DECADES OF CONSISTENCY – BAMBERG’S KEESMANN HERREN-PILS
Keesmann Herren-Pils, Bamberg, Germany Abv 4.5 – 4.6
We first tasted Keesmann Herren-Pils in 1982. Our ratings were pretty green back then and very few of the top rated beers from our first few years of taking notes remain on our “top” lists. This is one that has held up remarkably well over the years.
Yesterday we reviewed Wilde Rose Keller Bier. Some of the blogs we read suggested that Keesmann might be brewing the Wilde Rose beers. The Wilde Rose Pils and the Keesmann Pils are both sold in the Wilde Rose garden; I don’t know why we didn’t take the chance to taste them side by side. Since a great many excellent palates on both sides of the Atlantic still admit to guessing where the Wilde Rose beers come from, we rather doubt that it’s Keesmann, but it certainly could be. Wilde Rose is a big enough garden and Keesmann is a small enough brewery, that even if Wilde Rose obtains its pils from Keesmann, it might not be the same as their Herren-Pils.
Whatever the case, Keesmann makes one of the best pilsner beers in the area. We had a chance to sample it at Bamberg’s Canalissimo festival in 2013. Read our “Hopping Around” post this week for more about that festival, but it was a wonderful chance to taste a beer in a great atmosphere. Might our rating have been inflated by that great atmosphere? –We’ve always maintained that where one tastes a beer matters almost as much as what beer we’re tasting—that’s really the premise of our book. But a tasting at the brewery produced very nearly the same description. Keesmann brews very well
Tasting notes: Spicy, floral and earthy hops sparkle over a very clean pale malt. Pilsners are usually quite clean, but this seemed exceptionally so. Hopping in German pilsners, especially in Bavaria, can vary, but Keesmann makes sure the hops are a big part of the clean moreish finish.
Food Pairings: A few hundred yards from the Keesmann’s beer stand at Bamberg’s Canalissimo fresh fish roast over open coals. The only conundrum is whether to let the beer warm up walking to the fish or the fish cool off walking to the beer. Review #0078 20170203