I’m leaving for Hawaii here soon and I’m really getting to be excited. I can’t wait to visit again and to bring my daughter along for the trip. I think she’ll love being on the beach and enjoying the pleasant weather. I’m a bit nervous about the flight, but we will see how it goes.

Day 20’s beer is a Spiced Black Ale from Privatbraurei Loncium from Kötschach-Mauthen, Austria. I’ve relied a lot on Google Translate today as their website, while it says it has English, appears to be exclusively in Austrian.

Loncium is in Kötschach-Mauthen, a picturesque village located near the Italian border. They are able to source their raw materials for their beer from within their village. They use these materials to brew the best beers they can and they’ve been recognized on a number occasions with gold, silver and bronze medals for many of their beers.

Having opened in 2007 the brewery has steadily expanded adding more fermenters and tanks to allow for an expanded range of beers. Describing themselves as being as far away from the corporate breweries as you can get, they focus on hand crafting each of their beers. As the regions first brewery, they have connected with the craftsmanship that has existed in the region since the 1700s. The brewery is equipped with the most modern equipment and the beers are fermented in open vats.

Currently Loncium produces 11 beers ranging from a classic Bavarian style pilsner, Schwarze Gams (take on a Bock), to a Rauchbier (smoked beer). You can check out their full range of beers here. The brewery also has a guest house attached to it and it’s possible to stay right on site. If you’re ever thinking of travelling around Austria, what better place to stay than a hotel connected to brewery.

As for style on this beer, it’s being called a Black Ale, or a Dark Ale, but this really doesn’t help to determine what style of beer it might be. Because this beer has been spiced, it falls into the category of “Spiced/Herbed Beers”. This is a catch all category for beers with any spice addition. Most Christmas and pumpkin beers fall into this category.

On that, I’ll just get right into it.

Pours a dark brown with a bubbly white head that recedes rather quickly to a ring. The aromas of all of the gingerbread baking spices are present, some ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and star anise. Fairly smooth on the palate, low-medium carbonation on this one, and some lovely balance between the sweet vanilla and ginger notes, and some robust roasty bitterness rounds it all out

Appearance – Pours a dark brown colour with a white head that dissipates quickly.
Smell – A lot of the gingerbread spices come through on the nose. There is ginger, nutmeg, star anise (kinda like black liquorice) and some cinnamon. There is a touch of maybe clove there as well.
Taste – The flavour brings much of the same with the nutmeg and ginger coming through the most for me on this. I don’t like star anise, so I am getting that as well because I’m sensitive to it.
Mouth feel – Medium bodied with low-medium carbonation and a roasted malt bitterness on the finish.
Overall – I think that this beer was as described. It had the spice character of a Gingerbread man, and it was a dark beer with some roasted malt notes.
Do I like it? – I was okay with it. I wouldn’t say I loved or hated it. This is one I was neutral on. I am a rare breed that enjoys some Pumpkin beers. That said, this spice character didn’t really do it for me.