>A few posts back I declared my intention to try 40 new beers in this, my fortieth year. The first new ones I tried were on the day after my birthday, with the bottles picked up at the Berlin Beer Festival.
1) Černá Hora Pater (bottle): Bubblegum nose, mid gold colour. Toffee notes and a slightly sour “cheap cola” finish. Not unpleasant, but I won’t be heartbroken If I never try it again.
2) Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle Neuzeller Porter (bottle): Sweet, lightly burnt toast nose. Lots of liquorice and black toffee – reminded me of Robinson’s Old Tom. Very enjoyable and very more-ish.
3) Tegernseer Spezial (Herzoglich Bayerisches Brauhaus Tegernsee) (bottle and draught): The colour of august wheat, no discernable nose that I could detect. Clean, crisp. Very slightly tart with short ‘buttercup syrup’ finish. Refreshing. A couple of days later I had this vom fass in Bad Tolz. The waiter claimed it was “best beer in Germany – better than Augustiner!”. While I can’t agree with that, I preferred it to the bottled variety – it was full of sweet malt and fresh grassy-ness (if that’s even a word), and a quite superb swig.
4) Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus Tannenzaepfle (bottle) : Slightly metallic nose. Darkish gold colour. Lots of heavy but quite sweet malt and hoppiness sustained into a long finish. Maybe it’s that wonderful label, but notes of pine and resin kept creeping in. A real mouthful, anyway. I’d brought one bottle with me, only to find that Dan had got in a whole crate. Prost!
Ten-Inch Wheels 
>By God, that's given me a thirst!!!
>That's the idea, affer! Although as usual everyone else on the blogoshire had all these beers years before I did.
>I've only ever had one of those. Tegernseer Spezial looks particularly tasty.
>And, what do you know — I had a bottle of Tegernseer Spezial yesterday, at Cask in Pimlico. It was very nice.
>Cask – Is this the place you blogged about a month or so back? It sounded my kind of place – we're about due a visit to the Tate Brit so we'll have a look (if we don't go by Vespa).
>That's right. Let us know what you think. They also had Schlenkerla Helles (not really smoked, but smoky because the brewery is!) which was incredible.