It's Monday night, and my fridge is beginning to look a bit sparse again as I have gone shopping in about a week. Lucky for me there is a Lakers game on T.V. tonight and some of my friends are willing to come out with me and share a few beers. We've come to The Yardhouse, which is a restaurant and bar famous for it's selection of over 150 different beers on tap to choose from. If I really wanted to, I could easily knock out almost half of my yearly beer schedule at this bar alone, but let's be honest, I'm too cheap and most nights I'd rather just watch T.V. on the couch with my girlfriend than drag myself to a bar and pay like four times as much. But for tonight anyway, I'm here with a small group of friends, skimming over the daunting selection from the menu before me and trying to narrow it down to just one beer. So I ask my friend Drew to pick one for me at random, and his finger lands on Warsteiner Dunkel.
Warsteiner....Warsteiner... I know that name, I'm sure I've heard of it before, but where? I think about it for a minute or two and it comes to me; Oktoberfest! Ja Wohl!
Ah... is there anything I look forward to more than a good Oktoberfest? There's not a drop of German blood in me, but as soon as I hear that polka music, see wenches in leiderhosen doublefisting pitchers of cold beer and smell those greasy bratwursts cooking up on the grill, I feel like I'm right at home. The Germans perfected the modern formula by which most lagers and pilsners are still made with today, but Warsteiner Dunkel is a dark ale. I've had a few of Warsteiner's more standard lagers in the past, so I was curious to see how the Dunkel compared. I knew that Warsteiner Dunkel was an ale, but I didn't expect the beer to be so dark in color. It looked more like an Irish stout than a German ale, but I'm a big fan of the darkest of beers so I wasn't about to complain. Warsteiner Dunkel has a robust scent that belied the black tint of the beer. During my first sip, my tastebuds were overwhelmed by an intense sweetish fruity flavor that rode seem to ride the crest of the standard bitter edge that comes with a dark ale. At first I didn't mind it so much, but I had made the mistake of ordering a"half yard" of Warsteiner Dunkel, which calculates to aboout 2 and 1/2 to 3 standard pints, all in one large glass. By the end of the half yard, I was really sick of that weird fruity twist that had intrigued me at first, and I just wanted it to be gone. All in all, Warsteiner Dunkel wasn't all that bad for me. I guess the key would simply be moderation.
Prost!
Ian
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