Lowenbrau Original

It's odd, you couldn't move for this stuff when I was much younger. I've heard stories of how Safeway cut a deal with Lowenbrau and sold it for half of what everyone else was selling it for... And then Safeway went the way of the greedy Dodo and popped its clogs, leaving poor Lowenbrau (brewed by InBev) out in the cold. I haven't seen a bottle it since my trip to Munich and before that I hadn't seen it since I was around 8 years old and at that tender young age I was far too young to appreciate it, I was busy being baffled by the mechanics of transformers. The Munich 6 are like the holy grail for me, each representing a chapter of beer history, so what's the story behind Lowenbrau?

Well, if I may concentrate on the beer itself for just a moment, it smells like honey wafting in a summer breeze and tastes as sweet and as a boozy butter biscuit. Like the rest of the big 6 it is supremely easy to drink, making it perfect for drinking out of giant steins that dwarf your tiny, sozzled, face. The beer is lovely, it trumps most anything else you'll find in the imported beer section of your local supermarket, even fellow German Warsteiner (who I am a big fan of,) falls a little short.

What I like about Germany is that they don't have BAD beer like we have BAD beer. We have Carling and Fosters and Stella, all of which is BAD beer. I asked a German tour guide if there was a "worst" beer in Germany and he said "Ja, zere iz a wurst bier," except in a less racist way, "it is ze non-alcohols bier! Haha!" Which sums it up really. I'd say that Becks is their standard beer over there, the one they sell to tourists, the one they export the most, the one you could compare most to our Carling, but even that kicks the s*** out of our worst beer.

Lowenbrau is now on sale in a Sainsbury's close to where I live... It came out on sale for a fiver... I don't think I've ever been happier to be in a Sainsbury's than I was when I saw that 6 pack sitting, as if nothing big was happening, on a shelf next to the likes of Cusquena and Asahi who, even though they try, are LESSER beers, sitting in the shadow of a giant. It's good to see Lowenbrau back on sale here. Hopefully the rest of the big 6 will follow suit.

InBev have the rights to Franziskaner, which is on general sale here, they also have the rights at all the Spaten stuff and I would LOVE to see that on general sale too. Let's start a petition!

Food Suggestion: German food. Eat any other kind of food with this and you're dumb as a bag of poorly constructed similes that go on for longer than they really need to.

Drink this if you like: Drinking with your friends, wearing lederhosen and practising dances that involve slapping each other on the butt!