Coney Island Albino Python (NY)

Some craft breweries don't even bother with lagers. Shmaltz has a whole specialty line of them. Albino Python (with its slightly salacious label art) is a singular beer: a "white lager brewed with spices," a witbier brewed with lager yeast. Who else brews one of those?

The lager yeast is bound to make a difference, but on top of that, Shmaltz uses an atypical blend of spices: ginger, crushed fennel and orange peel. No coriander? And how many other beers use fennel? (Although fennel is licoricey like anise, which isn't completely unusual in beer.) To me, the spices definitely dominate any citrus fruit elements, and I'll definitely believe it's ginger and fennel. There isn't much malty backbone here, and the hops aren't bitter, but instead appear to add a somewhat rough and dry finish. It's crisp, and would work well with grilled chicken or fish or something like that.

Albino Python is, first and foremost, different. It's also pretty good, better than most lagers. But I don't like it quite as much as a well-made white ale.

Genesee Bock Beer (NY)

Session #25: Lager. The Beer Nut suggests we "return to our roots" and calls for us to leave those fancy-pants imported lagers aside. In his kick off post, he also writes up Dundee Honey Brown Lager and calls it the very sort of fancy-pants imported lager we should not be blogging about, and this is a problem for me, for whom Dundee Honey Brown is local, not imported, and stands as the quintessential middlebrow brau. There is roughly the same amount of space between it and Budweiser as there is between Applebee's and Wendy's. So what lager can I find that fills the space between craft and crap?

Actually, The Beer Nut backtracks a bit and says Honey Brown is exactly the sort of beer we should discuss. Nonetheless, I felt self-conscious about over-shooting this one. Fortunately for me, this is the time of year where Genesee (ultimately, the same brewery that makes the Dundee line) releases its "special edition" Bock Beer. The brew is a bit darker than The Beer Nut's recommended pilseners, light lagers, or helleses, but it runs about $6.50 for a 12-pack, so I don't think I aimed too high on this one. And how can anyone resist the early-60s-wallpaper style can design?

Genny Bock is attractive enough to justify pouring into a glass: clear amber with a big (but superficial) head. On the tongue, it's over-carbonated and light-bodied. The finish will prove to be metallic (or maybe that's just me fixating on the can). But before that, it's a pretty good beer. A little caramel flavor, some very light floral hops. It's not too sweet or corny or rice-y. It doesn't warm all that well, but is more than just thirst-quenching for 90 degree days. It's damn well better than any other Genesee beer. I never regret buying a full 12-pack, although one pack a year usually suffices.

I can't say Genny Bock is really a 'roots' beer for me. I didn't drink this in high school or college, and it wasn't a regular choice for me before I became connoisseur and hobbyist. Still, I'm glad to see it when it comes out each year. It's what an unpretentious value lager should be, and it's a shame there aren't many American regional breweries that produce stuff like this anymore.

Four More from Lakefront (WI)

The remaining four from my Lakefront 8-pack are darker beers, except for the India Pale Ale.

IPA: The strongest beer of the lot at 7% while the rest are between 5% and 6%. This also proves to be the best of the bunch. It's not a West Coast hop bomb, but more of a balanced English-style IPA. Big aroma comes through as soon as you pop the cap. Hazy pale orange, nice trail of foam left down the side of the glass. Taste-wise, it's not the punchiest of the style in terms of hops, but puts forth a nice balance of biscuity malts and citrus and floral hops. Doesn't feel like its  ABV. 

Eastside Dark Lager: "A rich, dark lager like the ones Milwaukee's founding fathers might have enjoyed on the old Eastside." Wikipedia describes Milwaukee's East side as "a mix of hipsters, hippies, college students and young professionals." Was the old East side different? Regardless, this is a dark lager, but not a rich enough one for me. Any roasty coffee or chocolate elements are muted. 

Instead, it's a bit metallic. Better than macro lagers (blah, blah, blah) but that's about it.

Riverwest Stein Beer: Riverwest is another Milwaukee neighborhood, and I appreciate the brewery's effort in tapping into it's local scene. I did not drink this lager out of a stein, but out of a regular lager glass. It's lighter than Eastside Dark, a chestnut colored beer. The taste is primarily caramel, and then maybe woody hops which keep it from being too sweet.  Alas, it's somewhat watery. Still better than Eastside Dark, but not a memorable lager.

Fuel Cafe Coffee Flavored Stout: When I cracked this open, I sensed that sour salami smell I had found in the lighter beers. Fortunately, any such taste was covered up. This pours pitch black with a red-beige head that fizzes away quickly. The coffee is there as promised. It's actually fairly hard to down, maybe due less to its richness than to a mild astringency in the finish. If you really like coffee stout, give this one a try.

Overall for me, a pretty unimpressive variety pack from Lakefront. I'd drink the IPA again and maybe the Cherry Lager, but that's about it. Was there an issue of freshness? All bottles were dated from later August, which is only three months. That doesn't preclude the possibility of poor handling, but that still doesn't change the fact that for me these weren't all that great. 

Three from Saranac (NY)

Saranac really makes a lot of styles, so many that I can buy their variety six-pack and find no beers that I've reviewed (though I've had a couple of these before).

Adirondack Lager: The good news is that this isn't a bland lager. The bad news is it doesn't taste quite right (at least not to me). Clear, light amber color, light hop aroma. It's made with both Hallertau and Cascades, and you can kind of taste both of them battling it out. However, some of the taste gets buried beneath heavy carbonation (not uncommon for this brewery). There are also somewhat sour, metallic elements appearing. Maybe just a bad one-off for me, but this wasn't good.

Pale Ale: Much better. This might be considered their signature beer, and it's all over the place around these parts. "Classic English Style," it says on the label, and it uses Fuggles and EKG hops to prove it. I think I sense some US-style citrusy hops in the nose, but those don't really appear. In stead, it's a good balance of malts and fruity, herbal hops. Softly carbonated. Great sessions brew.

India Pale Ale: The label says "American I.P.A." and boasts of "generous amounts of Cascade hops." This is a tough style to crack for a place like Saranac. Do you try to appease the hop-crazed elements of the craft beer community? Or do you tone it down a notch to appeal to a larger crowd? A bit more of the latter, I'd say. The citrusy hops come through against the malt background, but neither is huge. A bit light in both body and bitterness. The last IPA I had was Great Lakes, to which Saranac can't hold a candle. Still, if you forget about others of the style, you'll find a fairly tasty beer, and maybe a good first IPA.


Not a bad half a six pack (you only get one of each). Their Pale Ale may be my favorite of the brewery, but sometimes I think its more fun to drink things like Caramel Porter and Mountain Berry Ale and Chocolate Amber Lager, even if they don't all work. That's what Saranac does best: crank out the styles.

Baltika Zhigulevskoe (RUS)

For some reason I couldn't pass this up: a light (4%) Russian lager in a 1.5 liter ("1 qt., 1 pint, 3 fl. oz.") plastic bottle with a name in cyrillic lettering. It cost $2.99, which comes to about 75 cents per 12 ounces. Shaming so many microbreweries who don't do the same, Baltika provides both a production date (05.03.08) and a best before date (05.09.08). I'm assuming these are given in "little endian" date format, used in most places outside North America. If not, this beer has a very short shelf-life.

The body is more light brown than yellow, which is a good sign, and is nicely clear. However, there's not much aroma, and not much taste. This is more of a flavorless pale lager than an offensively tasting one. There's a slight corn sweetness that becomes cloying if you drink too much of it, or if you let the bottle warm up. Slight hops, slightly grainy malts. No real hop bite, though, and no rich maltiness. Still, I didn't think it was all that terrible, but it really needs accompanying food and maybe hot weather to make it worthwhile. The plastic bottle allows you to drink half, then put the cap back on and squeeze the bottle so as to reduce surface area and retain carbonation. That's a plus.

Coney Island Lager (NY)

Creepiest. Label. Ever.

This is from the the same guys who make He'brew beers. The Coney Island lagers (there are several) have spun off onto their own web page. This isn't a huge lager in terms of ABV (5.5%) but it is one that tries to do a lot, boasting of eight malt and six hop varieties. With hops, it plays both German (Tettnang, Hallerauer) and Czech (Saaz) sides of the fence, plus adds Amarillo, Warrior and the inevitable Cascade. The ultimate result is, I think, something a bit ale-ish.

It's coppery-brown and a bit hazy, looking thick for a lager. The aroma does hint at citrus hops. A lot of flavor for a lager: caramel malt (but not like the Vienna lager that ratebeer places it as), grassy and citrus hops. Overall, it isn't bitter, but well-balanced, and not in the sense of boring. The price of this is that it isn't as clean and crisp as many lagers, although it does bring a lager-like carbonation that tells you it isn't an ale.

Coney island Lager isn't as far outside the stylistic boundaries as Flying Dog's Old Scratch. I like it about as much as I like Brooklyn Lager, which also tosses in Northwest hops. If you want a purely traditional take on lager, you might be disappointed. If you're an ale supremacist, give this a try.

Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager (COL)

So I decided to take a break from my lager tasting to try this English-style ale called Old Scratch Amber Lager. The brewer confesses that this is fermented at "medium temperatures to develop both ale and lager characteristics." Maybe it's a California Common -- I haven't had Anchor Steam in a while for comparison. My first thought upon sipping was that it's reminiscent of Adnams Broadside.

Not that it's a close match. Old Scratch smells initially of a lager with its German hops. It's clear like a lager, although somewhat ruddier than most. By the standards of an ale, it would be fairly light-bodied and crisp. But really, this isn't a lager. It's more malty than hoppy (only 19 IBUs), which I suppose is okay. The malts are somewhat caramel, but also of butterscotch, which is way out of place for a lager. The finish pulls back somewhat dry, but still not entirely clean.

Fidelity to style notwithstanding, Old Scratch is a good beer. Given the Beer Geeks' suspicion of lagers, maybe it's a good way to sneak one in under the radar. The raters at Beer Advocate and ratebeer are only moderately impressed, however.

Brooklyn Lager/Blue Point Toasted Lager (NY)

I'm going through a bit of a lager spell right now. Like any other style, and I occasionally have a hankering for them. Still, I know that many beer geeks feel as the Modern Drunkard does in this blast from the past post:

lager: there are those who like to say this light, golden beer is served cold so as to distinguish it from urine, but the truth of the matter is urine also has a much better head.

I decided to give Blue Point's Toasted Lager a try, using Brooklyn Brewery's better known lager as a benchmark.

The beers look nearly identical: clear amber/copper with white head. I think Brooklyn's foam lasts a bit longer. Tastewise, Blue Point strikes me as simply a more competently made version of the lagers we Americans grew up with. It has good malty flavor -- no light or sour corniness. However, it isn't really toasty. The hop kick exceeds that of macros, obviously, but isn't huge (28 IBUs, according to the brewer, but against not too rich of a malt backbone). Fairly flavorful, clean, crisp and refreshing.

Brooklyn Lager is either more exciting or more wrong. It brings more flavor and more hop presence; more bite, and a bit of pilsener scratchiness. What's most noteworthy is the American citrusy hops whose bitterness hit at the end. It's made with Hallertauer Mittelfruh, Vanguard and Cascade, and the last of these isn't hidden. To me, it's reminiscent of an APA or Amber Ale. Looking at what most people say online, I didn't see a lot of others pointing this out, so maybe I'm just sensitive to grapefruit bitterness. All told, it's a better bet for those underwhelmed by most lagers.

Both are defined at ratebeer as Vienna lagers. Neither are much like Great Lakes Eliot Ness, which amps up a toffee-like sweetness and tastes very Octobery. I've heard people recommend Brooklyn Lager as a gateway beer, but I don't know. A lot of people just don't like that citrusy bitterness. Blue Point would be a safer bet, but maybe doesn't do enough to drag macro drinkers into the craft beer realm. I like both beers.

Sprecher Mai Bock/Black Bavarian (WIS)

I hadn't seen anything from this Milwaukee based brewer before, so I wonder if they just began distributing to Western New York. They are evidently more renowned for their soda than for their beer. The 16-ounce bottles ($8.50 a 4-pack) have twist off caps, unusual for a craft brewer, but unlike macro bottles, they're really hard to open.

Mai Bock: This is a seasonal brew, a robust pale lager. It pours a lightly hazy orange-yellow with a weak head. Overall, it's a bit more malty than hoppy, although there's definite bitterness along with the bready sweetness. The neck label claims a "distinctive flowery aroma and a crisp hop flavor," which is mostly correct, though I'm not sure if it comes across as entirely crisp. It has a rich body, nice soft carbonation, and a very long aftertaste. I like this beer a good deal, but it might not win over lager skeptics. It's probably more suitable for early, cool spring than for sunny May days.


Black Bavarian: Another lager, this appears to be one of their most respected offerings. I like schwarzbiers a lot, with Sam Adams providing my current favorite. Sprecher's take is smokier. It starts out sweet, has some spiciness and bitterness, but is quickly overtaken by pretty heavy roasted malts. It reminds me a bit of Saranac Chocolate Amber Lager in that respect, or perhaps some stouts I've had. I'm not enthralled with smokiness, which is a strike against Sprecher for me. On the plus side, it has the same appealing soft carbonation as the Mai Bock. Black Bavarian is a well-made beer, and I think it's a question of what you're looking for.

Great Lakes Eliot Ness/Holy Moses White Ale (OH)

The other two from the sampler pack:

Eliot Ness: A "deep amber lager" that would be great for the fall. Pours clear amber with a fluufy off-white head -- it looks great. The taste is unsuprisingly malty -- of caramel and toasted grains -- but there's also a decent hop presence that gives it balance. The finishes is on the dry side for the style, which I like. Its 6.2% ABV may be a bit much for a sessions beer, but it really doesn't come across as too rich or sweet.

Holy Moses White Ale: This one's named after Moses Cleaveland, city founder. It's an unfiltered brew, with a turbid straw-colored body harboring some floaties. This one also isn't too sweet. The spice level is fairly high, and the combination of that, the hops, and fairly high carbonation make it crisp and somewhat zesty. In 2006, Men's Journal had this listed as one of its 25 best beers in the US. I think that flatters Holy Moses a bit, but it's still something that would really hit the spot once springtime hits.

If I could only have one of these again, it would be the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, though time of year might alter my choice. It's too bad we can't get many others from Great Lakes here.

Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold/Edmund Fitzgerald (OH)

Where I live, we can't get many beers from Big Ten country. Cleveland is only about a two hour drive from Lakewood, NY (home of Southern Tier), but while the latter has its own shelf display at Wegmans, the former has been unavailable. Until recently, that is. Beers of the World now sells Great Lakes, including the variety 12-pack that I bought for an affordable $14-15.

Three of these four beers are listed among the 500 mentioned in Michael Jackson's Great Beer Guide. The downside is this probably isn't the best season for some of them.

Dortmunder Gold: Gold refers both to medals won at GABF and the color. "Not as dry as a Pilsner or as malty as a Munich-style lager," the label says. It is still pretty malty, with an earthy, grainy flavor to it. Hops make an appearance, but it isn't bitter. Nor does it finish cleanly, which is fine given its tastiness. It's more medium-bodied than light, with a decent amount of fizz. I like it, and intend to come back to it when the weather warms up.

Edmund Fitzgerald Porter: I think this one's even better. It's named after the doomed ship rather than the guy who the ship was named after (an insurance executive, BTW). Like Dortmunder Gold, it's listed as 5.8% ABV. It pours a very dark brown, but I can just see my fingers through the other side of the glass. Nice tan head that lasts. The taste is on the dry side, very roasty (almost smoky), and noticeably of coffee. There are some other flavors going on, but I like it because it's fairly direct. The body has a nice soft carbonation. It strikes me as being a tiny bit thinner than I'd like, but that's a minor criticism. This is a wonderfully drinkable porter.

Kalnapilis 7.30 (LTH)

Beers of the World has a pretty large selection of Eastern European brews, and it's hard not to resist picking one up every once in a while. A half liter bottle of this plonk set me back a shade over $2. The label brags winning a Gold Award at the 2004 World Beer Cup, something the brewer's lower-alcohol Kalnapilis Original can also claim (as can Labbatt's Blue Light).

It doesn't look bad, kind of cloudy gold with a decent head, and the body has the right amount of carbonation. In both aroma and taste, I convince myself that there's something slightly citric. But really it's mostly cheap malts and alcohol. The hop level is about the same as for an American macro (i.e., low). The difference is that 7.30 brings 7.3% worth of alcohol, and the aftertaste is quite harsh. While Beer Advocate categorizes this as a string European lager, Ratebeer just says it's a malt liquor. For what it's worth, Beer Advocate says it's "worth a try" despite 71% thumbs being down. I think there are better ways to get 7%+ alcohol cheaply, but you have to drink the bad stuff every now and then to appreciate the good.

Samuel Smith's Organic Lager (ENG)

I grabbed a 550 ml bottle of this at the supermarket from what must have been a Merchant du Vin display: Samuel Smith's, Ayinger, Lindemans. Appreciative of the selection (this wasn't even the good supermarket in my area), I felt compelled to buy something.

Pale lagers get very little respect, of course, but what about one from an esteemed brewer? The first thing to impress me is its terrific head: tall, thick, lacy and durable. The second is its mouthfeel. Wonderfully creamy with fine carbonation underneath, it actually reminds me a lot of a hefeweizen. The taste isn't much like a hefe, although it is a tad sweet, more malty than hoppy. The finish is fairly long and dry, but there's never really any bitterness. Although it doesn't have a lot of flavor compared to other styles, this beer brings much more than you'd find in any macro pale lager.

Rating to style, Samuel Smith's is absolutely killer. Even compared with other styles, I like it and would drink it again. The downside is the price: I think I paid $3.50 for one over-sized bottle, and I assume a four-pack of 12-ouncers costs more than $10.