2016 Advent Beer 2: Bavarian Winter

Today's selection comes from Camba Brewing, in Bavaria, appropriately enough. Unfortunately, when I poured the beer with the same angle as yesterday, it generated far more head, resulting in a bit of urgent foam slurping on my part, as well as a bit of spillage.

Bavarian Winter has the same lack of translucency as yesterday's APA, but tends more towards the orangey part of the gold spectrum in its cloudiness. The head, as already mentioned, is robust. The aroma is not terribly pungent but is fresh and citrusy, with zesty oranges taking the lead.

Unsurprisingly, from a beer with a hop flower featured prominently on the label, it is a very hop-forward beer, but not dauntingly so. There is an appropriate amount of carbonation and a clean mouthfeel, which, accompanied by the Centennial, Cascade, Chinook, and Citra hops, makes for a most refreshing beer. At 5.8% abv, it runs a little hot, but not in any distressing fashion.

It takes very little effort to imagine Bavarian Winter pairing excellently with seafood, particularly a planked salmon on a bed of orange slices, garnished with brown sugar and garlic.

The theme of this year's calendar is 'New World Beers, Old World Countries', and getting a Pacific Northwest Style IPA from Germany is probably a fair harbinger of things to come. Hopped-up fare like this is all the rage in North American brewing right now, and seeing some European takes on the style will be a treat. I've always been more of a malt-favourer myself, so I hope to see some darker styles as well. I would be willing to bet we encounter a couple of Russian Imperial Stouts or other high ABV beers as we continue our journey to Christmas Eve, and probably a couple of flavoured offerings that would have been considered heretical on the continent not long ago. I'm sure this voyage of discovery will be joyful either way, though.