Waltzing back in

After a two-year hiatus, New Year trips are back on the agenda. Vienna, as a city that puts a lot of effort into celebrating the event, had been high on my list for a while. And it didn't disappoint: there was a proper party atmosphere in the streets, lots of live entertainment, hot wine and no drunken idiots with explosives. All good clean Teutonic fun.

My first Vienna lager on arrival was Ottakringer Original, one of the mainstream brands but one I've quite possibly never had before. The brewery, not far from where we were staying, is a large independent, competing mostly with Heineken's local brands. The beer is a beautiful copper colour and given plenty of body from its 5.3% ABV. Its flavour opens on the rich melanoidins which I associate most with the style, but cleans that sweet side quickly, leading to a drier and crisper finish. There's a tiny peep of grassy noble hops at the end, making it clear that the malt doesn't get everything its own way. I liked it, finding it characterful yet accessible. I deem it a perfectly acceptable industrial flagship for the city and the beer style it gave the world.

There's another copper-coloured lager in the range: Ottakringer Zwickl Rot, though because it's unfiltered it presents more as a muddy brown than shiny metal. I found it on draught in The Long Hall, a modern and airy Irish pub with pleasingly minimal paddywhack trappings. It tastes nowhere near as dirty as it looks, delivering a burst of sweet caramel up front, leading swiftly to a perfectly clean lager finish. It's not very exciting or complex, but it's 5.2% ABV so provides a merry buzz with minimal effort. Another essential service from the local bigboy. 

At the opposite end of the trip I finally found a pub with its brandmate Ottakringer Helles on tap, which promptly ran dry when I ordered it so I ended up paying over the odds at the airport shop to complete the set. It's surprisingly good for something that has been sitting in a green glass bottle in an airport fridge: not a trace of skunking. There's not much hopping in general, mind. It's plain, broadly sweet, and has a touch of the plasticky tang that I associate with hop extract in industrial beers from this part of the world. As a refreshing pint of lager which needs serve no other purpose, it's fine. Little asked and little offered. Original is the one to go for of these three.

Big O doesn't have the Vienna lager market to itself. I also found Hirter 1270 from Privatbrauerei Hirt, claiming to be the oldest in the country. I can't be too angry with their marketing bullshit because the beer is lovely: much darker and sweeter than I would expected from a Vienna lager, with overtones of Czech tmavý, I thought. There's runny caramel with a burnt edge plus wafts of floral pipe tobacco and no real bitterness. Like many a Czech dark lager it runs the risk of turning overly sweet but just manages to avoid it. While it's not what I thought I was in for, this one is very enjoyable.

Of course, all the mainstream Germanic beer styles are well represented in the beers available in Vienna. At one point we found ourselves in a branch of Centimetre, a small chain of restaurants that seems to specialise in massive portions of meat and carbs, served by the wheelbarrow if you like. Tragically, it wasn't dinnertime, so just a couple of beers then.

For me, Stiegl's Bio-Bock, russet coloured and a bock to its bones, syrupy of texture, sticky-sweet in the foretaste, followed by a hard green bitterness, laying on cabbage and spinach in a way that feels like it should be good for you. Thankfully it finishes quickly so the sugar doesn't cloy but I still found it hard work to get through. I occasionally feel guilty about not really liking bock, and make a point of calibrating my palate when occasions like this arise. I definitely still don't like bock.

For m'lady, a dunkel. Specifically Hofbräuhaus Traunstein Dunkel, imported from a small town just over the border in Bavaria. It's brown and a little bit murky, smelling of vegetal noble hops but giving the dark malt free rein in the flavour for notes of soft caramel and spicy cola. It's beautifully smooth and poised, balancing its dominant sweet and recessive bitter sides very well. There's a comforting wholesome warmth about it as well, suited to the fake-ski-lodge vibe of Centimetre.

I bought Schremser Roggen randomly from a Spar, though if I'd noticed the green glass or two-weeks-ago expiration date I might not have. It looks rye-ish enough, being murky and amber coloured. 5.2% is the ABV. There's a touch of skunkiness in the aroma, and also a very Belgian mix of farmyard funk and stonefruit esters. A glance at the label tells me it's warm-fermented, and I would say very warm indeed. It gets even sweeter on tasting, piling in unfermented wort and concentrated honey, plus the kind of buttery popcorn effect one gets from very sweet weissbier. There's absolutely no sign of rye's bittering or drying qualities, only a pinch of damp grass in the finish. This isn't at all what I though I would be getting, and I'm not sure that the age is a factor in what went wrong. Who is buying a rye beer and is then pleased when it's monstrously sweet?

Heineken does need to get a word in before we leave, and here's their ubiquitous Edelwiss, sampled at the airport on the way home. It's pale and surprisingly clear, perhaps because it was on keg rather than bottled, rolled and poured as it would be in more civilised surroundings. It's a very sweet example of a weissbier, adding oodles of toffee to the already jangling banana. That's the lane it picks and where it stays, offering no further complexity. Your tongue would need to be hanging out for a weissbier to pick this one, but then it probably doesn't get served in many places where choice is an option. Thanks again, Heineken.

That's the basics covered. but Vienna has much else to offer the more adventurous beer drinker. We'll start taking a look at that tomorrow.