On our trips to Würzburg, we haven’t merely tolerated Distelhäuser’s beers, we’ve positively enjoyed them.

So, it’s been a bit confusing to discover over the last few months, starting with a casual “Ugh!” in a comment on this post, that they aren’t much rated by the locals nor other people whose opinions on beer we trust.

But how can this be? We tasted them without prejudice and both of us had the same honest reaction: yum. We’ve been back several times, too, and our opinion didn’t change.

It’s not even as if we unquestioningly love every German beer we try (Brinkhoff’s No. 1 and Brauhaus Kastel? No thanks.)

Perhaps the thrill of being on holiday, and in the sun, in a city as pretty as the Big W, temporarily dazzled us? It probably doesn’t hurt that we’ve almost always drunk Distelhäuser at the Alte Mainmühle, an ever-so-slightly upmarket, very picturesque pub-restaurant on the river, where the beer is always presented impeccably in the correct glassware or stone krug, cold but not too cold, and with plenty of zing.

It’s probably best if we just get back to Würzburg asap and give them another go.

We haven’t taken part in the session for a couple of years, mostly because we found ourselves struggling to fit in an opportunity to, e.g., drink a particular type of beer before it rolled around.

Anyway, it’s time to get back in the saddle so here we are again to talk about the art of beer labels, caps and coasters, for this month’s session hosted by HopHeadSaid.

We have a particular interest in commercial design and illustration and when it relates to beer, all the better. We’ve posted about it on more than one occasion and have been really enjoying this excellent blog about beer branding recently.

The image above is one of our favourite bits of beer-related design and, perhaps not so coincidentally, comes from one of our favourite breweries.

What’s not to like? There’s sans serif typography (we have some sympathy with the Helvetica nerds), a simple colour scheme reflecting the flag of Franconia and an equally simple graphic. All of this reminds us vividly of their pub in Nuremberg and their beers, all of which are also simple, unpretentious and clean.

You’ll note that the image above is a bit rough. It needed some restoration because this beermat, along with a stack of others from Germany, the Czech Republic and Belgium, lives in our kitchen and gets used every day. It’s a little bit of Nuremberg we can enjoy every day. As a result, it is covered in beer stains.

Mind you, that Satan cap art isn’t bad either, and nor are the twin labels for the Brooklyn/Schneider collaborations.

We weren’t massively impressed with St Austell’s Korev Lager but were nonetheless keen to try it’s sister beer, Cornish Bock. It’s proven a tough one to track down but, today, we finally chanced upon a bottle in a remote pub off towards Land’s End.

Overall, our verdict is that it is a really good beer and one we’ll be drinking again if we get the chance.

The first thing that struck us was how much it looked and smelled like Voll Damm. It is, indeed, a very similar beer, albeit more complex.

Having got to know the aroma and flavour of Perle a couple of years ago, we were then struck by its obvious presence in this beer. (It helped that we’d read it on the label, too….) The big metallic, coppery smell of the beer reminded us (and this will sound weird) of blood. In a good way. On a less Gothic note, it also brought to mind one of the brasher alt biers, such as Diebels.

Once it began to warm up, the metallic quality of the Perle gave way to Saaz and, suddenly, we were reminded of Duvel. In fact, this beer has a big enough, fluffy enough, white enough head, and sufficient alcoholic poke (at 6.5%) that it could stand in for Duvel as an accompaniment for food.

Finally, in the dregs, with the beer a bit too warm, syrupy caramel won the day.

So, an excellent effort, which would be even better served in a nicer glass (we got a Guinness-branded pint glass) and perhaps in smaller 330ml bottles.

As Evan Rail incubates grodziskie yeast in his fridge; and Ron Pattinson and John Keeling brew Fuller’s beers to recipes from the archives; does it matter if beer is all played out?

We think these folks are brewing and selling a version of schöps… can anyone with better German than us confirm that?

What with moving house this spring, we didn’t get to go on our usual May or June trip to Germany. As a result, amongst other things, we are Jonesing bad for a decent pils.

Pils is a broad term in Germany. Depending on the region, it can mean anything from a fairly gently hopped, 4%, golden lager served by the half litre in a chunky krug, to something super-bitter and very pale served in a delicate stemmed glass.

Right now, with the sun shining, we’d happily take a Spital, a Wuerzburger Hofbrau, or a Distelhauser. Anything, really, as long as it had the appropriate level of zing and touch of the Gothic about it.

Even one of our own Eppingwalders would do.

Sigh. Or we could just enjoy being where we are, drinking the excellent beers we do have at hand. But, you know, a craving is a craving...

This wonderful strong wheat beer convinced even Boak, who is not usually a fan of the style.

We were expecting it to be a bit like the Brooklyn/Schneider collaboration but, in fact, this was more Belgian in flavour and aroma, with a  powerful hit of candied orange-peel. Intriguing, that, as it is claims to comply with the purity law.  A skillful use of hops, we think, and we wondered whether it might even be dry-hopped. Of course, it’s just possible that there’s some bending of the ‘law’ going on here.

Even at 6.2%, it’s not heavy going. In fact, we can imagine this being dangerously easy to down on a hot summer’s evening. It’s what more German wheat beers could be with a bit of imagination, without being ‘wacky’ or ‘extreme’.

Lots of people don’t like German-style wheat beers; in fact, this blogging partnership is divided on the issue, with Bailey something of a fan, and Boak being very much a sceptic.

Even if you like a good weizen, Franziskaner is probably not your favourite. Of those you can get easily in the UK we think, somewhat predictably, that Schneider is the one to go for. Our all time favourite is Distelhäuser’s (Würzburg), which gives a fantastic hit of tropical fruit, and especially pineapple.

On Friday night, though, after a two and half hour German lesson, a tall, cold Franziskaner at a mediocre, would-be-trendy pub in Waterloo really hit the spot. It didn’t fit the season — it defied and defeated it.

Extracts from Baedeker’s Handbook for Travellers — Northern Germany (1893 edn.)

Berlin

The somewhat insipid ‘Weissbier‘, once the favourite beverage of the Berliners, is sold by Clausing, Zimmer-Str 80; Kortwich, Friedrich-Str. 94; Stüdemann, Schützen-Str. 5; Haase, Französische-Str. 10; Hahn, Behren-Str. 21.

Brunswick

‘Mumme‘, a sweet and unrefreshing kind of beer made from wheat, is sold by Kniep, Bäckerlint 4; Nettelbeck, Beckenwerper-Str, 26.

Leipzig

Further to the E. is Eutritzsch, where ‘Gose‘, a favourite kind of beer, may be tasted at the Gosenschenke or the Helm.

We’d not tried it before and loved it. There is no smoked malt in the beer but, being brewed in the same building and with the same equipment as their darker smoked beers, it can’t help but pick up a bit of smokiness.

We never got round to writing this up and, in the months since then, we haven’t seen it on sale in Cask. Our favourite London pub has recently, however, even further expanded it’s beer selection and the Helles has popped up again so were able to enjoy a couple of bottles this week.

In fact, if you’re a fan of Rauchbier, Cask now has several different varieties on offer, in addition to the usual suspects from Schlenkerla.

We note there’s been a fair bit of introspection recently in the blogoshire.

A comment on one of our recent posts reminds us of one reason why we do it.

Mike004 doesn’t say in his comment whether he went to Unterzaunsbach because we recommended it, but we do like the fact that, if you Google it, we’re on the first page of results.

Equally, our recent series of posts on Passau may not have set the world on fire in terms of comments, but, before we went on holiday, we struggled find much online to guide us. Hopefully, we’ve done something to help fill that gap and map (sort of) unknown territory for future beer explorers.

Mike004 also pointed out that Peschl stopped brewing in 2008. What on Earth were we drinking if not Peschl? We are confused and would be grateful for any intelligence.