Ayinger Bräu-Weisse

Posted on 11 March 2012 by Michael Larabel

The beer for enjoying this Sunday afternoon while catching up on work and some other business matters is Ayinger Bräu-Weisse. It’s far from my first time having Ayinger Bräu-Weisse, but it’s a wonderful beer.

Ayinger Bräu-Weisse

Ayinger Bräu-Weisse is from Brauerei Aying, which for the uniformed comes from the Bavarian town of Aying, right outside of Munich. Ayinger Bräu-Weisse is certainly worthy of my recommendation and among my favorite Bavarian Hefeweizen beers. I’ve had all of the Ayinger beers and they’re quite nice. One side benefit for Americans is that Ayinger can be found relatively easy at beer shops in major cities in the United States. There’s a few different shops in Chicago that sell Ayinger without a high premium.

Schweinsbräu Weisse

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Michael Larabel

A new beer that I tried today for the first time was Schweinsbräu Weisse. Recently it was my first time seeing any Schweinsbräu beer, so based upon the interesting name (Schwein is “pig” in German) and interesting label, plus that it comes from Bavaria, I decided to give it a shot.Schweinsbräu is brewed by Riedenburger Brauhaus. This was an interesting beer, but certainly not a favorite. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re a bottle collector and/or wanting a pig on a beer bottle. If you’re into Hefeweizen beers, I would more highly recommend others like Julius Echter, Franziskaner, and Ayinger Weisse.

Augustiner – The Best Munich Beer

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Michael Larabel

As most Phoronix readers know or those that know me personally, Augustiner is my favorite beer. Specifically, Augustiner Helles is wonderful. It’s not the most unique beer or packed with some crazy flavor, but it’s just a clean, wonderful beer that’s good at any time. Augustinerbräu is Munich’s oldest independent brewery and is also extremely popular with the Munich locals.

Augustiner Helles in Munich.

Besides the Helles, Augustinerbräu also serves the Edelstoff, Dunkles, Weißbier, and Maximator (Doppelbock) varieties. The Augustiner Oktoberfestbier is based upon the Augustiner Edelstoff, but still very good. The Augustiner Weißbier is also great and refreshing when in a Munich biergarten.

A patron at Oktoberfest enjoying an Augustiner.

Unfortunately, finding Augustiner in American be a bit of a challenge. There is one distributor in America and they only offer sell the Augustiner Edelstoff and Maximator. The price of either kind in a bar/restaurant can be easily $15~20 USD per glass/bottle or from various beer shops a six pack can go for $20 or more, at least in the Chicagoland area. I’ve seen a few places carrying Augustiner for less in Michigan and California. In Munich and other parts of Germany, a half-liter bottle is only $1~2 USD.

For anyone visiting Munich, trying out Augustiner is a definite must. There’s also some wonderful Augustiner restaurants and biergartens, which I’ll save for another post.

Welcome To Obatzda.com

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Michael Larabel

Welcome to Obatzda.com, this is a sister-site to Phoronix that I’ve been working towards for some time and have now established it and beginning to make it public. As most know who have read my writings on Phoronix.com and elsewhere, met me at various events around the world, or have found out otherwise, I am quite a beer enthusiast when not handling things for Phoronix Media or working on any technology/business projects. Well, it mostly comes down to being a great fan of Bavaria and the wonderful beers, food, people, and events that happen within that great region of Germany.

I’ve tried hundreds of beers from around the world and Obatzda.com will share with you my thoughts on many of them. For each new beer I try, I generally take a photo and take note of my thoughts on the different beer. I’ve been doing this for the past few years so have already amass a large collection of content to share via Obatzda.com (thus be prepared for an onslaught of information in the coming days). This site though isn’t attempting to be just a beer review web-site, since there’s already the wonderful BeerAdvocate and RateBeer web-sites that do a mighty fine job for that purpose.

I’ll also share my thoughts and information about Bavaria, Oktoberfest, and other aspects of the incredible Bavarian culture and other interesting happenings. While it will mostly come down Bavaria/German information and reviews, there’s also other wonderful beers, beer festivals, and other events around the world that I’ve covered. This will be where I’ll share my thoughts on them, rather than having to mix too much beer information with the technology / Linux content on Phoronix.com . For a while when running a blog on MichaelLarabel.com I had written about some different beers as well, but Obatzda.com will be the Phoronix Media web property catered to this delicious beverage and more.

As far as the domain, Obatzda, it’s a unique and wonderful Bavarian cheese spread. It’s commonly eaten with a large pretzel while enjoying a wonderful Bavarian beer. As described on Wikipedia, “Obatzda is a Bavarian cheese delicacy. It is prepared by mixing two thirds aged soft cheese, usually Camembert and one third butter. Sweet or hot paprika powder, salt, pepper are the traditional seasonings. An optional amount of onions, garlic, horseradish, cloves, ground cumin or caraway seeds may be used and some cream as well. The cheeses and spices are mixed together into a smooth mass. It is usually eaten spread on bread or pretzels. Obatzda is a classic example of Bavarian biergarten food.”