Seems like there are a lot of pumpkin beers out there now.  Is this the new American fall beer, like Oktoberfest is for Germany?  I hope not, this type of vegetable beer has only really been commercially made for the last 25 years or so.  Not a long history but as you’ll see a wide variety of flavors can be found with this type of beer from mildly seasoned to full on doughy pumpkin pie.

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This week we took another trip up to Boonton NJ and met up with Kevin and Mike Malavarca from the Liquor Outlet and Wine Cellar.  This is Kevin’s second appearance on our Beer Brawl and this time he selected the theme of our show, Obscure Lagers.  Kevin describes this as, lagers which are new to market, difficult to find, limited production, or just plain obscure.  Regardless of the who, what, where, or why, we are always down to drink some beer and hopefully open up more reads/listeners to different styles of beer!

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This weeks’ Beer Brawl is an attempt to bring back summer to New Jersey.  It has been raining for more days in a row then I can count.  So, we’re focusing on a traditional German Beer and also a great summer session beer, Hefe-Weizen for our 15th Beer Brawl. The “Hefe” is German for yeast and “Weizen” is for wheat, meaning the yeast is still in the wheat beer giving this style of beer its characteristic hazy appearance.  The yeast used in this style will typically give the beer unique banana and clove characteristics, often dry and sometime spicy or tart.  They are also low alcohol (session) beers, typically ranging from 4%-5.5% abv.

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This week we switched things up a bit and focused on a Brewer rather then a particular style of beer.  For this Beer Brawl, we choose to focus on Mikkeller beers.  Mikkel Borg Bjergsø is a ‘gipsy-brewer’, who brews at different breweries in Denmark, Norway, Germany and the United States.  Each beer that is made is unique and may only be a one time limited release.

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