WHAT IS A DUNKEL ?
Remember the TV panel game show, "Call My Bluff" from the 60's to 80s? A team of three had to guess the meaning of an obscure word, as described by a second team of three. One definition was true, the other two were bluffs.
I can imagine the word "Dunkel" appearing in the show , but have no concrete evidence of this.
So what does it mean ? Well here are three definitions :-
1. A type of car engine
2. A character from the Harry Potter series
3. A type of German Dark Lager or Wheat Beer.
Well given this is a beer blog, its safe to say the first two are bluff, the last is true.
So why go on about Dunkel ? Well, Mrs Ken and I have just returned from a week in Lanzarote, part of the Canary Islands. I figured 25 degrees in the January sun was worth missing out on some decent beer. Sure enough the hotel and most of the supermarket stuff was as predicted, yellow and fizzy. ( San Miguel anyone?)
However found some bottles from the German Franziskaner Brewery. There were three Wheat Beers, Naturtrub, Crystal, and a Dunkel. See picture, taken on hotel balcony in bright sunlight just before sunset .
Now Dunkel means "dark" in German and the term applies to dark lagers and sometimes dark wheat beers. The style had died out and took an young entrepreneur called Prinz Luipold, who took over the Kaltenberg Brewery in 1976. Rather than brew what everyone else was brewing at the time, he reintroduced Dunkel, in the form of Kaltenberg Konig Ludwig Dunkel.
The beer I found was from a different brewery and is actually a Dunkel Wheat Beer. It is a red brown fruity 5% drink and very palatable. Needless to say, brought some back with me.( no room for wine in the cases this time I'm afraid dearest!!)
If you can find any this or any other Dunkel style in the UK, give it a try. Recommended.
