Ayinger Jahrhundert

Brewed by Brauerei Aying
Style: Dortmunder/Helles
Aying, Germany

Bottle. Pours a pale straw yellow with a fluffy white head, leaving some nice lacing. Nose of corn, dried citrus, and that persistent German yeastiness. Flavor was also full of yellow corn, tons of it actually. Finishes off dry and bready.

Great pale yellow color with big malty and grainy aroma and a malty and slightly fruity taste. Not bad, but it didn’t blow me away.

Clear gold, medium roast aroma. Stemmy, briefly sweet like a meyer lemon, finishes with a cereal sweetness, leafy dry.

Bottle. Pours an opaque gold color with a big, nice, frothy white head. Aroma of malts and a little bit of grass. Light bodied. Has a slight bitter finish. Goes down easy. Not bad.

Ayinger’s Jahrhundert is a beastly word for a monolingual American to spell, but as a beer makes for easy drinking. A thick white lacing pins the semi-cloudy and golden beer to the glass. A bright and bubbly body sends out aromatic messengers, bearing an odd scent of botanical mass, a pleasant kind of glue, and a lot like the health supplement and foul tasting spirulina. I absolutely cannot account for my nose on these notes, except that these images were conjured immediately and with vivacity, eagerly pushing me into the taste to see if a beer can indeed be brewed to mimic a foul, teal, foamy health drink. Thankfully, the flavor takes a different tact, tasting a lot like fried plantains, backed by a layer of bitterness. I still find this refreshing, especially despite a lurking nuttiness, but it’s definitely a beer I have to pinch my nose in order to drink.

Appearance is very pale yellow with a fluffy, stable white head. The aroma shows perfumy, lemony hop qualities with an overall sweet malty impression. A well-balanced flavour with bready, slighty honeyish malts and perfumy, herbal hops that shine especially in the finish. Soft bitterness and medium carbonation. A masterpiece of a "simple" beer - malty and noble.

Bottle. Sweet orange and barley malt aroma with just a hint of hops. Golden color with moderate head. Bitter grassy hops dominate with less of a malt flavor. Extremely hoppy for a Helles - very nice.