Swiss (& Neighbouring Countries') Beer!

Well, thought I should collect and post these reviews here ... since one of my main missions over here is to rank and review as many available beers as I can before my mate Matty comes to visit! Graciously, he's given me over eighteen months so far and it looks like I'll have until about October to try some more ...

For the rating, I've used what I call the VB Scale. This is where I try the beer, and rank it according to how many times better it is than VB. VB is a beer that pretty much every Australian who drinks beer has tried by the age of fourteen, making it a good "background level" beer. The fact that it tastes pretty crap meant that I felt confident in beginning my quest that I'd never need to rate something below it ... how wrong I was!!

So, without further ado, here come the beers ... not a very impressive list, given I've had eighteen months, but it gives a fairly broad spread of options ...

Denner Export Bier - DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER DRINKING THIS BEER!! I thought I may have found a cheap gem, since it was 85 rappen (Swiss cents) per can... this is a vastly inflated price for such a dog's product, an assessment that even Jessica agreed with! I bought two cans, ended up drinking two sips... the rest went down the drain. 0.1 VBs.

Eichhof Lager - a pale-coloured golden lager, with a decent taste... you can drink it, but it's nothing special. A nice malty flavour to it but, as I said, nothing special. 2.5 VBs.
Trivia - 'Eichhof' translates to 'calibration yard' in my German-English translation widget... :D

Löwen Weisse - a tasty little wheat beer, produced by Löwenbräu... again, nothing exceptional, but nice to drink. Have only had it from bottles (5 dl...), so may be better on tap, but worth drinking. 3 VBs

Andechs Doppelboch dunkel - a very nice dark beer, probably the nicest (and definitely most memorable!) beer that I tried in my short trip to Münich. Strong, too, as I found out from later research... Brewed (& on this occasion consumed) up at Kloster Andechs, very easy to drink... two litres went down even before I'd finished my meal, despite somebody else displaying most of the previous night's consumption... 10.5 VBs

Hürlimann Hammer - apparently a new recipe for an older beer, nice, slightly fruity, and again worth drinking. Comes in a 'practical' six-pack from the supermarket... 4 VBs

Fledschlösschen Hopfenperle - so far the nicest bottled beer that I've found in Zürich. Discovered it while having a ploughman's lunch at The Pie Shop (an event organised by the Cheese Club, which specialises in importing British cheeses to Switzerland). They were out of the beer from a local microbrewery (which happens when you arrive about 14:30 for a lunch event), so tried the Hopfenperle... nice crisp taste, pale colour, in an attractive green bottle... slightly hoppy finish, with only the slightest hint of bitterness. 5.5 VBs

Cooper's Best Extra Stout - only beer I tried when I made the mistake of visiting the Outback Lodge for a drink... I think I was the only Australian in the place, and the only dark beer they had was the Coopers - not even the Dark Ale, or Tooheys Old... the only thing on tap was Fosters... it was okay, not far different from what I drank in Sydney, but I think it may have preceded me to Switzerland by a number of years... 4 VBs

Murphy's Irish Stout - shouldn't really be in this list, but I got a couple of cans to drink over here... nice, nowhere near as good as drinking it on tap in the Harp Hotel in Tempe (when they had it...), but still a stout worth drinking. 4.5 VBs

Guinness - yes, I had to try a few... Jess bought a four-pack, so I had to drink them... again, not as good as on-tap, but still worth drinking. 4 VBs

Appenzeller Schwarzer Kristall - a very drinkable dark beer, with a nice hint of dark chocolate. Allegedly it has 'blue berry issue surprise the beer drunkard' (thank you, online language translation!). Still, it does have a great 'thunderstorm-black' colour, and goes down well... but don't drink it with a meal accompanied by spicy bbq sauce, just doesn't go well together... 6 VBs (yes, has taken the place of 'best bottled beer' so far...)

Grimbergen Blonde - Actually a Belgian beer, iirc from the bottle... an 'abbey' beer, with barley & wheat, but doesn't taste too strongly of the wheat. Nice, nothing special, goes down well... 4.5 VBs.

Grimbergen Double - Not double the 'standard' alcohol content (actually less, 6.5% instead of 6.7%), think it's double fermented... A very smooth taste, only the faintest hint of bitterness. 5 VBs.

Grimbergen Triple - Again, not triple the alcohol - although it is up to 9%... Final fermentation in the bottle, which appears to really bring out the wheat flavour. Is also more bitter than the other two Grimbergens, with a lingering after-taste. 4.7 VBs.

Eichhof Barbara - What I got last night when I asked for a dark beer. The bartender also suggested something else, but from the mangle of my poor German and his slightly-better English, it sounded like the second offering wasn't straight beer... some sort of mix... Anyway, the Barbara was very nice, went down easily (especially with a bit of pizza!), and was very popular last night with the crowd as one of the girls was also called Barbara... 5.8 VBs.

Feldschlösschen Dunkel Perle (bottle) - a very nice dark beer, smooth and only faintly bitter. Comes in a nice 0.5L bottle, too... :D - 6.5 VBs.

Feldschlösschen Original (mini keg) - nice, something you can easily drink anywhere, any time, but nothing special. Crisp taste, perhaps due to coming straight from the mini-keg... - 5.2 VBs.

Eichhof Pony (bottle) - THE MAKER IS PICTURED ON THE LABEL - SERIOUSLY!! Another beer to avoid! Tried this on a ferry across Lake Lucerne, figured a beer brewed at the local brewery would be okay ... big mistake!! It really does taste like I imagine the liquid a pony produces would taste ... another beer I didn't finish. 0.4 VBs

Sagres (bottle) - easy to drink, and cheap as well! At under a franc a bottle, this one tends to be the beer I drink most often at home ... An easy-drinking lager, no surprises. 4.5 VBs.

Tuborg Gold (bottle) - another cheap foreigner from Denner, 11 francs a ten-pack. Nice lager, nothing exciting but definitely not horrible to drink. 4.6 VBs

Gold Ochsen Original (bottle) - "Ulm's Liquid Gold!" I only discovered this one recently, a hoppy little beer that strongly reminds me of KB ... and you can even go out and "grab a cold gold"!! Not too expensive (costs marginally more than Sagres), great flavour, and goes down easily. 4.8 VBs.

Hope this helps ... as you may have worked out, the beers are listed basically in the order in which I tasted them. Watch this space for more, we'll see how I go ... and I'm sure there are others I have tried, which have missed the list since I forgot to record their details.