Franconia Beer Message Board

Wow, I about choked on my coffee this morning while reading this!  No hop flavor or aroma?  Perhaps you've had the rare off batch from Knoblach (I have yet to find this), but it's likely your olfactory sensitivities are very different from mine.  Among hoppy beers of Franconia, Knoblach stands out at one of the hoppiest, not simply one of the most bitter (which it also is).  I'm not disagreeing with you that bitterness and hoppiness are different aspects (one a taste and the other an aroma/flavor), but there's no reason a beer can not have both.  I take your comments as presenting the beer as a bitter experience rather than a hoppy experience... well I contend that it is both.  The hop aroma and flavor in the Ungespundet is a lesson in Spalt Tradition hops (it's a single hop beer BTW).  Spalt Tradition, how do I describe you?  Spice, herbs, pepper, dried flowers, wood oil, etc.   

 

The one poor showing I've had at Knoblach was due to the barrel being sloshed, and we had yeasty-muddled beer and the hoppiness certainly was compromised, but it was due to serving condition and not brewing.  All other times?  Hoppy as fuck! 

 

I encourage you to go back and spend some time with the aroma in that beer and see if you pick up the hop character...  For comparison, down the street you have Krug Geisfeld Lager, a similarly hoppy-bitter beer made entirely with Spalt Select.  Due to the precision of brewing at both these places, for sensory training purposes I list these two beers as benchmarks of Spalt hops.