I’ve been seeking this one for a while, and it’s been a relatively hard beer to acquire for me, but there it was, at Sergio’s in Louisville for $9 to go.

Pour is as one would expect, with an orange brown, dirty pour. Nice head, good sticky lace. Quite turbid due to the yeast and the unfiltered nature of the beer.

Oddly perhaps, the nose has the smoke but also seems a little (blue) ‘cheesy’! A little farmyard in there. Weird.

Smoke is relatively light for Aecht, and the watchword here for the whole beer is balance. It’s very malt forward, but the middle and back end of the palate bring some nicely balanced, bitter hops. Very bready, in the middle of the beer you almost forget that this is smoked, the malts are so prominent.

As the beer warms and smooths out a little, the malts only increase further, getting so far forward that the smoke takes an increasingly muted feel. Don’t get me wrong it’s there, but not aggressively so as in some of Aecht Schlenkerla’s offerings.

Lace and really is very sticky, and the beer feels every inch of its 5.9% too. It has a slightly viscous, rich mouthfeel which is very appealing too.

Delicious beer, and sufficiently peculiar to keep anyone interested.