Aventinus on a winter evening!

With a name like Zimmerman, my attraction to German beer is obvious. The whole German atmosphere of drinking beer out of large steins, sitting in a beer garden, listening to the oompa band is a fantasy just too good to be true. For some that may seem like a weird fantasy, but for those of you reading this, I hope you agree that cold, full mugs of German beer can’t mean anything but a good time.

The German’s have three styles of beer that I really enjoy. Octoberfest beer, whether it be from Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr or Spaten, brings a huge smile to my face with the very first sip each end of September. Bock beer, a strong, often dark lager, that I enjoy every winter and Hefe-Weizen, a German wheat beer style, that makes the summer months that much more enjoyable.

What if you were able to combine the best parts of two of the above styles? Take the dark bock beer and make it with wheat. Strengthen the alcohol content by twice, bottle ferment the beer with a pure, top fermenting yeast that settles on the bottom of the bottle, and what you would have is an Original Wheat Doppelbock Ale.

Aventinus, Germany’s Original Wheat Doppelbock Ale is 8.0% alcohol with a deep, dark brown color. This beer gives you the best of both worlds. A strong, dark beer with tastes of wheat and cloves. Aventinus is a warming beer that will take the chill out of you on a winter evening. I had two bottles of Aventinus with a hearty Shepard’s Pie I had made. They tasted great together. I know what you are saying, “How could you cross German beer with English / Irish food?” Bock beer tends to go great with meat, like pork, so, I stretched a bit and had it with loads of ground steak in the pie. It worked for me.

Aventinus is brewed by Germany’s famous Schneider & Son Brewery, makers of one of the best German Wheat Beers on the market, Schneider-Weiss. Aventinus was first brewed in 1907 in Munich. On the label of the bottle is an illustration of Johannes Aventinus, the person who first gave a description of Baveria. For more information on Aventinus, visit the brewery’s website at http://www.schneider-weisse.de/ .