Country Death Song
Holy Mountain Brewing Company - Interbay Brewery + Taproom

This one pours a fairly clear golden yellow color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like spicy and bitter hops, with pineapple, and breadiness.

Holy Mountain makes a lot of cool little hoppy pilsners. This is called a hoppy pilsner, but they also have West Coast pilsners – I’m not exactly sure what the difference is, but I tend to like them all. This has a nice funky little dried pineapple note on the finish, not juicy per se, and not fully IPA-like, but melds well with the more pilsner-y notes of white pepper, fresh cut grass, and bready malt.

This is light bodied, crisp, clean, and really drinkable.

Holy Mountain has remained one of our country’s best breweries.

Appearance: Pours a clear golden color with a head that builds to three fingers; strong retention and webs of lace

Smell: Sugar dusted lemon and grassy tones with a shortbread base

Taste: Opens with lemon shortbread flavors, bringing sweetness and bitterness; in the middle, the grassy tones buid to bring a more traditional pilsner profile; the sweetness still lingers a bit in the finish

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body with moderat to high carbonation

Overall: Some unusual aromatics and tastes from a pilsner, with an interesting sugared lemon aspect I was not expecting but thoroughly enjoyed

 

16oz can

Pours two big fingers of somewhat soapy white head into my Pilsner glass. Retention is decent, and half the head remains after a few minutes. Initial lacing looks soapy and mostly nil. Body is just slightly cloudy for a Pilsner, though high clarity in general. Yellow in color, with minimal bubbles coming up. Looks ok, the soapy head is unattractive.

Nose has some grass, and a big punch of lemon. Some very nice bready notes underneath, smells heavier and sweeter than your average, dry Pilsner. You’re never gonna hear me argue about a Pilsner with a little sweetness, and the elevated hops balance that well. Not a huge lemon guy, but all in all I can dig this.

You definitely get that lemon right up front on the flavor, it’s pretty smooth at first, but gets sharper over time. Breadyness is here, and adds a nice backbone. Overall pretty similar to the nose, starts off leaning towards the beadier side, and transitions more towards the lemon as it progresses.

Carbonation is pretty high, but it has a smooth aspect to it. Body definitely has a little weight for a Pilsner. Bitterness is medium-high. Starts off as a soft mouthfeel, gets crisper, drier and less sweet as time goes on. It’s nice either way.

Drinkability is great, this is tasty and goes down easy.

Appearance turned out pretty nice. A smalls sliver of head lasted for quite some time, and the lacing was actually pretty decent.

Overall an interesting beer in that the identity changed pretty significantly over time, from soft and bready to sharp and lemony. I would generally prefer the former as it is more untraditional for a Pils, but the latter is refreshing and always welcome.