7-Stern a Microbrewey Vienna with some weird beer

Recently I visited the 7stern (siebenstern) brewery pub in Vienna. For beer interested people it is close to an institution in this city even though its commercial focus tend to overwhelm the brewart that obviously is possessed by the brewmaster. With selection of 7 regular beers they occasionally leave room also for seasonal specialities such as a Maibock during the spring.

The pub is way much bigger than it looks from the outside and with the big polished copper mash tuns behind the bar it is a charming place to hang out an evening or two. If you don't feel attracted by the place but are curious about their beers there is a vending machine by the entrance where you can by their beers freshly bottled.

The Märzen is in my opinon the best beer in the selection. In a traditional Märzen style, far from these blonde light lagerbeers that are today sold as märzen (note Zipfer, Murauer, Gösser etc), this is a brown-reddish, cloudy beer, close to opaque with powerful taste. With an alcohol strength of 5,1% it offers a lot of body and lot of taste without being to heavy. There is a hint of sweetness that does not feel caramelly or sticky and a fruity hoppiness reminding strongly of rose hip.

The second most interesting beer represents a category that makes me happy to see around. Rauchbeer (smoke-beer, or smoked beer) is a German forgotten art today being more or less only sold by under the label of Aecht Schenkerla wich is hardly a commercial brew but still widely available all over Europe (in Sweden found at SB with the number 1359). At 7stern they brew and sell a beer with a distinct smell of smoke, as the sort of tone you would get from smoked salmon. It's dry with a little acidic aftertaste and a hint of liquorice. It's without doubt a beer to be accompanied by food, smoked or grilled with quite a lot of fat is probably the best.

Apart from these two they make a lager and a Prager Dunkles (Prague Dark - Černé) of good but not remarkable quality. They also make two less appealing flavoured beers. One is being brewed with hemp giving the beer a greenish taste that appears a little fat and reminds of olive oil. The other one is a chilibeer with a spice that kills everything else. It's a light lager and the burn is overwhelming everything else. Along with a grilled chicken with a mango-lime salsa I could imagine it as a good pair though. These, close to weird and bordering to unserious beers, could in my eyes very well leave space for someting more interesting, maybe a wheat-beer or a Chech Granate.

I have not had time to try their Maibock yet but I will have to go by and taste it before it's out of season!

So long
Lucas Spinnars

Links:

7stern brewery pub (English and German)

Černé (Swedish)
Oktoberfest med hela historien om Märzen (Swedish)