Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock

Brewed by Brauerei Heller
Style: Smoked
Bamberg, Bayern, Germany

Holy cow! This beer smells like Texas barbecue! In the words of my coworker, "it smells like a turkey leg!" After ignoring mumblings of "bacon in a bottle", I poured this unique brew into my glass, with its orange-amber semi-clear color and medium white head. Its smoky, yet not overdone, aroma, combined with its meaty flavor was impressively distinctive. Definitely a sipping beer. It was hard to taste anything outside the smoke. "It’s not bad... iiiiit’s bacon!", I heard as I took my last sip. Certainly something different, and true to my memories of rauchbier samplings in Bamberg. Truly a well done brew.

Bottled. Part of blind tasting, but there was no second guess what this was. Strong aromas of can be most simply put as beef jerky... old leather, meat, bbq. Taste is almost identical to smoked salmon... even leaves the same texture in the mouth. Fun to try.. and damn good! but don’t know how often id be in the mood for this guy.

Bottle pours dark garnet brown with a small head; not much lace. The aroma is of smokehouse pulled pork dinning in. The flavor is malty, chocolate, roasted, smokey, lingering salt on the lips, and a lingering smoke. I swear I just burped up smoke. The palate is nice and rich. Wow, this is nice.

Dec. 2007 - Beer pours dark brown with really good head and lacing. Tremendous aroma of BBQ. The flavor was not as smokey and overpowering as the aroma, but lots of smokey BBQ potato chip flavor with a good hop bitter finish. I’d say this is about as good as it gets for style.

Bottle, Brother Tucker’s. Beefer than the brewery’s more ubiquitous marzen, more substantial palate, saltier, roastier, and fuller-bodied. Quintessential refined rauch intensity. Gorgeous.

Bottle (not sure how many oz, but more than 12). The body is blackish brown. The aroma is smoked salmon, beef jerky, and burnt bacon. The taste is smooth, and roasty. Haha, what a beer.

Bottle. Pours a cola brown with a small foamy white head with fat clear bubbles. Deep mahogany when held up to the light. Aroma is quite smoky, beery, peaty, phenolic, smoked wood. Taste is smooth at first with a huge ashy, charred wood, over the top smoke finish. Definitely intense on the smokiness, which I kind of love. I prefer porters or other dark beers for the base of smoked beers, but the intense smokiness makes me a fan.

(3/14/08) Bottle bought at De Bierkoning and drank at a friends’ house in Amsterdam. Deep amber color with a stable medium beige head. Aroma of smoked sausage (kabanos, salami?) and malt. A rather sweetish flavor with some smoked meat, malt, some caramel and a quite bitter finish. Medium-bodied. Good.