Red Hills Pilsner
Golden Valley Brewery and Pub

 

Straw colored and hazy with nice lacing. Faint malty aroma. Fine, but prominent effervescence. Mild and drinkable, but with nice subtle hoppiness. Great summer beer!

 

Well, i'm obviously assuming that "Red Hills" are just a local attraction, and the beer has nothing red about it.

Pale straw in appearance with some thin white bubbly head.

Crisp clean aroma of creamy malt and some spicy noble hop notes.

Getting some banana and nutmeg, cloves and other wit-esqe flavors are poking through. It's great and refreshing at first, but becomes a bit syrupy or cloying towards the end and especially in the aftertaste. The sweet stickiness both helps and harms the aftertaste. It either makes me want to keep drinking to avoid the aftertaste, but can conversly make me want to just move onto something else. A nice brew, and a real good summer drinker.

A summer seasonal beer that resembles a late autumn weather report: sunny, mostly clear with temperatures in the upper 40’s. And I love the Saaz aroma though they misspelled “Czech” on the bottle, which makes an awkward reference to the “noble aromatic quality of Chech Saaz.” Chech? Didn’t he used to make those stoner movies with Chong?

Note to the brewer, printer or editorial honcho: people will judge you for your inability to press the speel check button.

But a beer’s a beer, and this one’s slightly too bitter for my tastes. Perhaps “too bitter” is not the key operative so much as the quality of the bitterness is too heavy and blaring. I might have preferred an emphasis on mellow restraint, but that’s just me.

Still, I did adapt to the Red Hills. It’s a smart looking beer, capable of delivering refreshment, and I came to enjoy it.

Tasted at the 2003 Oregon Brewers Fest. Medium gold color. Medium head. Aroma is malty, grainy and fruity. A medium bodied pilsner. Malts are fruity, mild and slightly sweet. Hops are slightly spicy and a touch grapefruit and floral. Well balanced. Light and refreshing. Nice pilsner. Smooth. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly bitter.

Picked up a mug of this for dinner, which it was well suited for.

Poured a very pale straw color, brief appearance by a full head of foam. Left with a nice halo and lacing. Crisp smell of malt. Taste is somewhat lazy, nice malt flavors that are in no hurry to introduce themselves, crisp finish. Good choice to compliment the German meal I was having, but not too interesting afterwards.