What's Like Moretti LaRossa?

As always, such questions are nearly impossible to answer without knowing where you're located. Beer availability varies dramatically by geography.

That said, Moretti is more or less like a dunkel - the German word for "dark" and usually used in reference to a darker-colored, fairly malty beer of average strength. Most of the Bavarian and Munich breweries brew a version, several of which are sold in the States. The most likely brands you'll be able to find are Spaten and Paulaner, and perhaps Ayinger. Note that something called dunkelweizen or dunkelweiss will not be at all like Moretti.

-Steve

: > Please help me find a substitute for this excellent(IMO)brew. : : As always, such questions are nearly impossible to answer without knowing : where you're located. Beer availability varies dramatically by geography. : : That said, Moretti is more or less like a dunkel - the German word for : "dark" and usually used in reference to a darker-colored, fairly malty beer : of average strength. Most of the Bavarian and Munich breweries brew a : version, several of which are sold in the States. The most likely brands : you'll be able to find are Spaten and Paulaner, and perhaps Ayinger. Note : that something called dunkelweizen or dunkelweiss will not be at all like : Moretti. :

I don't think the Moretti LaRossa is intended to be a Vienna Lager but it comes close. Try Negra Modelo as a subsitute when you can't get the Moretti. I think you'll find them similar, though not identical.

What strikes me about Moretti LaRossa is that, though it's a darker beer, it doesn't seem to have a bitterness that I find in many others. I'm not a Guiness drinker, for instance. Many beers that have appended "dark" to a familiar brand name disappoint me.

Moretti Larossa just seems to have a great combination of hoppy sweetness, a nice fizzyness, for lack of a more appropriate word, and the nice kick of a higher alcohol content.

I'm in Georgia in the United States, btw.

Interesting...I've always thought of it more like a bock. It seems too "thick" compared to something like the Ayinger dunkel.

-------->Denny

Two things. "Dark" does not equate to bitter. Dark beers can be either malty or bitter. It all depends on other ingredients. The German dark beers tend not to be bitter.

As for appedning "dark" to a widely known beer - say, for example, Beck's Dark - you're right that they're often disappointing. It's because often those beers are really the same beer with a bit of coloring malt added.

The beers I mentioned, however, are brewed to have a different profile than just simply a darker-colored version of something else. And they are by no means bitter.

Well, at the risk of sounding pedantic, you've got a few of your terms mixed up there. Hops are what provides bitterness to a beer. What you're looking for is a malty sweetness, which La Rossa does indeed have (and the Doppio Malto has even more so).

Georgia recently changed its beer laws to allow some higher-alcohol beers into the state. Keep an eye out for German bocks and doppelbock beers. They are definitely on the malty side and higher alcohol. They might be right up your street.

-Steve

But you should never refer to it as Doppelwop.

Cheers,

Steve

I agree with the bock interpretation. Its been a long time, I wonder which type of caramelized malt they use.