Dog River Bavarian Dark
District Brewing Company

A 500 ml can, after a tough day at work. Pours a clean dark amber colour with a 2 finger cloudy head. A nutty caramel aroma with yeasty notes. A hit of roasted barley malt flavours. Earthy and visceral, the flavours were full and pleasant. I was pleased and would not hesitate to have another. That being said, there are many other Bavarian darks I would choose over this particular version.

 

Dog River Bavarian Dark isn't actually that dark at all; in fact, it has a very light pecan brown tone, complete transparency and very bright, colourful highlights. But that's not the worst thing about the appearance - bubbles initially filled almost half my glass before loudly sizzling down to a more normal level. That's never a good sign...

The clove-like phenols and fruit esters in the aroma are more cause for concern - or at least confirmation that this brewer's interpretation of a German-style Dark Lager is vastly different from the one I'm familiar with. Rich, deep or roasty maltiness is obviously not in the cards. This smells no darker (and slightly sweeter) than a standard Euro lager.

And that includes a faint impression of corn syrup. I know the good folks at District brew according to the Reinheitsgebot and didn't stoop to adjuncts, but they certainly skimped on the ingredients; there's no real impression of malt whatsoever. The flavour is thin, insipid and void of any kind of coffee, cocoa, molasses, breadcrust or caramel nuance.

Hops are imperceptible too. There's a subtle sweetness in the finish - again, the kind you'd find in an industrially-brewed pilsner - but I'm beginning to think they've merely added a little colour for effect. There's certainly nothing that gives the impression this beer was ever lagered; spicy notes and fruity esters run wild over this frail-bodied and sometimes syrupy offering.

The Bavarians I know would be appalled to have their name associated with this beer. Dog River Dark (as it aught to be called) is a flawed and poor example of a dark lager, even for one intended to be inexpensive and broadly accessible to a mainstream audience. The Howlers Rugby Club is going need a better product if they hope to keep raising charitable funds.

 

 

473ml can. I somehow accidentally bought this instead of another beer. I proceeded to read the few reviews that this beer had and drank and reviewed it anyway — a mistake.

One review in particular seemed like an excessively negative review and I thought that when I taste the beer for myself that I'll disagree with him, but obviously it's silly to make such assumptions. Turns out he was totally on the money (at least for my batch), perhaps even too generous.

I think I'd rate this beer even worse than his review. The only thing that this beer has going for it is it's mouthfeel, but even it isn't that good. Carbonation seemed medium to me, and dies over time rather quickly to maybe medium light.

I was quite amazed at how full the can was. Never before have I seen a can that is filled up 100% to the top. I'm talking 1–2 mm from the opening such that the meniscus made it touch the top. From then on the surprises were only negative though.

For starters, almost no smell. Look is typical for a dark. Not much head, entirely disappears over time, no lace at all.

Taste wise, it first stated like a typical lager for the first few sips. However for 95% of the time, this quite horrible very strong metallic taste burned my mouth the whole time (figuratively, but almost literally, since it tastes like blood tastes). I'm actually amazed at how metallic this tastes. I've never tasted any beer that tasted particularly metallic to me at all and always wondered what the heck people were talking about when they bring up this metallic stuff (I thought it was possibly bias from people drinking canned products or something), however this beer is something else. After a while ALL ONE CAN TASTE IS METALLIC. Like literally the taste you will get from licking some coins until your tongue bleeds (and the taste of blood too for that matter). I'm not sure what is causing this, but I could only guess that it's the combination of hops with probably overcooked (burnt black) "caramel". It makes me feel like I'm drinking a glass of carcinogen. It even made the roof my my mouth sore as far as I know (I did eat potato chips an hour or two prior but I didn't feel anything from that).

Overall this was not only not a pleasant experience, but a particularly UNPLEASANT experience.
That said, I can only assume that this batch (and maybe some others) was somehow produced bad (like freshly scrubbed equipment that wasn't left to oxidize). It seems insane that this would be their desired product . The only reason I'll say "avoid this" is that even if this was a bad batch, they missed their chance, and there's so many other players around that are better even if this beer didn't get messed up.

 

 

Appearance - Pours a mahogany brown with two fingers of tan head.

Smell - bready malts, hint of yeast, dark fruits, toffee, hint of semi-sweet chocolate, and hint of leafy and herbal hops.

Taste - Bready malts followed by the dark fruits and toffee. The hint of yeast and semi-sweet chocolate come through next. The hint of leafy and herbal hops finish the brew off.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes off dry with the semi-sweet chocolate lingering.

Overall - A brew that is all over the map. Since this style is more geared towards the malts, it is definitely unbalanced but nonetheless an easy drinking beer.

 

 

Better than this brewery's flagship, but not by much . . .

Cola/ruby colour; loose off-white head, full of bubbles, recedes quickly. Very little smell--a bit of cola, caramel, burnt sugar. . . . That's it, really. Arguably faintly herbal. Taste is . . . bloody. Like biting your tongue, or sucking on a penny. Coppery, blood. Ick. And then caramel, toasted malt, a bit of crystal malt? Aggressive carbonation, thin-ish body.

Okay, no, maybe this *isn't* better than District's flagship pale lager; I find this almost actively unpleasant. Especially that "bloody" metallic flavour.

A Euro Dark Lager. From Regina. I see... This was an extremely pleasant surprise. If you like your caramel and chocolate flavours, with no hint of hops, this brew will fit the bill for you. I must admit this was the perfect "road pop" following a long day of thinking, so it hit the mark easily.

473ml can - so named after the Dog River Howlers Rugby Club of 'Saskatchewan, Canada'.

This beer pours a clear, dark bronzed brown colour, with two chubby fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy ecru head, which leaves a bit of amorphous blob lace around the glass as it slowly and evenly recedes.

It smells of bready and lightly crackery caramel malt, subtle earthy yeast, muddled black orchard fruit, some free-range char, subtle bittersweet chocolate, and very plain leafy and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, a weird, maybe yeast-borne astringency, sharp underripe pome fruity notes, milky, but at the same time pithy cocoa powder, a further thin molasses sweetness, and still hard to really notice earthy, leafy, and weedy hops.

The carbonation is quite tame in its barely there frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, but a bit too clammy to be considered all that smooth. It finishes off-dry, the chocolate and roast-tinged caramel malt faltering in its own right, but with little offset readily available to rush in and pick up the slack.

Overall, not a bad dark Bavarian-style lager, the purported flavours more or less delivered upon; however, this is hardly a 'malt bomb'. Unbalanced? Yes, but that's due more to a lack of hop bitterness, than any uber malt backbone running through it. Easy enough to drink, and even easier to quickly forget about.