HB Tegernsee: Tegernseer Hell Alkoholfrei (Germany: Low Alcohol: 0.5% ABV)
Visual: Clear yellow gold body. Moderate amounts of small bubbled carbonation. Very large mounded white head that leaves suds.
Nose: Bread dough to fresh crusty white bread. Clean hop oils. Light palma violets.
Body: Light chalk. Clean hop oils. Light bready. Peppery bitterness. Very gentle vanilla. More vanilla as it warms.
Finish: Moderate hop bitterness. Peppery. Clean hop oils. Brown bread. Light chalk.
Conclusion: Lagers, while for years the primary alcohol free beer, seem surprisingly hard to do well without the booze.
While this does have some of the low alcohol beer off tells, it does a lot better than most. Let’s get the main tell out of the way first. The beer is lightly chalky, I don’t know why this shows up in so many low alcohol lagers but is a mild rough touch here.
Apart from that a general breadiness is more obvious than in most full fat lagers, I guess due to less working against it. Not a bad note, more a neutral one.
Right, with that out of the way, onto the good stuff. Hop usage is a good place to start – a nice hop oil sheen that helps against the light chalkiness. Similarly a decent peppery hop bitterness, especially in the finish which provides a more welcome style of roughness. For a low abv beer it uses hop bitterness well without feeling aggressively harsh and painful as they can when they have nothing to work against.
Early on, when chilled, the vanilla is very muted. Fine, but muted. As it warms it becomes more evident and a nice release.
Overall it is fairly simple flavor wise showing mainly hop oils, bitterness and some of that palma violet noble hop style, but it is aggressively drinkable. The off notes from low alcohol are minimal and mostly offset.
Not a showstopper but deffo on the better end of low alcohol lager.
Background: Not seen the alcohol free version of this beer before. In fact Chris from Independent Spirit pressed it into my hands as it is not one you normally get to see in the UK. Since I was on a low alcohol kick at the time after some heavy ones, it seemed a perfect one to do some notes on. Music wise went for Paradise Lost: Ascension. Such a great album, and brings weight even if there is no alcohol.
