Not out of the woods yet

As a short appendix to my BrauKunst Live 2014 posts, there were a couple of beers that didn't fit into that series, being foreign and somewhat random, but worthy of mention. Kiesbye's, from Austria, had a booth doing a steady trade, with a rather interesting blackboard of beers on offer. I'd already read about them regarding the annual Waldbier (Woods beer) they brewed using Tanne (fir) in 2011, Zirbe (Swiss pine) in 2012 and Lärche (larch) in 2013. I went with the latter.

Kiesbye’s Waldbier 2013 (Lärche) has a soft, spicy aroma, (a mild curry came to mind!) with an underlying fruitiness that I found hard to define (honey melon?), with highlights of green apple skin and a gentle citrus element. While I'd been expecting something very resinous, it was instead a soft, cosy, pillowy kind of experience, with soft pine-ish warmth (I can't say I know what larch tastes like). A mild bite at the finish wraps it up nicely. An interesting beer, so much so, that I'm now looking for larch trees in my area to brew one of my own!

Over at the BrewFist booth, they had a beer that was probably my favourite beer name of the festival: Czech Norris Pils. At 6.7%, a bit more than a Pils, but what kind of punch did it pack? With a surprisingly delicate nose, suggesting lemon meringue and spices, not the tough guy beer you might expect, following that with a lovely, creamy mouthfeel, nutty, toasted bread, and summer fruit flavours, it's rather nice and well made, I thought.