Josh’s beerdar was working in a coffee shop the other day when he saw a small can of “Mumme” on the shelf. When he got home he excitedly showed it to me, and quickly mailed another can to a friend.

Yesterday we met two Ratebeerians from Finland who are here in Bamberg. They came over and the four of us shared the can of Mumme. What an interesting experience!

The back of the can has some “instructions,” and the lady at the coffee shop apparently told Josh “Don’t drink this straight!” However, Mumme has no alcohol and all it contains is barley malt and water. The instructions can be read here in German:

Well of course we are going to try it straight first…It looked a little scary because it was so thick! The consistency of paint. But it smelled nice. I instantly associated the rich sweet barley aroma and flavor with Grape Nuts cereal, which we always had in the house when I was a child.

The serving suggestions say to put some Mumme in either milk or beer. I like beer, and not milk, so forewent the milk mixture. But Josh tried it and here were the results. He didn’t bother with a spoon…

Because Mumme reminded me of Grape Nuts, I suppose mixing it with milk makes sense. If you’ve ever made Grape Nuts into a hot cereal and sweetened with molasses, that is what Mumme is like to me even though it is actually unssweetened.

Mixed with Jever, in very small portion of the Mumme to the Jever, it was not so bad at all in my opinion but perhaps better just tried straight. It seems very nourishing and is no wonder it is marketed now as an energy beverage. It’s in a can the size of Red Bull and costs even more, at 6 euros per can.

Mumme is a pretty old school style of malt beverage. The can claims it’s from 1492:

Josh wrote a little more in depth about Mumme here.