Alpine Style
Interboro Spirits and Ales

Can purchased and drank at Fattey Beer Company in Rochester, NY.

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

This smells pretty floral, with some grainy sweetness and doughy malt.

This is super simple and pleasant. There’s a doughy and grainy sweetness, not overwhelming at all, with a fresh floral and grassy bitterness gently layered on top of it.

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

I could drink quite a few of these pretty easily.

 

A: Pours a clear medium golden yellow in color with moderate amounts of active visible carbonation rising quickly from the bottom of the glass and moderate bright yellow + pale yellow + straw yellow colored highlights. The beer has a three finger tall dense sudsy creamy foamy off-white head that slowly reduces to a large patch of thick film covering a little more than 60% of the surface of the beer and a thin ring at the edges of the glass. Significant amounts of lacing are observed.

S: Moderate aromas of doughy + bready + cereal grain malts with a light to moderate amount of grainy sweetness. That is followed by light to moderate aromas of grassy + floral/honeysuckle hops. Light aromas of lager yeast.

T: Upfront there are moderate flavors of doughy + bready + cereal grain malts with a light to moderate amount of grainy sweetness. That is followed by light flavors of lager yeast. Finally there are light to moderate flavors of grassy + floral/honeysuckle hops which impart a light amount of bitterness which fades away fairly quickly leaving a relatively clean finish.

M: Just shy of medium bodied with moderate amounts of carbonation. Crisp with a clean finish.

O: Easy to drink with well hidden alcohol and a refreshingly crisp + clean mouthfeel. Enjoyable and a little unusual with the flavors and aromas of honeysuckle in a pils but quite successful.

 

 

 

 

 

Can. I enjoy the old school, minimalistic sticker label. The beer looked the part too. Didn’t get into the flavor much. Too malty and sweet for my liking. No very crisp and little hop character. Didn’t really work for me.

I am very close to reaching a milestone (of sorts) & as such, I am taking The CANQuest (tm) to its upper limits! I am CANtinuing to find new & unusual brews in my backlog as well as ocCANsionally buying new ones. This was one at Hunger-n-Thirst last weekend that I found that I CANnot pass up.

From the CAN: "Brewed In Collaboration with Our Friends at Burial Beer".

I was beCANming more & more anxious to get this one started as things progressed. One alternative needed a pic, another an add & even this one needed an amendment! Grr. I Crack!ed open the vent & released its CANtents in one quick hurry as a response to my frustration. It was not quite an inverted Glug, but pretty close to one! It foamed up to form just under two fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, bone-white head with decent retention. Color was a beautiful Golden-Amber (SRM = > 5, < 7) with NE-quality clarity & so The Gelt Gang of Mammon, Midas & Croesus joined me for a taste. Nose smelled less like BoHo/Saaz/Noble hops than fruity CANtaloupe! Interesting. Mouthfeel was medium, big for a Pilsner or a Lager of any stripe, for that matter. The taste was very much of CANtaloupe or honeydew, but it really was not a BoHo Pils. I was digging it since they undoubtedly used a Czech Pils yeast strain, but the hops were not to style-spec. Okay. Finish was semi-dry & highly refreshing. It pains me to rate it this way, but in rating to style, it just did not measure up. YMMV.

 

Interboro Spirits and Ales / Burial Brewing Co. "Alpine Style Pilsner"
16 fl. oz. can without production codes or freshness dating
$4.49 @ Roger Wilco, Pennsauken, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: I've never heard of an Alpine style Pilsner. The alps cover quite a few countries... France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Boznia and Herzogovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania. I've been to the Alps in southern Germany and I'd call those beers southern German pilsners (more malty, less bitter, often served as kellerbiers), and Austria but I didn't notice a truly different style there. There were some Kellerbiers in Austria though, so maybe that's what they're getting at as this beer is very hazy. It's more hazy than a Belgian witbier but not quite cloudy like a German hefeweizen. It's golden with an orange sheen beneath a full head of fluffy white foam. The head retention is excellent. It's floral and lightly fruity in the nose but not boldy hoppy, and some sweetish grainy malt comes through as well as some actual yeast. It's clean, and pleasant. The flavor follows, as usual, with some added grassy and subtly spicy hops - even a light hint of lemon. It's a little sweetish but still balanced in the end by a moderate bitterness. Holding the glass slightly tilted I can see hundreds of tiny bubbles rising along the side of the glass. It's effervescent, which is probably helping to keep its persistently creamy head, and which lends it a gentle bristle on the tongue. The body is medium leaning towards medium-light. Apart from the carbonation, which may be natural due to, in this case, can-conditioning, I'm not sure that the yeast really helps it. On the other hand I haven't tasted it filtered so I could never really know. As it is it's quite pleasant. I'll be visiting the Alps again in a few months in northern Italy and Switzerland so maybe I'll come across more beers like this. - - - Ahh, I just noticed that the brewery calls this a "clear" beer, which totally throws off my understanding of it so far. How did this can get so hazy? Weird. It's obviously not naturally conditioned then for starters, and l thought that the appearance was great with excellent head retention and lacing but now I'll have to rethink how I score that. Most importantly I guess my notion of an "Alpine style Pilsner" being a kellerbier is out as well. What the hell is an "Alpine style Pilsner" then? Whatever, it is what it is I guess.
Review# 6,494

 

An aggressive pour yields a beer the color of sunshine before twilight begins, with a nice bit of haze and a frothy white head. Bready malts and noble hop aromas dominate the nose.

The taste features the slightest bit of lemongrass to accompany the bready malt flavors and the grassy hop notes. I’m a HUUUUGE fan of Victory’s Prima Pils, and this beer is the equal of that magnificent Pilsner, IMHO.

I’m admittedly hard on pilsners—it has to be pretty special for one to make an impression on me. And once again Interboro hits the mark with an outstanding example of what a drinkable/sessionable FLAVORFUL Pilsner should be. Without a doubt one of the finer bohemians I’ve had the pleasure of quaffing.

 

 

A: The beer is crystal clear golden yellow in color and has a moderate amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a quarter finger high bright white head that died down, leaving a small patch of bubbles on the surface and a narrow collar around the edge of the glass.
S: Light aromas of dough and honeysuckle are present in the nose.
T: The taste has flavors of bready malts and dough with notes of honeysuckle from the hops. No bitterness is perceptible.
M: It feels medium-bodied and a little clean on the palate with a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: The aromas and flavors of honeysuckle in this pilsener make it stand out as unique compared to other beers in the style.

Serving type: can