Lesser Ritual
Holy Mountain Brewing Company - Interbay Brewery + Taproom

 

Appearance: Pours a clear golden color with a two finger head that rises after a mini-bubble show; good retention with speckles of foam sticking

Smell: Grassy, peppery and lemony; considerable sulfur tones

Taste: Peppery and sulfuric, up front, with grassy lemon tones developing; a massive amount of flavor right through the finish

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body with moderate carbonation

Overall: A powerful pilsner with a lot of flavor

16oz can

Pours nearly two fingers of frothy white head into my perfect pint glass, looks really creamy. Retention is nice and a finger remains after a few minutes. Initial lacing looks wonderful. Body is a shade above straw yellow. Clarity is high, with a boat load of nucleation. Looks really nice so far.

Hops are wonderful, a little grass, some spice, subtle notes of lemon, berries, and maybe a touch of grapefruit. Complex for a pilsner. Smells very well attenuated, crisp, and refreshing. Fantastic.

Yeah this just hits on all cylinders. From the first sip you can pick up berries, and it finishes with noble notes of grass and spice. Not getting too much citrus here, maybe a touch of lemon, but there is plenty of flavor regardless. This is really nice.

Carbonation is a little over medium. Body is light but not paper thin. Bitterness asserts itself, but is very appropriate and more than welcome. Quite dry, but crisp and refreshing, no complaints. Great mouthfeel.

Drinkability is perfect, this is light and super tasty.

Appearance also turned out phenomenal. Lacing was thick all the way down, and a small island of head remained the entire time.

I love it when brewers cross over styles, you wouldn’t think using American hops in a pilsner would be that wild of an idea, but here we are. This knocks it out of the park as (what I would assume is Czech or German pils base), and adds a great American twist.

 

 

Served out of a 16 ounce can.

The beer pours a pale yellow gold color with considerable lacing and good head retention. This beer certainly looks good enough. On the nose I pick up grassy hops and biscuit, with some underlying black pepper and honey as well. The beer has a mouth watering quality that is always impressive in a beer like this. The flavor profile replicates the nose pretty closely, but there's almost something of a light melon flavor as well that is intriguing. The beer is quite light on its feet, and the finish is refreshingly dry and bitter. Alcohol is no more than an afterthought in this beer, and drinkability is off the charts. As domestic pils go, it doesn't get much better than this.

This is a very impressive beer from HM. I've had enough insipid versions to realize that it's not all that easy to make a good, solid pils, but in this case, HM has completely knocked it out of the park. Very well done (and the perfect accompaniment to watching our US women put down the hated canucks in the gold medal hockey game last night).