Venn Dortmund-Style Lager
Ninkasi Brewing Company

Venn Dortmund-Style LagerVenn Dortmund-Style Lager
Beer Geek Stats | Print Shelf Talker
From:
Ninkasi Brewing Company
 
Oregon, United States
Style:
European / Dortmunder Export Lager
ABV:
5.1%
Score:
83
Avg:
3.64 | pDev: 10.99%
Reviews:
20
Ratings:
62
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Jan 02, 2018
Added:
Aug 13, 2014
Wants:
  1
Gots:
  5
No description / notes.
View: More Beers
Recent ratings and reviews. | Log in to view more ratings + sorting options.
Ratings by MIrvine:
Photo of MIrvine
Rated by MIrvine from California

3.78/5  rDev +3.8%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

May 31, 2015
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 2.5 by 1971bernat from Virginia

Jan 02, 2018
Photo of Libeertarian
Reviewed by Libeertarian from Montana

3.28/5  rDev -9.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.25
From notes taken 04/14/16:

Straw-gold, fine-hazed, but quite clear. White head of moderate retention, frothy, delicate, film-forming. Grainy, grassy nose, delicious but not very strong. Very grainy palate, but not quite harsh. Some honey and biscuit notes. Floral hop bitterness, even somewhat metallic. Light- to medium-bodied, jam-packed with foamy suds, just shy of being overly effervescent.
Apr 17, 2016
Photo of stevoj
Reviewed by stevoj from Idaho

3.25/5  rDev -10.7%
look: 3.25 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.25
Sweet lager, essences of hay and cereal grains, pretty good example of the German style. Pale golden body, faint cereal aroma, taste is fresh bread, crackers, biscuits. Sweet grain finish, clean and slick.
Mar 18, 2016
 
Rated: 3.5 by nathanmiller from New York

Sep 02, 2015
Photo of patre_tim
Reviewed by patre_tim from Thailand

3.6/5  rDev -1.1%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Lemon gold and hazy, little carbonation like almost none, a few fingers of whitish head fades super fast.

Like pills or white medicine, some hay, some aspirin, a hint of orchard fruits.

Orchard fruits and blossoms in addition to hay and a backbone of biscuit.

Medium smooth body with a fair weightiness of grain quality, lightly syrupy, and very little carbonation.

Found and drank in Chiang Mai, July 6th, 2015. I heard it was a Vienna Lager, so was psyched up for that. Like this style as well, and its a good one for it, just perhaps confusing to those who are not familiar with the style which is like a hybrid of German Pilsners and Munich Lagers.
Jul 06, 2015
Photo of brentk56
Reviewed by brentk56 from North Carolina

3.97/5  rDev +9.1%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Appearance: Pours a slightly hazy goldenstraw color with a surprisingly small head; not much retention or lacing

Smell: Grainy, cracker malt and a hint of lemon

Taste: Sweet cracker malt tones lead off with grainy flavors developing; lemon and graham cracker sweetness finish up

Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate carbonation

Overall: A very nice example of a style that you rarely see brewed by domestic craft brewers
Jul 01, 2015
Photo of Greywulfken
Reviewed by Greywulfken from New York

3.25/5  rDev -10.7%
look: 3.25 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.25
A: pale straw gold, bubbles stream from the beer throughout, fizzy rim and hazy sheen throughout

S: makes me think of pale, crisp malts and biscuit-like dough

T: clean-tasting grain, refined and accented with something like a lemony herb

F: light and clean, ample carbonation, very mild bittering

O: decent enough beer, but not something I really liked, if that makes sense - not being much of a lager drinker, I didn't expect too much here, but I figure fans of the style might like it more than I did. I'd need to try another dortmunder before I could give an adequate accounting, but based on other pale lagers I've had, I thought this a serviceable but not outstanding lager.
Jun 23, 2015
 
Rated: 3.63 by Poupae from Thailand

Jun 21, 2015
 
Rated: 3.7 by Oakenator from Pennsylvania

Apr 10, 2015
Photo of Fatehunter
Reviewed by Fatehunter from Oregon

3.36/5  rDev -7.7%
look: 3 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5
Pours a thin head on a hazy light straw body.
The aroma is lemon and grain.
The taste has mild lemon and grapefruit bitterness with a touch of malt sweet.
The texture is crisp and light body.
It's a nice lager.
Mar 24, 2015
 
Rated: 3.42 by GeorgeAKeim from Oregon

Mar 01, 2015
Photo of OrestesMethuon
Reviewed by OrestesMethuon from Montana

4.05/5  rDev +11.3%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4
I agree with one of the previous reviewers: I find this Ninkasi product to be a pretty great representation of the style.

Poured from a twelve-ounce bottle brought back from the Bay Area, and decanted into a Junkyard Brewing Company sixteen-ounce tulip, the first—and perhaps ultimately most striking—feature of Venn is its beautiful hue and appearance, replete with copious furious streams of tiny bubbles birthing forth from the just-barely-frothy, otherwise-limpid pale golden body of this lager. It really looks very becoming—and when one approaches, it matches its color and shape with a very dry, softly fruited nose, with hints of grain-husk and the faintest note of wet earth.

At first sip, the lager is—appropriately—not at all thin: like Dortmunder Gold or Dog Days, this larger has heft, despite its paleness, and doesn't shy away from its malts, light as they may be; indeed, it's probably a bit thicker than either of those two lagers, without feeling weighed-down. The flavors, though heavy on the malt-fruit (and even dry stone-fruit), aren't obsequious or excessively sweet: there's a lot of bite, the flavors coalesce into an assured crispness, and there's just enough hopping throughout, with some grassy notes on the front-end and some smooth bitters on the back.

Overall, it's a refreshing, well-styled, day-drinking kind of beer—something I'd personally want for breakfast, even, since it's light enough for foggy-eyes but hearty enough to coat the empty stomach a bit. It doesn't quite match up to Jinx Proof—a beer that's one of my favorites within the "lighter lager" universe, and that's likewise very underrated, to my mind—but it's probably more true to "Dortmund-Style" form, so points for that are in order.
Jan 16, 2015
 
Rated: 3.64 by Phi_Psi_OR_Beta from Oregon

Jan 15, 2015
Photo of SitkaSteve
Reviewed by SitkaSteve from Idaho

3.83/5  rDev +5.2%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
This was poured into a pilsener glass.
The appearance was a nice looking mostly clear golden yellow color with a one finger white foamy head that dissipated within a quick minute. Barely any lacing graced the sides of the glass.
The smell had a quick sweet malty and somewhat fresh sweet grassy to somewhat light corn-like aroma.
The taste was mainly sweet and somewhat sticky among my palate as it strings itself along my tongue into the aftertaste. A light stringy glossy sweet corny finish produces itself.
The mouthfeel was mainly sticky sweet on a light to medium sort of tongue.
Overall, as a dortmunder / export lager, this one works. Try it if you see but remember its a dortmunder so keep it real folks!
Jan 10, 2015
Photo of pstringall
Rated by pstringall from California

4.5/5  rDev +23.6%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
Great representation of the style!
Jan 06, 2015
 
Rated: 3.78 by AGB from District of Columbia

Jan 03, 2015
 
Rated: 3.5 by jmccraney from Washington

Dec 27, 2014
 
Rated: 3.74 by Sound_Explorer from Washington

Dec 18, 2014
 
Rated: 3.67 by Griffith from Connecticut

Dec 17, 2014
Venn Dortmund-Style Lager from Ninkasi Brewing Company
Beer rating: 83 out of 100 with 62 ratings