Krombacher

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Price: £2.90

Description 4.8% abv. Krombacher Brauerei is one of the largest privately owned breweries in Germany and ranks number 2 among Germany's best selling breweries. The Krombacher brand was founded in 1803 by Bernhard Schadeberg and has continued to be in the hands of the Schadeberg family for generations. Krombach is a suburb of Kreuztal near Siegen, a small city in a part of Germany called Siegerland, a part of North Rhine-Westphalia. The small town of Krombach is located at the foot of the Rothaargebirge. Krombacher Pils is the most consumed pilsner in Germany. The taste of pilsener beer is quite decisively characterised by the water it is brewed with. Alongside the high-quality ingredients, the secret of the unique taste of Krombacher Pils thus lies, above all else, in the fresh, pure and low-mineral natural spring water it is brewed with. Not strictly a German beer type, Pilsner originated in the Bohemian city of Plzen (or Pilsen) in the mid nineteenth century, and is also referred to as Pils or Pilsener. The light colour of the beer results from the use of lightly toasted malts in contrast to the darker malts previously used in beer. The Germans shortened the name to Pils when the Czech brewers from Pilsen took legal action. Some of the best Pilsners in the world are still brewed in the Czech Republic (try Pilsener Urquell or Budweiser Budvar, for example), but the style has become popular the world over, with poor, industrially brewed imitations from big brands like Stella Artois readily available almost everywhere. The term is heavily overused. Real pilsners should have a distinctively hoppy, flowery nose that becomes apparent as soon as you open the bottle, with a bitter hoppiness to the taste and a dry, lingering finish. With Krombacher Pils you enjoy a distinctive, finely bitter taste and a full-flavoured aroma – this is a genuine premium pilsener beer with an alcohol content of 4.8 %. From a specialist Pilsener brewery in the Rhineland, this claims to be a "pearl of nature" and it certainly tastes clean. It has a very good firm head, a smooth malty aroma with a hint of slightly sweet hops, and a clean malt taste with an almost immediate hit of hops, mellowing out with a hint of melony fruit and then drying again in the finish to a firm back-of-the-mouth grapefruity bitterness with a touch of crisp malt. This beer pairs well  with Japenese and german cuisine, peppery cheeses, appertifs and poultry or fish dishes.