If you’ve spent any time in Germany, or indeed Western Europe, chances are you seen and most likely tasted a Warsteiner beer. They are relatively easy to come across, which might make you think that this beer is made by a big multi-national.
In fact, the Warsteiner brewery is one of Germany’s largest and oldest family-owned breweries dating back to 1753. They are currently managed by the 9th generation of the Cramer family.
And this is their flagship beer, known as one of Germany’s best premium pilseners. In 2009 the beer was awarded ‘Best nationally distributed beer from a family-run brewery’. In a land awash with outstanding lagers and pilseners, that it quite a win!
The beer pours a beautiful clear golden colour with a perfect white foam. A really clean aroma of floral, grassy hops backed by biscuity malt hints at the flavour to come.
There is a really light early sweetness from the malt that carries quickly into a pleasant hop bitterness that seems to take over all of your tastebuds. But it isn’t an aggressive bitterness, just a grassy, prickly bitterness that sharpens the senses. It finishes the way it started, with a lingering hop bitterness that somehow softens on the tongue so that there is a smoothness to the aftertaste.
As is the case for all of these types of German lagers, they are perfectly suited for drinking all afternoon, the shame is you only have one can in your packs.
