I tried the Schlenkerla smoke beer last night. We had it with Gerda’s homemade broccoli soup and laugenstangen with cheese. It was a little milder than I expected but this could be the difference between the bottled and on-tap versions. In any case it was excellent. The smoke flavor wasn’t at all overbearing, even at the beginning. The beer went very well with the soup and a sandwich. This is what I call an indoor beer, to be enjoyed with a good meal.
PS: A laugenstange is a type of bread roll I make from time to time. These are pretty good and close to the original we get in Germany. Next time I make them I’ll post a recipe and a picture or two.
Brian's Blog 
Sound good. It would go good with Pumpkin Soup.
How appropriate – ‘pumpkin’ soup!
Mr. Kilgore, definitely post that recipe. As fot the beer, it sounds good also, butttttt, now that a consume negative of same, I’ll trust your opinion on that libation. Hope this goes thru Brian. Very new at this blogging stuff. Very Computer Illiterate! John…
You can get a good approximation of the flavor but taking a sip of liquid smoke. You do know of course that there is alcohol free beer. I have had some from Heineken and it’s great. Check out http://www.heineken.com/usa/ I sent them an e-mail to find out where the non-alcohol stuff can be found.
I am also new to blogging, but find it fascinating to be able to throw random thought around the world. I hope to continue this for a long time…
woher hast du bitte ein schlänkerla???
For those of you who don’t read German, pmkilgore asked where I got a Schlänkerla. Well, I had to order an entire case from a specialty store in Abingdon, VA, called Wines of Distinction. We go there often after hiking on the Creeper Trail.
Try this link –
http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?attrID=15764