25 August 2015 - Best Beer HQ
Hallertau Luxe Kolsch beer review
ABV: 4.5%
The bottle: Hallertau’s Luxe Kolsch looks very classy indeed. Moreover, it looks like it might be an award-winning beer – the label features a giant yellow ‘1’on it.
No, apparently that means it’s simply the first beer in a series of four…
Hallertau: Our first four beers began life as humble numbers. The locals tasted and debated the characteristics and created their names. Today, whether you know them by name or number, you can enjoy them in their original order.
Handmade for freshness, we take traditional recipes and give them a good twisting, squeezing out new sensations. There’s no artificial hoodwinking, just the simple things done properly, to guarantee hopping good beer.
Hallertau, 1171 Coatesville-Riverhead Highway, Auckland, New Zealand.
Blurb on the bottle: Some say she’s the luxe life: exuberant, snappy, bright, chatty, sunlit, blueberries, lush, passionfruit, refined, sparkling, considered, dry and frankly refreshing.
IBU: 23
Taste test: A nondescript, brown cardboard box of Hallertau Luxe Kolsch beer mysteriously made its way to the staff room at work, where I was lucky enough to grab two bottles before my colleagues snapped up the rest.
There are few things I enjoy in life more than free beer, so, naturally, I was very pleased with myself. I’ve yet to convince a brewery to actually send me any beer for these reviews; if you’re reading this and you work for a brewery, please send me some free beer to review!
Anyway, drunk straight from the 330ml bottle, Hallertau’s Luxe Kolsch is a very thin and fruity beer. This beer smells like flowers, tastes like tropical fruits, and goes down like water – which is to say it’s extremely drinkable.
To be honest, I’m not familiar with this style of beer. The all-knowing Wikipedia says it’s a style of beer brewed in Cologne, Germany, that’s usually clear with a bright, straw-yellow hue, similar to a standard German pale lager. That seems like a reasonable description to me, although I would add that I reckon I could detect a pinch of pilsner malt in Hallertau’s Luxe Kolsch, too.
Is it the best beer ever? Free is my favourite kind of beer, so, yes, a case could be made that Hallertau’s Luxe Kolsch is the best beer ever.
Seriously though, would I fork out $4.99 (NZD) for a 330ml bottle of Hallertau’s Luxe Kolsch at Glengarry? Yes, I probably would. This is a nice, easy-drinking beer that’s aromatic and interesting, without being too challenging.