The Ultimate NCAA Tournament Bracket of German Beers

About one year ago, to launch the Schnitzelbahn blog, we took 64 German beers (available in Munich, our home) and arranged them into a bracket like the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  The "regions" were loosely defined as:

16 helles
16 weissbier  (although the "selection committee" had to send a few Oktoberfest beers here)
16 pilsner
16 dunkel & other styles

The starting bracket looked like this (click for larger version):

Some beers were from large firms and are available all over Germany (and beyond).  Others were local.
Some beers were expensive, but one Munich helles costs just € 0.39 a bottle - much cheaper than water! 

For a little background, we wrote posts to introduce some of the styles and specific beers in the bracket:
- This was the very first post to kick things off
- Here we explain the differences between a Munich helles (a lager) and weissbier (an ale)
- In this post and this post we match beers with well-known universities/teams in NCAA basketball

So, with our faithful friends, we would test four beers per evening.  Each of the two pairs was tasted blindly.
The two winners were then pitted against each other -- basically Round 1 and Round 2 run back-to-back.
(In this case, "winner" simply meant "the beer I liked the best" - a subjective voting, but good enough.)

And yes, this tournament also had strong favorites, underdogs, and upsets along the way.
You can relive the action in our posts below:

Rounds 1 and 2

Helles Region                                                                       Weissbier Region

Day 1                                                                                          Day 1

Day 2   (featuring Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr)       Day 2  ("kristall" weissbiers)

Day 3   (featuring Andechs monastery beers)               Day 3  ("naturtrub" style beers)

Day 4                                                                                          Day 4  (weissbier vs. Oktoberfest)

Pilsner Region                                                                     Dunkel / other Region

Day 1                                                                                          Day 1

Day 2  (the "Power Pils")                                                       Day 2

Day 3  (featuring "export"-style beers)                            Day 3  (featuring the higher-alcohol "starkbiers")

Day 4                                                                                          Day 4  (also includes Oktoberfest style beers)

Sweet Sixteen round

Helles  and  Pilsner regions

Weissbier  and  Dunkel/other regions

The Elite Eight, Final Four, and the Final

This is what the final bracket looked like (again, click for full size version):

We had a blast doing this "beer tournament" and hope you enjoyed reading about it.

For more interesting posts about Germany & beer, click our Navigation categories on this page's top/right side.

Thanks for visiting!

The German Beer Wars Final

And so we reach the end of our 64-beer tour....

After some blowouts and some close calls, we find ourselves with 8 beers remaining:

The Helles Region:
Battling for the regional championship, we have Andechs Bergbock Hell (darker and stronger than a true helles) vs Löwenbräu Orginal.

It really wasn't a fair fight...Though the Löwenbräu had shocked everyone with its success, it couldn't stand up to the rich taste and extra alcohol of the Bergbock Hell and lost 2 votes to 7. The most common comment was that it tasted like water compared to the Andechs. Perhaps it would have done better against a similar beer or would have done better on a hot summer day rather than a cold winter night...but those are the rules in a single elimination bracket tourney. Auf wiedersehen, Löwenbräu!  

The Pils/Export Region:
In this round, we ended up with two diverse beers - Hassröder Premium Pils (previously unknown to us, but we found tastier than all of the well-known Pilsners) vs Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier. This one was a close one, coming down to the last couple of votes. It was truly a back and forth game, but Andechs came out on top by one vote.

The Weißbier Region:
Interestingly, we ended up on both ends of the weißbier spectrum: the unfiltered Andechs Weissbier Hefetrüb vs Paulaner's filtered Weissbier Kristalklar.

 In the end, the traditional weißbier beat out it's unfiltered cousin, by a margin of 6 to 3. The Kristalklar had surprised us all, but it couldn't compete with the real thing.

The Dunkel Region:
Here we have two powerful beers - Erdinger Dunkel (a dunkelweißbier) vs Paulanar Salvator, the famous starkbier.
Another buzzer beater, Salvator won the matchup by one vote. This one really came down to preference. As we're now in the middle of Starkbier season, we'll soon have a special starkbier mini-tournament to see if there's a better one than Salvator. Luckily Salvator is available year-round!

So we find ourselves (not surprisingly) with an all-Bavarian Final Four:

Andechs Bergbock Hell vs Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier
and
Andechs Weissbier vs Paulaner Salvator   

 

 (we had some tasty chocolate chip cookies from my chocolate chip stash!)

Andechs Bergbock Hell vs Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier:
Yet again, the monks' tasty brew blows away the competition - 7 votes to two! A pretty large margin this far in the tournament. Again, nothing could stand up to the rich (but not heavy like a dunkel or starkbier) taste of the Bergbock Hell.

Andechs Weissbier vs Paulaner Salvator 
While this one wasn't quite a blowout, it wasn't so close either...There's a reason weißbier is so beloved in Bavaria - it just has a really pleasing taste, and a full-bodied feel. Salvator, of course, is very full-bodied (it originated as bread in a glass!), but it doesn't have the feel in your mouth that the more carbonated weißbier does. 6 to 3, Andechs.

The Final Match

We've loved Andechs beers in general since discovering the monastery, but we never could have predicted an all Andechs final. Remember, folks, this was all blind tasting (as best as we could), and involved many different groups of people throughout the tournament. And here we are:

As we had predicted, this final contest would come down to a matter of preference for beer type. While we do have a winner, it was another competition that came down to the last vote...5 to 4, for the Weissbier Hefetrüb.

Though the Weissbier wins the overall tournament, it could have been different with a different crowd. So, we'll just crown Andechs the winner of the First Schnitzelbahn Beer Tournament. (with my crown from Oktoberfest).
 

We do realize it was highly weighted toward Munich area beers, but it makes sense that we start with learning about the beers in our area. We have some plans for further tournaments, either having mini-tourneys, or branching out into non-German beers. We're always open to suggestions, volunteers, and if anyone wants to hold a US beer tournament, we'd love to hear about it!  

Here's the full final bracket (click on it to enlarge):

Sweet Sixteen Matches - Weissbier and Dunkel

Having selected the four representatives from the Helles/Pils half of the beer tournament, we moved to the other side to select the top four from the Weissbier and Dunkel regions.

Again we invited friends to help with the voting, and made a hearty beef stew to help absorb some of the alcohol...we knew anything with Dunkel, Oktobefestbier and Starkbier involved was potentially dangerous!

We began the games with a contest between two variations on Weißbier - Löwenbräu's Löwenweisse (a traditional unfiltered weißbier and another underdog victory for Löwenbräu*) vs Paulaner's Weissbier Kristallklar, which was like discovering a new style of beer. Equally shocking was the outcome - the Kristallklar pulled out another victory! What was most fun was hearing the reactions of our German friends.  Germans (especially in Bavaria, which has such a long and rich tradition) are very traditional and reacted to the kristallklar weissbier much like people reacted to Crystal Pepsi:  that's not what it's supposed to look like!  That's why we had everyone taste the contestants "blind".  In fact, by filtering the weissbier, it becomes a little less "mouthy" and a little fresher, almost riding the fence between a weiss and the beloved helles.  It took the contest by a clear 2/3 margin and left many scratching their heads, saying "I voted for a kristalweissbier???" Luckily, we have seen our friends since and the Free State of Bavaria ("Freistaat Bayern") has not revoked their citizenship for liking a filtered weissbier.

* Question: Is it correct to call something an underdog when it's this big and commercial? But really, Müncheners give Löwenbräu the short shrits and NO ONE thought it would get anywhere in the tourney...

Next up we had another traditional weissbier vs a dunkler weizenbock. After beating out all the other unfiltered weißbier, Andechs' Weissbier Hefetrüb took on the Erdinger Pikantus, which had blown away its weißbier and oktoberfestbier competion.

(Note:  At this stage in the tournament, we were past the point of comparing beers of the same style.  This changes the dynamics of the tasting... even more than before, votes represent preferred rather than better beer.  We noticed a few people vote against a style that generally is not to their taste, but most tasters appreciated all beer types and voted for the best of that moment beer.)

 

In this case, our tasters appreciated the Erdinger, but the smoothness and balance of the Andechs again delivered a convincing victory.  That has been the story of Andechs in this competition - the Andechs beers just work.  Maybe it's the water and water treatment they use, maybe they have exceptional braumeisters, maybe God really does want a monestary to win. Who knows?  But from the first hit on the tongue to the finish, this Andechs is a beer your can savor as a rich brew but not get taste fatigue after an entire bottle.  The vote istelf was about 80/20 for the Andechs Weissbier.

After the above matches, we're left with a future battle between Andechs' unfiltered weissbier vs Paulaner's filtered kristallweissbier for the champion of the weissbiers...a VERY important trophy in weissbier-loving Bavaria!

 

 

The Pikantus tasting was a good transition toward the darker, stronger beers of the Dunkel region.  In fact, we begin with another Erdinger. The Erdinger Dunkel, whose rich taste beat out the other dunkelweisbiers, was up against Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, the only Oktoberfestbier to survive.  This was a close vote, with only swing of 1-2 people that made the difference.  The Oktoberfest was familiar and well-liked, but the complexity of the dunkel eeked out the victory.  Some proposed a theory that with a different/lighter meal (we had beef stew) the Oktoberfest would have won.  Perhaps the food made the difference, or perhaps because this was a later tasting (after 4 other beers) the dunkel stood out on its own more strongly.  In any event, the Erdinger moves on and the Hofbräu goes home.

And then our last match was the battle of the Paulaners. Like Andechs, Paulaner has had a lot of success in the beer tournament.  This matchup had Paulaner Original Münchener Dunkel, which defeated the Schwarzbiers in our very first matchup, vs Paulaner Salvator, which won The Dark & Dangerous Round. The Salvator surprised us in many ways - first, we never thought it was that good before...it's what you drink at Starkbierfest because that's what you drink...., and second, we always are served starkbier in the old-style pottery mugs, so we thought it was much darker and opaque than it really is.  The Paulaner dunkel had a nice roasted malty sweetness, but the balance (a bit more hops to it) and finish (more alcohol!) of the Salvator made the difference bay a margin of about 3:2.  The starkbier was truly "stark" (strong) tonight!

 

And now we have set for our regional finals the next matches:
Weißbier Region - Paulaner Weissbier Kristallklar vs Andechs Weissbier Hefetrüb 
Dunkel Region - Hasseröder Premium Pils vs Augustiner Edelstoff Export

Sweet Sixteen Matches - Helles and Pils

We started this round on a cold night, with all the happy beers lined up outside waiting for the games. The best thing about winter - outside of skiing - is that your balcony is magically transformed into a giant drink refrigerator for at least 5 months per year. We took fuuuuull advantage of this during the beer tournament.

We decided to follow wine tasting procedure and move from lighter to stronger, so we began with two classic Bavarian helles, Löwenbräu Original and Tegernseer Hell.  You'll recall from the first round matches that Löwenbräu shocked us by winning a blind tasting against Munich favorite Augustiner. (Theories abound as to why:  the difference between keg and bottle?  The Augustiner beer gardens somehow bring additional magic to the maß?  Who knows.)  Tegernseer, however, predictably demolished the competition, though we did discover the surprisngly good cheap beer (39 cents per half liter!) Hubauer Urhell.

We had around 9 people voting most of the night. As expected, the Tegernseer was really much lighter and smoother than the Löwenbräu... but that ironically was it's downfall here.  We prefered the more complex Löwenbräu to the silky smooth Tegernseer.  Other were surprised to find that they preferred the Löwenbräu too -- again a prejudice shattered. The Tegernseer was crisp and refreshing, but perhaps a little too light for a winter evening.  However, it did reinforce the experience of seeing people bringing cases of Tegernseer to the Isar river, leaving it in the water to cool, and grilling wursts.  It's a great summer beer, but lost 6 to 3 with the temperature hovering around 0 degrees.

Next up were Hacker-Pschorr's Münchener Kellerbier (beer made the way they made it in 1490) and Andechs' wonderfully caramelly but light Bergbock Hell. 

As in the prior round, the Andechs' Bergbock Hell trounced the competition (basically unanimous).  At this point, it probably has the most votes and widest margin of victory of any beer in the tournament.  It just has a great mix of sweet maltiness, a balance of hoppy bitterness, and the extra alcohol just works.  Ironically, this surprised our Bavarian tasters too because they always knew they liked Andechs, but by default the regular Helles.  Many think they now prefer the Bergbock Hell!

So those two matches leave use with a Helles Regional Final between Löwenbräu Original and Andechs Bergbock Hell.

Moving down to the Pils/Export region, we start off with Paulaner Premium Pils vs Hasseröder Premium Pils. Neither prior round match was particularly close, with Paulaner plowing through the Beck's and Hasseröder clearly beating down the bitter beers with its malty take on the pilsner tradition.  We had been really surprised by the Paulaner Pils, enjoying its flavor that was like a Pils for Bavarian palates. (You could argue that it is halfway to being a Munich Helles because it is a little sweeter and less hoppy, but it does use "noble" hops like a pils should.)

When the Paulaner Pils then went against the Hasseröder, a similar thing happened as with Tegernseer.  Despite the advantage of being like a smooth helles, the Paulaner goes home while Hasseröder was voted through to the next round.  The tasters thought Hasseröder had a better overall blend with that extra hoppiness; in this case, the crowd wanted a little more bite to the beer. The voting was pretty close though (5 to 4).  On this evening, we're seeing some tasters consistently wanting a more "forward" beer that is on equal footing with any food on the table, and other tasters consistently looking for the biergarden/refreshing/ahhhh type beer.  This evening, the testers wanting complexity had the majority.

And finally, we had Krombacher Pils vs Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier. Krombacher was fresh off a victory in the Power Pils Round, while Augustiner beat out Veltins and the other two Munich exportbiers to move on to this matchup.  Krombacher is a prototypical pils:  light golden color, crisp taste with noticable hoppiness.  The Augustiner Exportbier is more like a helles but with significantly more hoppiness than their regular Helles.  Think of it as coming to a similar place as the Paulaner Pils (sweeter/less hoppy than a pils, more hoppy than a helles) but from the other direction.  That was the difference:  the hops balanced with a more malty complexion gave the game to Augustiner Exportbier.  It was a solid victory, with 2/3 choosing the Augustiner.

This night leaves us with happy memories (and headaches the next morning), as well as two regional final matchups:

Helles Region - Andechs Bergbock Hell vs Löwenbräu Original
Pils/Export Region - Hasseröder Premium Pils vs Augustiner Edelstoff Export

March Madness

As the NCAA tournament has moved beyond its first rounds, so has the Schnitzelbahn German Beer Tournament.

After many tastings and experiments with food and beer, we find ourselves with 16 teams beers remaining (sorry, my mind is overcome with basketball...Go Heels!). We've had a lot of winners so far, and I guess Herr J and I have been the biggest winners of all, getting to try so many new beers and say hello again to our old favorites.

At this point, the bracket looks like this (click to enlarge):

In our four "regions"we have remaining beers from 10 breweries:
Hacker-Pschorr
2x Löwenbräu
2x Andechs
Tegernseer
Hasseröder
Krombacher
Augustiner
Hofbräu
2x Erdinger
and a record FOUR entries from Paulaner!!!

8 of the 10 are in or around Munich, though Tegernsee and Andechs are special places meriting their own mention!

This is where we bring our friends into the fun...Most of our first round matches pitted similar beer types against each other. In the later rounds, however, personal preference really becomes the deciding factor. So we thought we'd solicit the opinions of our trusted friends and get more votes...well, and any excuse to have a party....

We have some favorites, of course, but there's not a beer in the Sweet Sixteen that we wouldn't gladly order. And since the field is dominated by Bavarian beers, it would be pretty easy for us to order one fresh out of the tap!

The Last of the First Round Matches

And here we are, finally, after many nights of tasting beers. We'll finish up with a last round of four Pilsners.

First up, we have Hasseröder Premium Pils and Bitburger Premium Pils. Hasseröder has been brewing beer since 1872, but was a relatively small and not widely-known brewery until the 1990 German reunification. It had been a highly successful regional beer, but was not often available outside of the Magdeburg district (now part of Sachsen-Anhalt) of the DDR. However, it's been one of the big success stories after reunification - becoming one of the top three consumed pils nationwide, and one of the favorite beers in the former DDR states.  They invested heavily in technological improvements and marketing, ultimately became part of InBev and was chosen as the brand used for beer ads during the German World Cup matches in South Africa. Though Budweiser through InBev owns the rights to the beer advertising in the World Cup, the Budvar-Budweiser dispute prohibited them from using the Budweiser name. Instead, they chose Hasseröder, which generally focuses its marketing efforts on sporting teams and events.

Bitburger is one we see often on commercials, especially during televised sports. Everyone knows their slogan "Bitte ein Bit" ("Ask for a Bit" or "A Bit, Please")...their commercials are everywhere! Bitburg is located in the Eifel mountain area of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the Luxembourg border. Though pretty much every Geman brewery uses only the best ingredients, Bitbuger claims that its water source (drawn from the Bitburg Triassic Trough) gives it a superior, crisp Pilsner taste. Whether or not the water filtered through million-year old shell and sandstone makes a better beer or not, Bitburger is doing something right and is one of the top 3 selling beers across Germany.

In our contest, we preferred the Hasseröder, however. The Bit lived up to its word association and was a bit bitter compared to the crisp Hasseröder.  And in addition to a preferable taste, the Hasseröder had a really pleasing, crisp fizziness to it.  

Then we have Wernesgrüner's "Legendary Pils" vs König Pilsener, Germany's "King of Beer." Wernesgrüner has been brewing beer since 1436, which they make sure to point out was a good 50 years "before Columbus discovered America."  It's available these days in the US and Canada, and you'll definitely find it in any US Aldi that sells beer. (American friends, if you have an Aldi in your town, give it a visit!) Wernesgrüner has a long tradition of export to North America, as it was served on Hapag-Lloyd's famous Hamburg-New York cruise line in the early 1900s and was also often taken to other countries as a gift by German travellers. Today, it's owned by the Bitburger Group, and is pitched as a brewery combining hundreds of years of experience with modern technology to produce a Legendary beer.

The König Pilsener today is also part of the Bitburger Group. In addition to the usual sports marketing, they use German celebrities Til Schweiger and Boris Becker (seriously, he and his ladies are always in the tabloids and social pages!!) in promotions. König Pilsener has been around since 1825, when Herr König began brewing his beer. The brewery focuses on Pils today, though also produces an Altbier and several other beer drinks (radler, malz, alcohol-free, etc). They've been making Pils since before it was popular, so why change? This one comes from Duisburg, an inland port and major steel producing area near Düsseldorf. 

Both of these beers were considerably lighter tasting than the other two, but we picked the Wernesgrüner to be the Bitburger Group's representative in the next round.  

 

Though it's one of the biggest brewery groups in Germany, Bitburger's three pils could not stand up to InBev's Hasseröder.  Most likely it's our Bavarian-trained palates...we don't favor the super hoppy beers. It was, of course, a Pils, but we really enjoyed that they added some maltiness to balance out the hops. A really great pilsner beer.

 

Veltins Pilsner and the Export Beers

As we didn't have enough German Pilsners available in my Munich supermarket, we included three Exportbier in this bracket. (You can find some other pilsners if you go to a beer store, and you can find a few Czech pilsners in my market, but we didn't have 16 German Pilsners in my store).

First, what is an Exportbier?

It's exactly as it sounds, but what was considered an Export was anything that was exported to another city. The realities of transportation prior to engines and refrigerating meant that the beer had to be brewed slightly differently to survive the journey. An exportbier is still a lager (bottom-fermented, etc), but it is brewed with a higher original wort (12-14% gravity) than a Pils or Helles (typically 11-12% gravity). This also results in a beer with a slightly higher alcohol content (5% vs the usual 3.5-4%)). Often the beer was diluted with water once it reached its destination. Thanks to the higher alcohol content, the beer had both a longer shelf life and lower transportation costs.

For many years (until the 1970s), Exportbier was one of the most popular varieties in Germany, when it was overtaken by the Pils. It's important to note that there are two different types of German Exportbier, as well as a more rare Vienna-style Export:

1) Dortmunder Exportbier is the most well-known - It's a pale lager brewed in the Dortmund area since the mid-1800's. Dortmunder Exportbier became the favorite of the region's industrial workers, as the regions coal and steelworkers needed a good brew to drink. Though it still has a hoppy taste, it has a strong malty and slightly sweeter taste, too.

2) Munich Exportbier - This is what we're trying today. The Munich style typically is darker than a Dortmunder, due to darker malt and higher temperatures in the kiln. This also gives it a slightly caramel flavor. Not surprisingly, the Munich Exportbier is less strongly hopped than the Dortmunder.

So, onto the beers....

In this bracket, we also have our last Pilsner, Veltins Pilsener. Recall that Veltins, the 7th largest brewer, is the beer of FC Schalke and runs a 5km beer pipeline from the brewery to the taps at the arena. Veltin's primary brews a pilsner style beer, though they do also sell light, alcohol free, radler (beer/lemon soda mix), alcoholfree malt, and the V+ range of flavored beers as is very trendy today. Veltins brewery began in 1824, brewing the usual beer types. In 1926, it decided to focus only on the pilsner style of beer.

Here, Veltins goes up against Hacker-Pschorr's Münchener Gold Export Bier.  The Münchener Gold was first brewed in the late 1800s, and then was brought back in 2005.

While the Veltins is an excellent Pils, we preferred the maltiness of the export beer. Just a matter of personal preference...

In the next round, we get a fairer competition, as it's between two Munich Export Beers: Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier and Tegernsee's Max I. Joseph Jubiliäms Export. ("Edel" means "noble", meaning that this beer uses the "noble ingredients." You often will hear of "noble hops" in Bavaria).

This beer from the Tegernseer brewery was brewed in 2006 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Kingdom of Bavaria by Max(imilian) I. Joseph. King Max, as he was known, also purchased the Tegernsee monastery and brewery from its baron owner in 1817, a decade or so after the secularization of Bavaria. Under his ownership, Tegernsee became a cultural and economic center. Hence the beer to honor King Max and Bavaria.

The Augustiner was a relatively light colored exportbeer. This was almost a tie - Augustiner had slightly more body (due to a fizzier feeling in the mouth). The Tegernsee was a bit sweeter, and we didn't love the feeling of its carbonation.

Then we have Augustiner vs Hacker-Pschorr to decide who goes on to the Sweet Sixteen. Again, the Augustiner had what we call "more body." It just felt like a more solid beer and had a very pleasant level of carbonation. Also, it had the great hint of malty taste, but was not too sweet - it was just a great balance between maltiness and hoppiness. The Hacker-Pschorr, on the other hand, tasted flat and sweet compared to the Augustiner.