Oktoberfest Lager
Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe

 

Pours a deep reddish ruby-amber colour, clear body showing a steady stream of carbonation. Head is bubbly, nice beige colour; sinks very slowly, leaving nice dense lace behind. Great Autumn lager look.

Smells quite malty and fruity. Nice amber malt with toffee underlying. Moderate hop character comes over the top; a slight sourness to it, with a touch of citrus and pine notes, yeah fairly woody. Decent smell, could use a touch more malt on there though, the sourness pervades a bit too much.

Taste is very medicinal and phenolic. Lots of woody vegetative notes on the front, but very quickly overtaken by cherry medicine flavour with a boozey robustness to it, aided of course by the heavy malt base. A slight walnut character on the back reminds me of the better examples of the style, but the medicinal flavour really dominates. It trails off for the finish but leaves a bit of a kirschey hang; slightly sour but with a rotten vegetable aseptic flavour to it. Not exactly my idea of "let's celebrate autumn with shitloads of this".

Good body to it, full and smooth but not enough to cover the carbonation sizzle. That would be okay but it doesnt go with the fullness; a bit of a mishmash to be honest.

There is something really heavy about this beer. I think the fact is there is a lot of malt to it but it hasn't retained enough residual sweetness, so the whole thing just goes down a bit like cough medicine.

Golden amber with a foamy beige head, that keeps kicking up when swirled.
Restrained nose, perhaps some honeydew and tea biscuits.
Fruity, sweet biscuity...is there perhaps a really, really faint lactic touch ? It gives it some extra interest, and offsets the sweetness a bit.
Creamy & smooth, this is a malt bomb, maybe a little too sweet for me, but a delicious drink nonetheless.