The Dogs of Helles
Laughing Dog Brewing

Can from Boise Co-op. Hazy golden body with nice creamy head, thick. Aroma is grainy, bready and citrus at the same time. Taste leaves the citrus behind and goes right for the breadbasket. Literally. White bread through and through. Slightly drying in the finish, but spot on for style. Nice going!

 

 

a very simple helles here, lighter than a lot of them, but the hops add something more than just balancing bitterness, light as they are in here. this is pretty well refined and real drinkable overall, although i could stand a little more lager yeast character in it, its almost dumbed down to me, and seems kind of more like a base beer for other flavors or something than it stands on its own, but ill rip through these this weekend for sure. it still smells and tastes distinctly german to me from the malt in here, pils-esque as it moves through, simple all the way, and very clean, even if i find myself wishing for a little more most of the time. its not quite refreshing because of the malt driving it, and its not as dry as the best of them at the end, but its close. it seems a little safe, modeled on something better than it, and relatively authentic, if a bit tame. these guys are capable of greatness, so i think i wanted this to be my new fridge base yellow beer and its not quite there, but its still good, and i more and more lately want beer that just tastes like beer sometimes, and this is that. good not great.

Laughing Dog Brewing "The Dogs of Helles"
12 fl. oz. can without production codes or freshness dating
$1.99 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: I can't figure out if this is a cute name or a stupid name, and I'll just leave that at that. Helles is a really easy style to do so this should be pretty easy and I'll just note any discrepancies I find. OK, appearance... well there's haze and that's not good. German helles is never cloudy. You can do a helles as a kellerbier or zwickelbier but you'd never call it a helles. The head looks good, and I'll pop back here later on and fill in the info. on the lacing - it was limited. The aroma is a bit lemony, apple-like, and maybe a touch like papaya - weird! You'll never find hops like these in a German helles. If Germans start adding hops like these they'll call it something else. Two strikes so far, not good, and to be honest I feel like there's something actually off in the aroma as well. On to the flavor... damn, there's more of that fruitiness, and some acidity as well. Yeah, it's tart, it reminds me of both a tart apple and a rotting apple. Both the fruitiness and the acidity are failures. I don't think it's a bad beer, I actually in some kind of weird way like it, but damn, this is about as far as you can get from a properly done helles and I'm just going to stop now and leave it at that. I won't trash it score-wise for not getting even close to style, I'll just review it hedonistically, but wow, just wow, that's not going to do to much for it either... the dogs of helles? Yeah, this one's a dog. Even if they hadn't invoked the term "German style helles lager" it wouldn't fare much better.

Review #6,696

 

 

 

Pours a slightly hazy medium yellow with minimal head.
Smell is pretty faint. Some light, sweet tropical fruit aroma.
Taste is mostly tropical fruit. Pineapple.
A bit sweet for a helles.

This is definitely an interesting helles. Poured from a can into a pint glass. Light gold in color, medium white head. Smells fruity and almost tropical. It has the body and carbonation you'd expect of a helles but tastes almost overwhelmingly like pineapple. Luckily I love pineapple and sweet beers so this didn't turn me off to it, but it's not at all what I was expecting. I'd drink it again but probably wouldn't go out of my way for it.