The Dark Kingdom
Holy Mountain Brewing Company - Interbay Brewery + Taproom

 

Very dark brown with clear edges, khaki head that settles into a cap. Smell and taste are clones: center is roasted malts with earthy, cocoa, and charred nuances, maybe a hint of coffee, with a red thread of caramel and dark yeast as an undercurrent. Feel is roasty and medium bodied, has the usual textures but the depth is lacking. Good but not great

 

This one pours a fairly dark black color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like roasted and charred malt, dark chocolate, caramel, and lightly floral hop notes.

This is basically exactly what I want out of this style. It has a nice creamy and roasty flavor to it, with dark chocolate bitterness, a touch of sweetness, a touch of floral/spicy hop notes, and a nice like sort of roasty coffee note.

This is medium bodied, creamy, and very drinkable.

Holy Mountain is well known for their wild ales and high ABV beers, but they do basically everything, including lagers, well.

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a dark orange red with a two finger light khaki head with great retention and nice lacing. Aroma of toasted biscuit malt, dry caramel, brown bread and hints of coffee. Flavor is toasted grainy malt with a little char, coffee, mild dry caramel and light grassy hops; bready toasted malt and char finish. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. A fine domestic take on this Czech style that is becoming more available on the market. This has all the basic character of the style with toasted malt and light caramel, but has a quite nice note of malt char that I'd normally associate with a stout that is particularly noticeable in the finish. I liked the deeper roasted flavors of this lager. Mouth feel is above average for the ABV. Nicely done. I'll be watching for this again in the future.

Poured from 16oz can into a dimpled mug.

Appearance: rich, dark amber-brown hue with a clear body that lets a lovely dark amber hue through when held up to the light. Head is a finger of frothy tan foam; but man, that color is super pretty.

Smell: slightly sweet biscuity malt aroma with a fair dose of caramel character to it. More of an amber than a dark to me, but still not bad.

Taste: whoo, quite biscuity indeed. There are also elements of caramel, toffee, and a bit of nuttiness, but that biscuit is a lot for my taste. It’s tasty enough, but not really calibrated to appeal to my palate.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a really good carbonation and a good creaminess.

Overall: a well-made and certainly drinkable Czech dark lager that, to me, tends toward more of an amber lager flavor profile. I could do with less of that biscuity malt, but that’s just my personal taste.

16oz can

Pours three massive fingers of dense tan head into my Boston Lager glass. Retention is great, and after a few minutes nearly all the head remains. Lacing is wonderful. Body is a deep reddish brown. Low visibility, but light enough to see a fair amount of nucleation. Looks superb.

Nose has some roast to it, burnt toast, mineral, very faint chocolate. Smells on the drier side, but there is a touch of perceived sweetness from the chocolate that helps the balance. Pretty nice.

Flavor has an appropriate level of roast, some faint caramel, not really any chocolate. Very clean. It’s pretty straight forward, but that’s perfectly fine here. Nice.

Carbonation is medium-high. Pretty light bodied, with a crisp and refreshing nature. On the drier side, with a touch of bitterness, and a small sweetness - very well balanced. Overall a really nice mouthfeel that does a lot of work accentuating the flavor.

Drinkability is fantastic.

Overall a solid beer with a beautiful mouthfeel and enough flavor to do the trick. Noticeably better in the glass.