Trips to liquor stores in Chicagoland involve not only investigating what the brewers of that region have been up to, but also some of those from St. Louis, namely Schlafly and Urban Chestnut. I suspect there are other breweries' beers from the Gateway to the West at Binny's but the only other brewery whose brews I'd be interested in (that I know of, anyway) come from Civil Life. Alas, they don't seem to distribute to Downers Grove. My autumnal trek to Binny's this year yielded, amongst others, DorfBier, a Bavarian-style Dunkel, from Urban Chestnut. Another member of the Axis of Darkness!
Their brewmaster, Florian Kuplent, hails from Bavaria and keeps the taps flowing with brews that would be right at home at a biergarten in his Heimat. These are in addition to various IPAs and other non-Bavarian styles that no doubt help keep the lights on.
The label for DorfBier - "village beer" - notes that it is the third entry in the brewery's Reverence series which I presume is reserved for Bavarian-style biers brewed using (more or less) Old World methods. And, to the best of my knowledge, Urban Chestnut does brew using decoction so I don't think it's a stretch to assume that this stuff saw some decoction action.
I visited their Midtown outpost several years back on a trip to St. Louis and sampled their Dunkel. It was tasty. But I don't recall having run into it since then and, as my blog entry covering my visit to the taproom says nothing beyond the Dunkel being good, I figure it's time to revisit this brew - even if I cannot revisit St. Louis.
I got a big, light tan head in my glass that lasted. Beneath it the liquid showed off its light amber hue with crystal clarity revealing a modicum of bubbles inside. A toasty-roasty smell reached my nose first and was followed by some caramel and milk chocolate. These scents were topped off with a hint of grassy hops.
A nice fizziness set the stage for a medium-light bodied beer with a lovely bread flavor along with that toasty-roasty thing, caramel, and milk chocolate. Despite using ingredients found in candy bars here, DorfBier had only a mild sweetness. The fizz wasn't Berliner Weisse strength but enough for a gentle astringency. There was a hint of peppery hops loitering in the background. A little milk chocolate sweetness lingered on the front of my tongue on the finish but was soon swept away by a combination of fizzy acidity and a moderate dose of herbal-peppery hops which took my palate down the middle path of dryness and bitterness.
Considering the brewmaster is from Bavaria and apprenticed there, I'd have been shocked if this bier was anything less than extremely reverent and tasty. And it was. It has a nice bread taste to it - decocted? - along with malty flavors from the Dark Side that I just love. Its lightish body and moderate strength - 4.8% A.B.V. - make it an everyday workhorse of a brew. Whether you're at the biergarten, eating a meal, relaxing after work, or in need of refreshment after laboring out in the back 40, DorfBier has got you covered.
Junk food pairing: DorfBier will pair well with many junk foods but I prefer Mrs. Fisher's Dark Potato Chip. Their extra Maillard reactions will complement the dark malt flavors of your DorfBier perfectly.
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