You won’t find many contemporary versions and Ayinger is up there. Hallertau hops bring balance to this bottom-fermented brew.Ī Marzen (or March Beer) was traditionally brewed in March then aged until October, just in time for serving at Oktoberfest. This Helles is brewed with in-house barley malts that include Helles light caramel and pilsner. Its flavor is mild and dry with a soft, bubbly mouth-feel. The carbonation is good and tingles your senses with the mingled aroma of honey, lemon, and grassy florals. It’s a straw-yellow beer with a delicate nose. This Munich-style beer has an ABV of 5.2% and an IBU of 22. This Helles lager is brewed by Augustiner Bräu, a German brewery that’s been around since 1621. But Helles are pale, full-bodied, and mostly filtered. And all Helles are bocks … which are also lagers. All pilsners are lagers, for example (but not vice versa). Like most German beers, this hefe has a thick, stable head and lots of lace. Each serving – about half a liter – carries 215 calories. The sweetness mainly comes from the yeast. But puzzling as the scent maybe, this beer has won multiple international awards. Plus, if heritage matters to you, this is the world’s oldest brewery (1040AD).įruity flavors come from strange places ( particularly bubblegum/banana). This may come from the saccharine hints in its aroma – banana and bubblegum. But Weihenstephan has a distinctly sweet palate. Hefe’s often have a bitter aftertaste from all that unfiltered haze. It’s a style of cloudy German wheat beer brewed with yeast. A lot of these can be ordered on Amazon or Drizzly, but for the rest, you may need new German friends … The Best German Beer List 1. Then we can check out some of the best German beer brands – preferably brands we can sip on US shores. Start by getting familiar with the most common beer categories.

And a lot of American brewers got their start in Deutschland. Still, if you ask the average person which country they associate with beer, they’ll probably say Germany. And here at home, Milwaukee is Beer Central. They say Brussels (in Belgium) is Europe’s beer capital.

German grapefruit beer