Paulaner Brewery
München, Germany
Imported by: Paulaner HP USA
Littleton , CO
Available: nationwide
Salvator, meaning “savior,” is the original doppelbock. This beer established the tradition of all doppelbock names ending in “-ator”.
ABV: 7.9
ABW: 6.29
Color: n/a
Bitterness: n/a
Original gravity: n/a
Paulaner Salvator is liquid comfort food. It’s a great beer to snuggle up with when you want something familiar, cozy and warming. Even the beer’s color is like a little lit fire in the glass: a bright, clear amber-red that sports a fleeting head of tight, tan bubbles. A bready, yeasty aroma wafts from the glass and dances with boozy, grainy notes. The flavors follow suit, first with sweet, bready malt followed by a nice wallop of alcohol and a touch of earthy hops to round things out. This beer is a sipper to be enjoyed with good friends and good food on a chilly night.
Enjoying Salvator is like visiting a very good friend of 25 years; familiar, yet ever enlightening. It pours ruddy amber, and the aroma is always a delight, reminiscent of cherry vanilla candy and malted milk, with a bit of alcoholic warmth. There is enough underlying edge of hop bitterness for balance. The mouthfeel is full and dense, and is wrapped with more malted sweet flavor. I have always thought that Salvator is what an Imperial festbier or Vienna should taste like, as it is less reliant on dark malts than other doppelbocks, and has that light Munich malt spiciness in the foreground. The finish is as cleansing as it is satiating. With all due respect to its history, this may be the perfect Thanksgiving beer.
Lisa Morrison, aka The Beer Goddess, writes about beer whenever she can and also gets to talk about it on a weekly radio show in her hometown of Portland, OR.
K. Florian Klemp is an award-winning homebrewer and general hobbyist who thinks there is no more sublime marriage than that of art and science.
