Dan
Checkerspot Brewing Company

8 oz pour on tap at the brewery. Pours a light amber with a moderately-sized off-white head. Aroma and flavor feature caramel and bready malt - just the right amount of sweetness - and earthy/floral hops. Creamy mouthfeel, no alcohol detectable. No noticeable flaws, not really memorable but just as good in April as it would be in October.

Checkerspot is a brewery that's a short walk from Baltimore's 2 professional stadiums, so I really just associate it with pre-and-post gaming. I've never been in a state to attempt a proper review of any of their offerings, but seeing as how they have been granted COVID-based permission to deliver crowlers, I figured what the hey, let's give em a shot.

Dan is a marzen and apparently they offer it more or less year round? I'm glad to see any newer brewery that still has flagships, and double glad to see one of those flagships being most modest and malt-forward. Perhaps there is hope for the American beer scene after all.

The pour is standard for an American marzen, which is to say significantly darker than most German iterations. It's a very pretty, bright, filtered amber with medium effervesence and a respectable head.

The aroma is not quite as malty and rich as my favorite American marzens (Millstream's in particular) but it's still recognizably of the style and doesn't contain any off nodes whatsoever. Bready and lightly sweet with some mild yeast complexities.

Tastes, again, a bit faint for my taste but still quite good over all. Biscuits and light caramel up front, a bit of nuttiness in the middle, and then some slight wisps of tangy European hops at balance everything out at the end.