#hofbrauhaus-traunstein-radler

Rad bod

Today, you join me not-live on the patio, on the first properly warm day of the year. Our topic is radler (shandy the German way) and the conditions are excellent for some side-by-side evaluation. We start traditionally, with a thick-walled half-litre bottle of Hofbräuhaus Traunstein Radler , from Bavaria. It's 50% "bier" (lager, presumably), and the other half cloudy lemonade, coming out at 2.4% ABV. With these, I think the choice of lemonade is crucial, and they've picked a good one. It has quite a natural flavour of real lemons, pulped and sweetened, and that's in spite of an ingredients list that shows it's anything but natural, including both lemon extract and citrus-hop-extract as well. The result is big bodied and satisfying; verging on sticky but still perfectly thirst-quenching. And while the lemonade is far and away the main character, there's a slight hint of biscuit lager malt and salad-leaf noble hops, hovering in the background. The contents of my glass did not last long,