Last
Thursday morning I received a tip off on the
blog, informing me that, as in the past two years,
Lidl’s were once again
retailing presentation packs of
Bavarian Festbiers. I first came across
these packs
two years ago, and having bought one was very pleased with my purchase.
A very similar promotion was offered by
the
German discounter, last year, so receiving notice that these packs were once
again on sale, came as little surprise.
I was determined to grab one of these packs, so after
collecting
Mrs PBT’s from her part-time job, we drove straight down to
Lidl’s where,
after quite a bit of searching, I found a stack of these
Bavarian Festbiers, almost
hidden away, on the lowest shelf of a display unit, towards the rear of the store.
There had been a price increase since last year, as the packs now retail at
£29.99, which is
£5 more than last year, but still excellent value considering
the quality, and pedigree of the beers inside.
I discovered at the checkout, that customers
holding a
Lidl Plus Card were entitled to a further five-pound discount, but seeing
as I don’t possess such a card, I didn’t qualify.
The company behind these packs, is called
Kalea – a name derived from the
Hawaiian
word meaning
“to give joy”. The
Kalea company was founded
in
2010, in
Salzburg Austria, and after starting out with beer
advent calendars, the company expanded and now provides micro and gypsy brewers
with a platform where they can promote their speciality beers. As before,
most of the
beers are marked up as either Märzen or Festbier.
Märzenbier is German for “March beer,”
and is a golden to deep amber lager style with a full body and a moderate
bitterness. It closely resembles Vienna lager, a copper to
reddish brown coloured beer that is characterized by a malty aroma and slight
malt sweetness.
Until the final quarter of the
last century,
Märzen was the
dominant style of beer served at Munich’s Oktoberfest, but gradually the
beer was superseded by Festbier, which although brewed to a similar abv
of around 6% strength, is a more normal golden-yellow in colour. It was
developed by the Munich-based Paulaner brewery during the early 1970’s
and gained rapidly in popularity following its first appearance at the event,
due to it being easy to drink and its attractive appearance. By the 1990’s
all beer served at Oktoberfest was Festbier, and Märzen had been
officially replaced.
There are a number of
Märzenbiers included
amongst the 10 beers that are neatly packed in a sturdy presentation box.
This one-metre-long pack - Boak & Bailey’s description, comes with an integral
carrying handle and with the Bavarian flag emblazoned across the front
of the box, looks every bit the part. I now possess a variety of beers
that are probably hard to come by in
Bavaria (unless you know where to
look), let alone
south east England. I shall certainly enjoy getting
stuck in to these beers during the approaching winter months, but for the time
being I intend leaving the pack unopened.
Finally, there has been a change, involving some of the breweries
represented, with four beers from the original packs dropped, to be replaced by
four new ones, as detailed below:
Original beers:
Wildbräu Grafing - Kirtabier
Märzen 5.7%
Ettl BräuTeisnacher
- 1543 Festmärzen 5.4%
Hohenthanner
Schlossbrauerei - Märzen Festbier 5.6%
Falter – Pichelsteiner
Festbier 5.9%
Kuchlbauer - Gillamoos
Bier 5.2%
Schneider - Festweisse
6.2%
New beers:
Ayinger Festbier Märzen 5.8%
Grantler Festmärzen 5.6%
Rittmayer Annafest Bier 5.6%
Wieninger Festbier 5.8%
Replacing beers from:
Erl Bräu – Erlkönig
Festbier 6.1%
Bischofshof -
Original Festbier 5.4%
Hofbräu - Oktoberfesbier
6.3%
Schlossbrauerei
Irlbach – Irlbacher Premium 5.8%
Enjoy!
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