Every time I encounter some Uerige on a liquor store shelf the beer lives up to its style and proves to be older than dirt. And so seeing an altbier of a much more recent vintage plus one that was brewed right here in Wisconsin got me excited. Perhaps more than was warranted.
The odd thing was the beer's name: Alpenwald. I like Alpenwalds as much as the next guy but the altbier's home is Düsseldorf and Düsseldorf is nowhere near the Alps. It's in west central Germany like Eau Claire is here in Wisconsin. Perhaps Americans are only familiar with Southern German culture and so lump everything German into a Bavarian box.
Hinterland brewed Alpenwald Altbier earlier this year as part of their 30th anniversary celebration. I am not sure exactly when it was released but I am thinking that it appeared sometime this past summer. My tardiness in doing a tasting was due to divorce, moving, and, if I am honest, depression; my tardiness in writing a post was due to being very busy and never finding quite the right moment to put things down in the ol' blog.
I don't think I've ever had even a reasonably fresh altbier from Düsseldorf or anywhere else in Germany for that matter so my understanding of the Platonic form of the style is an amalgam of things I've read and American versions I've tasted. I think of it as being malty with an emphasis on a kind of roastiness with little sweetness but not too malty. The hops should be assertive but not completely in your face. It's like the Midwest nice of beers - no extremes and just pleasant all around.
Despite my can not being straight from the canning line, it did have a best by date of 4/20/2026. I've kept it chilled and hope the distributor and Woodman's did too.
This was one gorgeous brew. A big light tan head sat atop the amber liquid which was clear as day. The foam stuck around a fairly long time and so I managed to get a not horrible photograph. There were lots of bubbles inside which made me slightly giddy because I have become a fan of fizz in my middle age. The aroma was of caramel, roastiness, and grass which is what I expected, more or less.
Also as expected was the nice, firm fizziness that complemented the medium-light body. I was pleased that the brew wasn't particularly sweet and that caramel flavor was minimal. It had some of that roasty taste along with a bread-cracker hybrid flavor that was aided and abetted by the addition of rye. All of this was balanced by a nice herbal-grassy hop flavor with a toothsome bitterness.
The malt faded quickly on the swallow and the hops were more than happy to fill the void. There was a nice briskness to the finish, hoppy and bitter but not overly so. Just a fine dry ending.
With an A.B.V. of 4.7% and a fairly mellow malt taste this stuff was very tasty on a warmer fall day. Just as a schwarzbier is often thought of as a black pils, the moniker of brown pils is not wholly unwarranted here. The fairly light body, the soft maltiness, and the zing of the hops all contribute; it's the malt's roastiness that offers a sharp delineation.
Sehr gut even if it comes from Green Bay and not Düsseldorf.
Junk food pairing: I paired my Alpenwald Altbier with a bag of Flint rye crisps (from Ukraine) with Bavarian sausage flavoring and the combo was excellent.
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