beers we tasted:
- “Hofbrau Original” a German lager
- “Bitburger” a German pilsner
- “Staropramen” a Czech pilsner
For our next lesson in Beer 101, we’re going to learn about and taste a couple of Hefeweissens.
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