Four on the floor: Altbier

I sometimes undertake the thankless, frustrating and somewhat pointless task of trying to convince German colleagues that there is such a thing as non-German beer. The level of banality of responses I get is beyond belief. Last year at a work barbeque I took along what I thought was an extremely safe bet (as I recall a Hobgoblin, a London Pride, a Honeydew and an ESB). One cretin opined "there must be lots of chemicals in it, it tastes strange"... this was a Hobgoblin mind, not a Geuze mixed with fermented ferret sweat. I tried explaining about top fermented yeast and the like, although it would have been an equally productive use of my time explaining quantum theory to a piece of cheese.
There is one colleague however, who comes from Dusseldorf, who likes everything I give her to try. She's used to drinking Altbiers and so doesn't get spooked by the idea of a beer with flavour. Recently on a trip back to her home town she brought back some Altbiers for me. I vote her a capital fellow.

Um Uerige is the only one I was familiar with, although the version I'd tried before was the Doppelsticke from Bierkompass, which is undoubtably one of the finest beers I've had. This is the standard version, which although still splendid doesn't quite have the same depth and complexity.
Schlussel was a fine malty beer although it had slightly too much carbonation for my taste. The two I preferred though, and was quite suprised about, were Fuchsen and Schumacher. Both had a wonderful hoppiness which I wasn't expecting in an Alt. Fuchsen was as foxy as its name suggests, and luckily Schumacher did not attempt to force me out of my chair with a late breaking maneouvre or sudden jab on the steering wheel. Neither did it almost break my neck whilst leaping at me after madly charging out of its goal.

Super Bio-Test 85

"Bio" stuff in Germany is even more popular than moustaches, and there is a Bio-shop I walk past every day, without ever having had the slightest inclination to go inside. Today for some reason a mysterious force sucked me in, and to my surprise I found a large range of interesting looking beers.
Due to the limited range of bio ingredients, particularly hops, bio-beers are rarely popular, but my eyes were drawn to one, Pinkus Alt, by the word "obergarig" splashed across it . It's top-fermented Jim, but not as we know it - in Germany it's nearly always accompanied by a cold maturation, which can often lead to it being scarcely distinguishable from a lager.
I'd only drunk one Altbier before, the divine Uerige-Sticke, which those splendid fellows at Bierkompass can sometimes get their mits on. As I paid the Biocashier the pleasingly low 99 cents and scratched my Bioscrotum I pondered on whether the bio nature of the bier would prove much of a drag factor.
The first suprise was the colour - for some reason I'd got the idea in my head that all Altbiers were dark. Still, it had a nice frothy head while it lasted and a nice golden colour.

By this stage I wasn't surprised that it tasted towards the lager range of the spectrum, but that didn't matter a hoot because it was damned nice, combining the crispness of a good lager with some nice yeasty bready fruity type stuff.
The number of German beers I try that I intend to repurchase can be counted on the fingers of one hand, but if other Pinkus beers are like this I may have to become a deformed freak.