311 Helles Lager
Coal Harbour Brewing Company

 

473ml can - wow, it looks like they've gone all-out in procuring the traditional ingredients for this brew. So named after 11/11/2011, which was apparently their go-live date.

This beer pours a clear, bright pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, rocky, and somewhat fizzy bone-white head, which leaves a bit of spattered and streaky lace around the glass as it slowly but surely evaporates.

It smells of grainy and crackery cereal malt, a touch of lemon rind, estery gasohol notes, and some leafy, floral, and grassy green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, white saltine crackers, dried spilled petrol, muddled domestic citrus peel, and more leafy, herbal, spicy, and grassy noble hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, with just a touch of hop acridity taking things down a notch or two here. It finishes off-dry, the robust malt holding fast against the lingering old-skool hops.

Overall - this comes across as a duly reverential version of the style, as Coal Harbour has nailed all the expected parameters, as already elucidated. Crisp, fresh, and very easy to put back on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Imma gonna enjoy just sipping away at the rest of this tall-boy.

 

Bottled
Pours a crystal clear body with decent enough white head
Lemon wheat aroma
Barley sugar in the flavour with a slightly gut bitter finish and easy drinking body

 

Look: marshmallow-tight foam cap resting on a pale gold field of straw. Even after a dozen minute the effervescent shows only minimal fatigue.

Aroma: Crisp pilsner and sweet-dreaming bread crumb Munich malts. Hops are lightly floral and meekly herbal. A few drops of sweat, even wet dog, which dissipates over time.

Taste: Restrained sweetness, or the suggestion of sweetness, the shadow of sweetness, sweetness either growing into or out of itself through the subdued spiciness in the hops and distant doughiness from the malt. A touch mineral in the conclusion, but hardly offensive.

Feel: smooth, dry end-taste with a little lingering tang.

Overall: a wonderful, even coy, act of restraint and subtly. Neither the hops nor the malt attempt a coup d'etat; both subsets of aroma and taste write riddles on rice paper, koans which the tongue and nose could spend an evening laughing over in warm, smile-ridden dismay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok at $13 for 8 cans this is great value as it is much more nuanced than similarly priced offerings from Bowen Island or Cariboo. Pours very pale as per the helles style. The hops are pleasant though I would have liked more but the biscuit notes on the malt are nice and there is very drinkable. Since there is no lager in BC that stands out this might be my go to for the value vs quality angle.

 

 

 

 

A: 3/4" offwhite head and excellent clarity on this golden straw coloured beer. Medium to low level of fine carbonation that dissipates quickly.

S: My guess would be Saaz and Tettnanger hops predominantly on the nose. Grassy, noble, clean, and floral hops with some sweet malt in the background.

T: Pleasant sweet bread and biscuit malt flavours with some floral and grassy noble hop flavours. Much more sweet than bitter.

M: Thin viscosity and a low level of carbonation.

O: The malt profile of this beer was great, but I would have enjoyed the beer more if it was balanced more with increased bitterness from the noble hops. The carbonation also dissipated extremely quick. Although 8 cans for less than $14 is a great deal.

I have to add that the design of the cans is lacking. Due to the increased competition in the craft beer market, often design is what sets breweries apart on the shelves.