All Beer Blog

EB Natural Premium Quality Beer

EB is another Polish beer produced by Elbrewery. Elbrewery is the largest in Poland and is owned by Grupa Żywiec. They make many other beers including some beers I have reviewed (Leżajsk beer, Tatra beer and Żywiec beer). They have the biggest market share in Poland and have some of the best beers.

EB beer was pretty good. Apparently it is marketed to younger beer drinkers in Poland. It poured a nice golden color, a bit on the darker side for a light Polish beer. The smell was of grains and malt, similar to most Polish beers. The taste was the same, very good when cold. Very refreshing. At 5.2% alc/vol, it wasn’t too heavy and didn’t taste like alcohol.

As you can see, the head was pretty prolific. I have read other beer reviews that stated this beer didn’t have head, this is untrue. Maybe those who had EB with no head got old bottles or stale beer(?). If anyone knows why a beer wouldn’t have head, please leave an explanation in the comments section. Back to the beer, the head stuck around for a minute and dissipated but never disappeared. It had a nice mixture of large and small bubbles; good carbonation, not overbearing. It sat well in my stomach when I was done drinking it.

All in all, I give this beer a 6/10. Not the best out of the Polish beer ratings and it wasn’t the best Polish beer I’ve ever had but it also wasn’t the worst. In Chicago, you can find it pretty much anywhere where there are a lot of imported beers sold; find a good liquor store. As I mentioned, it was pretty refreshing when cold. I assume if it were lukewarm or not cold it would be a bit hard to drink, grain isn’t the best taste. I suggest you try it if you are looking for a relatively new Polish beer to drink.

Regards!

Na zdrowie!

Leżajsk Beer

Leżajsk is another Polish beer. I couldn’t find much information about this beer other than it is named after a small town in southeastern Poland. The brewery is located in the town and it is a very small operation. They don’t even have a website, but they do have a Facebook. I bought a four pack of 500ml bottles at a Polish deli on the Northwest Side, Gene’s Deli and Shop (Belmont/Long), they have a lot of imported beers.. If you haven’t been to or heard of this deli, I suggest you go; you won’t be disappointed, they have every possible Polish food product you could want (especially sausage)! Go with a Polish speaker otherwise you won’t be able to communicate very well.

Back to the beer, it was pretty average. Nothing special, but I will say that it was quite refreshing because it was the first hot day here in Chicago in a while. As you can see, it poured a somewhat hazy gold-colored lager. The smell was like most Polish beers, some grains and malt were present. It tasted the same, surprisingly very light. At 5.5% alc/vol, it didn’t taste bad because of alcohol content. I mentioned I bought it at a Polish deli, I also bought some Kielbasa Wiejska. It went great with the sausage.

You can see it poured a pretty nice head, very white and a good mixture of small and large bubbles. It lasted a few minutes and dissipated to a very thin layer on top of the beer, which didn’t stick around. Like I mentioned earlier, this beer was lighter than it appears, this allowed me to drink a couple 500ml bottles.

All in all I give this beer a 7/10! It was definitely not the best beer I’ve ever had but if you are looking for something not out of the ordinary, try Leżajsk. It was rather light and had a pleasant taste that sat well in my stomach. Not a bad beer rating but you could choose to drink something a little more flavorful. I also suggest you drink it while eating some Polish food, specifically Kielbasa Wiejska.

Regards!

Na Zdrowie!

Tatra Beer

Tatra is a Polish beer, and a great one at that!  I don’t know that much about this beer other than the fact that it is made by Żywiec Brewery. I had never heard or seen it before so I had to buy it. They pride themselves upon being a mountain beer. It is named after the mountains in Southern Poland. They have a website, which has a really cool embedded flash, with little information about the beer and it is all in Polish.

The other bottles I have seen were all in Polish, they must be marketing to Americans because this bottle was all written in English. The beer itself was great. I was surprised with how much flavor it actually had. I was expecting it to taste like Żywiec Lager but it didn’t. The label on the beer is right, it’s beer with character. It poured a great golden color that was a bit darker than most Polish beers. The smell was of hops and malt, pretty strong. The taste was the same and again it was pretty strong. It is 6% alc/vol but you don’t notice any alcohol until you are finished with the beer. I think it tasted great, not like other Polish beers; was more distinct, definitely can taste the hops but it wasn’t bitter because of the malt.

Tatra had some thick and full head. I read some other reviews and they said that the head dissipated quickly. I had a 500ml bottle and this head stayed as it looks in the above picture the whole time I drank it. As you can see, it is a mixture of large and small bubbles. It left great lacing along the side of the glass as well.

All in all, I give this beer an 8/10! It is one of the better beer ratings; I really liked it and I am definitely going to get some more of it this upcoming weekend. I had it on Polish Constitution Day (May 3rd) in celebration! We also had a barbecue, it went great with ribs! Like I mentioned earlier, I had never heard of or seen it before here in Chicago so I don’t know where else you could find it, besides Poland that is. I would suggest that if you see it pick it up, probably sold in places with a lot of imported beer.

Na zdrowie!

Regards!

Paulaner Salvator Doppelbock

I apologize for the poor quality of the photo, I was in a bar and had to use the camera on my phone.

Paulaner Salvator is a German beer. Their brewery, Paulaner, is located in Munich. It has been around since the 1600s and was originally maintained by Minim friars, an order of Catholic Monks. Apparently this is a pretty popular beer over in Germany, I can see why it’s very good!

The beer is a dark caramel color, almost brown. It smells a bit fruity and tastes the same, plus a toffee or caramel flavor. By fruit I do not mean citrusy like other beers, and you get a taste of toffee/caramel (maybe?). I couldn’t put my finger on it but whatever it was it was very good! The beer is 7.9% alc/vol and you can taste it, it tasted great to me; it didn’t bother me that you could taste the alcohol because of the accompanying flavors.

Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the image.

As you can see the head was thin and pure white. It dissipated in a couple of minutes and left a bit of residue on the side of the glass. If you could make out the bubbles, you would see they are all very small.

All in all I give this beer a 9/10! This is the highest rated beer thus far at All Beer Blog. It deserves it, this beer tasted great, had a lot of alcohol in it and sat well in my stomach. I would definitely recommend you try this imported beer the next time you want something good to drink with your meal.

Regards!

Delirium Nocturnum

Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the image; it was taken with a camera phone.

Delirium Nocturnum is a Belgian ale beer review.  Their brewery, located in Ghent (Belgium),  has been brewing beer since the 1600’s making it over 400 years old! They have pretty much perfected the brewing process because this beer is triple fermented!

As you can see, this beer is dark. Very dark to be specific, it has a slightly reddish tint to it but mostly dark brown. This was the first time I had Delirium Nocturnum so I was interested in seeing what it tasted like.

The taste was different. It was like nothing I have ever tasted in a beer before, I want to say fruity. I think it tasted like wine a bit, not my favorite taste, and it stayed in your mouth long after. The beer is 8.5% alc/vol but I didn’t taste the alcohol, just fruit. The smell was the same, quite different from any other beer I’ve had.

I don’t have another picture of this since we went to a bar for it. The head was think and stayed that way until you drank the beer. It was a bit off-white and lasted until it was touched.

All in all, I give this beer an 8/10! It’s one of the better beer ratings; this is because it’s simply different from all of the other imported beers I’ve had. I have never seen or heard of this before so I can’t recommend a place to purchase it other than the bar I went to, The Beer Bistro (I will review this bar in a future post, when I have pictures of it). I would definitely suggest trying this out if you like Belgian ales, or if you are looking for something that is definitely unique.

Regards!