Le Votre: Black Beer (China: Dunkel: 4.7% ABV)
Visual: Cloudy and brown with a thin browned head.
Nose: Malt chocolate. Cocoa. Light chalk.
Body: Roasted. Nuts. Cola bottle sweets. Light chalk. Slightly light. Slight charring.
Finish: Roasted. Malt chocolate. Slight liquorice. Chalky feel. Cocoa dust. Light charring. Low level bitterness and hops. Hop oils.
Conclusion: There seems to be a lot of lagers around China, with each region seeming to have a different common bottled pale lager, and a lot of places have their own lagers brewed for their taps it seems. So, here at Le Votre I decided to do notes on their dark beer – hadn’t tried a dark lager yet this trip.
It is fairly middle of the road – better than a lot of the inoffensively dull pale lagers I’ve run into though – a lot of the pale lagers feel like they are designed to be wet backgrounds to a meal than have any real flavor themselves. This at least does have flavor.
This has a mild roasted base, with low level malt chocolate backing and touches of cola bottles and liquorice. There seriously have been a lot of liquorice touched beers this trip. There is low level but present bitterness and hop character, which makes this feel like it is a German inspired dark lager – which make sense considering how popular German beers are in the local region. It similarly has light noble hops oily feel on the way out, further enhancing the comparison.
It is slightly light at the start, but gains just enough weight to the mouthfeel over time. It is a bit too chalk touched for the lower weight though, so it never quite balances it perfectly. The best part is definitely the finish, as the air roams the mouth it seems to have more time to develop tasty hop oil and chocolate notes that never seem to find their way in the mid body.
A better beer to enjoy alongside a meal than most here, in that you can enjoy it for its own flavours – an average stand alone beer though. Not bad, not great, just a dark lager.
Background: Turns out Yangshuo has more of a beer scene than my initial research suggested. Ratebeer listed only Le Votre restaurant, which where I tried this, and a quick google only found a few more. Turned out the place if packed with bars – a lot concentrating on import beer – especially from Germany with a couple concentrating on craft beer – but there are a few local brewpubs as well. I decided to do notes on this one as a representative of the many local breweries around the country that basically brew their own lager (sometimes just pale, sometimes a dark lager as well) – it is fairly common for an area to have its own locally brewed lager, often tied to a restaurant, even if there isn’t really any other beer scene. So – here I grabbed the dark lager. When I was trying to ask about the abv I was unable to get the question across despite my best mime attempts, so this info was taken from googling after getting back.
