Franconian Beer Message Board
Spezial U, Prima Pils, Water, Complaining about Mahr's |
| Posted by Jeff Romain on 2013-09-30 10:48:49 |
| I should clarify: in my mind, there is a major difference between overly yeasty and pleasingly yeasty. If the yeast resembles raw bread dough, dirty dish rag, wet paint, Elmer's glue, concrete, etc., it muddles the body of the beer, weighs things down and obscures the subtleties. This trait is commonly found in many beers here in the USA. But Spezial U exhibits the absolute perfect level of yeastiness, and it's almost entirely imperceptible. To me, it's more of a light pistachio character, or a starchy nuttiness if you prefer. It not only enhances the character of a beer (after all, a Franconian lager without character is not something I am drawn to) and imparts depth/texture. One North American brewery which immediately comes to mind is Rogue: their pacman yeast is completely hit and miss (as are most of their beers, which generally are sloppy and aimless), leaves its signature all over the finished product in a GOOD way, and when the attenuation is dialed-in, it's right in my wheelhouse. I haven't met a single person who agrees with me on Prima, so your sentiments do not surprise me. The prevalent yeastiness of that beer is the perfect example of yeastines gone afoul, in my humble opinion. To me, it comes off as crushed cinderblock in its astringency and is also quite tacky and Elmer's glue-like/mildew/raw bread dough and CHOCK FULL of stinky vitamin B notes. It's almost as if they just dumped yeast in post-fermentation, ick. I must say, if one isn't sensitive to it, it can be one of those things that's difficult to detect (another similar example is burnt popcorn, i.e. "huskiness", odors in roasty beers-- I still have yet to meet anyone who detects this, as they generally associate it with coffee rather than scorched kernels, but to me it's immediately apparent and renders a beer undrinkable for me). But once you start to notice the dirty yeast, it literally becomes nauseating, at least that's the effect it has on me. Pardon me for any typos! This new format is quite strange on my computer. |
| Followups: |
 Spezial U, Prima Pils, Water, Complaining about Mahr's by Uncle Jimbo on 2013-09-30 16:31:44 |