Tuesday, 2 June 2026

Augustiner Edelstoff

An Augustiner Heller Maibock poster with a drawing of a goat.
Since the weather has turned warm, I've mostly been drinking Augustiner Edelstoff on my weekly visit to Butcher's Tears.

It's a lovely drinking beer. Light, but with enough flavour to jkeep you interested. Perfect for casual afternoon drinking. Nothing too distracting.

I do love Austiner's beers.It's hard to beat their Helles when it's served Bayerischer Anstich (straight from a wooden cask). But it's a very delicate beer that doesn't come over as well in the bottle. Edelstoff fares much better.

What style of beer is Edelstoff? I'd call it a Spexial. A pale Lager that's stronger than a Helles. Many Bavarian breweries make one. With a gravity of around 13º Plato and 5.6% ABV.

The classic way would be to call the weaker one a Helles Lagerbier and the stronger one a Helles Export. Though that system has largely broken down since WW II. Agustner do call their standard beer Helles Lagerbier. So ther eis still that.

I'm glad I can get hold of a decent Lager when I'm out. It's depressingly difficult in Amsterdam. Mostly, it's just Pils of varying degrees of awfulness. Edelstoff is a class better. And better class.

I thought you might want a change from Youngs. If only for a day. 

1 comment:

Rob Sterowski said...

I have had people try to explain to me that there is a difference between an Export and a Spezial, but I was none the wiser afterwards. I don‘t know of any breweries that produce both, and I can think of at least one that sold a “Spezial-Export”.