Red Pilsner
Steel & Oak Brewing Co.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look: Brooding burnt orange with wisps of muddled thoughts thinly veiling its surface. The central area of the flute glass occasionally recedes into a darkness unique unto the beer itself. All in all a chromatically complex potion.

Smell: Generic pilsner malt bouncing fresh tennis balls which, after their due moments, begin an account of rolling, caramel wanderings through cereal streets. Mellowed coffee has been spilled into the rye pockmarks of this winding road.

Taste: Bitter orange and pine hops restrained so as not to suffocate the accompanying elements, namely rye and its mild malt companion. The cycle of sniff and quaff ends dry with a happy, if neutralized and exhausted, palate. No bullying acids nor astringency interrupts the jaunt. I liken the ingestion to a cycle of infinite (so long as the bottles keep trooping in) cleansing baptism.

Overall: an elevated pilsner encouraging and cheering a deep striving within its fellow kind.

 

Poured from a 650ml bottle.
A: Pours a clear amber red with a thin creamy white head with minor lacing.
S: Not much of a nose yeast and bread was there.
T: Very mild Pilsner crisp and clean but somewhat sweet.
F:Crisp feel with medium carbonation.
O: A nice Pilsner very mild but to sweet for me.

S&O seems to specialize in pairing beer elements you would not expect. Like a smoked hefe or this, a red pilsner. Hmm.

Pour would be beautiful if it weren't for considerable amount of chill-haze. Two fingers of head over a caramel/amber body, head receding quickly but leaving some runny lacing. Hard to measure this one, as you tend to expect gold and clear from a pils. This is not that (and indeed S&O prides itself on never filtering, even for a style that's supposed to be filtered . . .), but then it's also not trying to be.

Smell is still offering up some pilsner malt, some spicy Saaz-type hops, bitter leafy greens, but with just a bit of toasted, caramel malt as well. Taste also leads with the conventional pils flavours--biscuit, bread, spicy, leafy hops, but then there's a nice caramel-y, toasted/roasted malt spine. It does maintain, however, one of the key elements of the pils style, in terms of its crispness. Carbonation is moderate, the body is full but not heavy. Quite nice, quite refreshing. I'm a fan.

Overall, this is a surprisingly decent beer. It looks nice in the glass, smells ever so faintly of caramel, and it reasonably active in the glass. The taste takes some time to pin down, but the caramel spice manages to combine nicely with the pilsener malt and hoppiness that I enjoy. This is my first sample of an S & O beer, and I look forward to trying some more of their creations!

Served On-Tap

A — Pours with a rather nice ruby hue with excellent clarity and a light cream colored head on-top. Nice lacing left behind itself for a lager.

S — Smell is fairly light, all the right Pilsner malt notes, with a little bit of an extra caramel like sweetness as well.

T — Fairly mild and straightforward, notes of light Pilsner malts, a big dose of sweet caramel malts as well. Lightly bitter hoppy finish, but not much.

M — Light in body, crisp and clean, refreshing enough.

O — Good overall, perhaps a bit sweet and heavy though.

650ml bottle, nice to see more of this new Lower Mainland craft brewery's wares show up in Alberta.

This beer pours a somewhat hazy, medium bronzed amber colour, with one pudgy finger of puffy, loosely foamy, and kind of bubbly beige head, which leaves some layered bleeding paint swath lace around the glass as things genially subside.

It smells of gritty caramel malt, toasted breakfast cereals, an indistinct pale orchard fruitiness, and decent earthy, leafy, and spicy hops. The taste is mildly biscuity caramel, a still prominent roasted cereal thing, muted pome and citrus fruit notes, a pithy nuttiness, hints of day-old coffee grounds, and a pleasantly persistent grassy, leafy, and spicy hop bitterness.

The carbonation is adequate in its supportive and playful frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with just a wee biscuity edginess providing the foil. It finishes trending dry, the just-mentioned toasted biscuity malt starting to really assert itself, along with the yup, still good to go noble hops.

To me 'red pilsner' just means a bolder malt profile for the base style, but Steel & Oak have gone and toasted things right up (I do know that they have a predilection for smoke, so 'tis no big surprise), and the result is rather engaging. Easy to drink, and evocative of the inherent base ingredients like very few other offerings.

Orange/deep amber in colour, slightly off-white head.
Mild floral aromas.
Crisp. Low bitterness, sweetish. Caramel, honey, floral and medicinal notes. A touch of spice.
Fairly heavy bodied, smooth.
Very enjoyable.

 

 

Clear copper, honey sweetness, fairly mild, creamy, fizzy on the tongue.