Pilsner
Young Lion Brewing Company

Draft: Poured a clear golden yellow color lager with a large white foamy head with great retention and some lacing. Aroma of cereal notes with some grassy hoppy notes and some residual sugar notes. Taste is also a mix of clean cereal notes with some grassy hoppy notes and some residual sugar notes. Body is about average for style with good carbonation. Good quaffable lager with maybe a tad too much residual sugar notes.

Poured into a standard pint glass: color is gold, pretty clear/transparent, head is off white with mixed size bubbles and presents one finger thick, head dissipates to thin top and some lacing.

Smell is bread, biscuit, sweeter malt, limited hops; might expect a touch more hop character.

Taste is sweeter malt, more biscuit and bread, hops are limited and not pronounced - stretching for earth and grass notes.

Mouthfeel is low/moderate carbonation, moderate sweetness, lower bitterness; seems sweeter/less bitter than some emblematic versions of this style.

Overall a slightly sweet Czech pils style with maybe light bitterness than expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too dark for a pilsner. But really good. The nose is pilsnerish, but the color and body are more lager or ale like. A good beer but off style.

 

 

this is nowhere near as compelling as their fabulous ipa, but its a very well done pils, super drinkable as they go and a little less than fully traditional, but i dont mind that really. its got just a little copper color to it, some crystal type malt in here, its still clear and bubbly and approachable looking, just a few shades darker than is common. it adds a nice depth to the flavor, still driven by crackery european pils malt, but with this nice little toasted and sweet flash in the middle. its also pretty well hoppy, with a light citrus hop flavor but a pretty significant bitterness to it, clean though at the end, not too much, tidied right up and made zippy by the lager yeast and high carbonation. the first few sips i wasnt sure what to make of this, usually the grainier pils types arent my favorite, but i like what it adds and i like that they have bittered it up so much to balance that element. its off traditional, but it tastes good. these guys have me excited, i hope to get to try more of their beers when i am back in new york next month!

 

 

 

On tap at Tap and Mallet in Rochester, NY.

This one pours a light orange-ish/amber, with a small head, and a little bit of lacing.

This smells like grassy hops and not much else.

This is a good start for this brewery, but it lacks a certain malt complexity that I want in a pilsner. I don't want it to be "malty" per se, but I expect some nice breadiness. This isn't particularly hoppy, but it's still pretty much solely driven by the hops. I want some breadiness, some biscuit, something like that. I want it, and it's not there. The hop character is pretty tasty, though.

This is light bodied, crisp and clean, with a good level of carbonation.

This is a good start for this very young brewery. With some tweaks to aid in the malt complexity department, this would get really nice.