851 Helles Lager
South County Brewing Co.

A pint can, into a Nonic. A straw colored pour with a decent head that is a little fizzy and deteriorates pretty quickly, leaves sparse lacing.
The lightly toasted German malt is well done, a pleasant light caramel flavor is complemented with grainy and delicious biscuit flavors, hints of nuttiness.
Mouthfeel is light, creamy, smooth. Nicely carbonated and some well balanced and delicious hops bitterness.
Very refreshing and crushable. A very good representation of the style.

The way I like lagers. Soft mouthfeel and malty with a subtle use of hops. No metallic taste at all. Nice beer.

 

Poured into a stange like glass: color is gold, transparent, head is off white and presents less than one finger thick on this pour, head dissipates to nothing, no lacing.

Smell is sweet malt, pilsner based, light grass hops, slight herbal note.

Taste is more sweeter pilsner malt, toast and biscuit notes, grassy hop flavor with light herbal spiciness.

Mouthfeel is moderate/stronger carbonation, moderate sweetness, moderate bitterness for they style.

Overall a very good helles style lager with prominent malt sweetness but crisper/grassy hop backing.

Look: Standard for this style, perfectly golden. Head dissipates a bit too quickly, but is rocky and leaves good lacing.

Smell: extremely bready with floral hops and a bit of sulfur too. Finish is yeast.

Taste: Solid sweet bready malt base with a non-insignificant amount of hop burst. Herbal, a bit citrusy, and mildly bitter, enough to refresh but not overwhelm. Maybe a touch too bitter for the style but I'm not complaining.

Feel: Refreshing and quite effervescent, though it decreases over time. A little heavier than you'd expect but it adds a nice amount of substance to the beer.

Overall: solid Helles, a pretty standard example. If you like German beers, you will definitely appreciate this.

 

Canned on 6/10/22; consumed on 7/15/22

Pours a clear, straw-gold body capped with two and a half fingers of fluffy, dense, eggshell-white foam; solid head retention leaves a paper-thin layer of cap, a moderate, frothy collar, and myriad chunky, soapy webs of lacing coating the walls of the glass.

Aromas open to rounded lager yeast imparting fresh bread dough with an inherent coating of distant minerality; light honeysuckle cuts through over time, leaving edges of grass lingering through the back end of the bouquet.

Taste brings earthy straw into softer tones of cream of wheat, with bread dough emerging from fresh lager yeast overtones further evolving to white toast on the back end and a grassy build toward the finish.

Mouthfeel offers a light body and carbonation on the higher end of moderate, leaving crisp textures progressing to a taut mid-palate and drying quickly into the back end as a clean, quenching finish holds.

Robust, fresh yeast trends sweet with bready overtones and a delicate spread of minerality across the profile; an earthy bittering cuts in awkwardly at times, though this Helles is otherwise well-composed and level throughout.

I thought that I had exhausted my inventory of South County CANs last month during my brewery horizontal, but lo & behold, while doing some rearranging in my cellar's BeerFrigerator (a reefer only, NO freezer compartment), I found two (2) more for The CANQuest (tm)! Zounds!

From the CAN: "Drink Fresh Do Not Age Please Recycle Always Keep Cold"; "Pour into a glass for best drinking experience".

I Crack!ed open the vent to begin a slow, gentle C-Line Glug into the awaiting Pilsner glass. I know that it was simply a Helles Lager, but I scored a buncha really nice Pilsner glasses at Ollie's Discount Mart recently & I REALLY like using them, especially from a presentation standpoint. This was no exception as it foamed up beautifully to form two-plus fingers of foamy, rocky, soapy, bone-white head with decent retention, slowly falling away to wisps. Color was a beautiful Yellow-Gold with NE-quality clarity, summoning forth The Gelt Gang of Mammon, Midas & Croesus for a taste. It looked like liquid sunshine in my glass! Nose had a kind of non-descript sweetish quality, slightly biscuity, mostly bready, definitely malt-driven. Mouthfeel was thin-to-medium, about on-par for the style. The taste had the clean, slightly sweet maltiness that all Lagers should evince & when I think about all of the AALs of the early goings of The CANQuest (tm), I simply want to weep! Man, this is what we could have had all along, had it not been for Prohibition! 8=( It should not come as a surprise to CANyone that a PA brewer is making a good example of a Lager. Our heritage is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a misnomer, since it is actually "Deutch" or "German" & so Lager brewing is not new or trendy to our brewers. In fact, this beer cried out to be CANsumed with a pretzel or two.

I work as a parcel clerk at the local post office handling plant & we ship PA snax hither & yon, especially pretzels & potato chips. Why? The PA Department of Agriculture has some of the highest standards in the country, plus our pretzels are hand-made and the chips are fried in lard. Each tastes far better than their mass-produced CANterparts & go great with beer! Mmm.

Finish remained semi-sweet, relying much more on its malt bill than on any hops that were included in the recipe. I CAN dig it! CAN you? YMMV.

 

 

 

 

Pouring a cold 16 oz can into my snifter. Ive had this in the fridge for a couple months, but figure it should still be fine. Canning date is 6/22/2018.
the beer pours a bright clear golden color with a fluffy bleached white head of 3 cm foaming up with a gentle pour. The head fades pretty quickly to one large wispy island.
The aroma is some grainy malt and some bread with a bit of spicy hop character. Overall the nose is mild but is definitely appropriate for the style.
First sip reveals a crisp and light texture and body. Very fine and tingly carbonation makes this beer have a pretty active feel on my palate.
Flavor is as expected based on the nose. Some bready malt and a bit of graininess. I also do get a bit of a sweet note, but it isnt sugary. I also get a little bit of spicy hop on the finish, but this doesnt linger and this beer ends very clean after each swallow. This is a well crafted and straightforward lager. Glad to have tried it and gaining an increasing confidence in anything from South County!

 

 

Pours like a standard lager, but with some additional foam head, a bit of which lingers. Smell is faint bread malts and a touch of mild hops. Taste is similar, but not as faint...bready, with some hops that add balance, turning this toward a more grain and mild lemon taste. Feel is crisp but not dry at all. Very refreshing. From a guy who usually doesn’t care for lagers...this is tasty and I hope it’s going to be year-round in regular rotation from these guys.

Can dated 3/5/18 into pint glass. Pours a clear light gold with a nice fine-bubbled head. Initial impression is bready malts and a touch of hops bitterness. Very crisp and refreshing. Finish is dry and clean. I'm more of a NEIPA fan, but I can appreciate that this is a well-crafted lager. South County is brewing some fantastic stuff!