NZ Pure Lager
Asahi Beverages (NZ) Ltd

NZ Pure Lager is the usual crystal clear, pale straw colored lager. The head is fluffy, white, and has average retention.

The first thing I smell is soda cracker and an odd, out of place sweetness. It smells of lemon and not even the lemon hard candy your grandma used to have. Rather, some sort of synthetic lemon aroma. The rest of the aroma is fairly bland, smelling like some dusty old attic. Aromas move simply and straightforward into a short clipped finish that doesn't even have a hint of hops to see me on my way.

Well, at least NZ's mouthfeel starts out smooth and rounded. Soda cracker and lemon candy start things off before moving into a thinner, dryer center. Flavors of lemon candy linger for a minute, what with there being no other flavors or anything to attract your attention. As with the nose, the finish is short, clipped, and lacking in any hint of hops.

I think NZ Pure Lager's biggest crime is that it just doesn't seem to have anything going on. With only a little soda cracker in the flavor and aroma, it's almost too bland to even be beer flavored. On the plus side though, this will refresh you on a hot summer day.

 

Clear Pale golden colour with fluffy frothy white head. Basic big brewery taste with a touch of lemony tartness, almost a little salt and some clean malt. Faint floral hop smell very light body with some good carbonation fizz. Very easy drinking, but a far cry from a good German lager

Quite sweet
September 12 2019

Bright straw color with good activity and a mist of yeast. Slightly foamy white 2-3 finger head, lasting around 5 minutes, faint legs and swirl reaction. Flavors of sweet grains, lemon, light veggies, and floral hops (wakatu). Slick medium to full body with moderate prickly carbonation. Light strength finish, cereal feel with balanced flowery hops. Soft wet corn, but doesn't feel adjunct and almost pleasant. Not much fruity, more malty bitterness. Overly accessible, missing a more pronounced vegetal hoppy sensation. Not much personality nor complexity. Highly fresh though, and well balanced. Overall above average quality craft.

440 mL can purchased at The Beer Store; listed at 4.7% and served well chilled. The code stamped on the base is 171867027, but I have no idea how to translate that into an actual date.

Pours a pale, crystal-clear golden-yellow colour, laden with streams of effervescence. One inch of loose, soapy white froth is produced atop, proceeding to wilt away at an exceedingly slow pace. It gives rise to a thick coat of sticky lacing on its way down, with a creamy-looking cap and collar being the eventual remnants. Quite attractive, with far better retention than most examples of this style. Nothing too inspiring on the nose - cereal grain sweetness, floral hops and grassy hay are the only things I'm noticing within the aroma.

Things were looking up at the start, but my first sip was a truly hope-deflating experience. The flavour profile is very basic, starting off with a clean, grainy malt sweetness that leads into a faintly grassy hop note. Where it starts to lose me is the finish and aftertaste, where a corn chip sweetness rears its ugly head, lingering on the palate for a second or two at the conclusion of each swig. Light-bodied, with moderately assertive carbonation that isn't quite as crisp and prickly as adjunct lagers tend to be - rather, this one has a smoother, somewhat softer texture. Easy to drink quickly, but not good for much else.

Final Grade: 3.15, a borderline tolerable C+. I've probably only had a half-dozen or so beers out of New Zealand, but NZ Pure Lager is easily the lamest one of the bunch. It looks quite good in the glass and smells fine for what it is, but the flavour is as insipid and forgettable as any mediocre North American macro lager. A weak effort that doesn't even work as a budget beer - there are plenty of imported Euro pilseners/helles lagers/etc. around here that undercut its price point, and taste much better. If you're not a ticker, don't feel compelled to bother with this - you aren't missing anything by skipping it.

 

 

To me, a toned-down Steinlager. I personally prefer the bigass stank of a Steiny so this was not my favorite. If you are a fan of the Euro lager profile, you won't mind this one.

 

Straw plus pour with white head that disappeared immediately; no lace and no cap; good clarity. Bready nose and some odd sweet floral hops. Semi sweet malt base and a little corny. Light and crisp with plenty of carbonation. An average lite lager with not much going on...

 

Clear yellow with a nice white cap. Nose has grass and grains. Clean taste, bit of grain and light grassy notes. Light bitterness and grass aftertaste. Light bodied.

440ml can - what, are all lagers in New Zealand 'pure', or something, as Steinlager also makes a product very much like this. In fact, at first I thought it was just a repackaging effort on their part.

This beer pours a clear, pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and lazily bubbly off-white head, which leaves some chunky and streaky lace around the glass as it gently subsides.

It smells of gritty, grainy pale malt, lemon floor polish, a touch of white pepper spice, and musty, earthy, and dead grassy hops. The taste is bready, mildly doughy pale malt, a more agreeable lemon pie fruitiness, faint yeasty esters, and soft weedy, grassy, and ethereally skunky hops.

The carbonation is quite lively in its probing and coating frothiness, the body an adequate medium weight for the style, and maybe a bit too edgy from the musty hops to be deemed particularly smooth. It finishes off-dry, just, as the graininess starts to fade away, and the lemony, earthy, and grassy bitters carry on kicking about.

At first whiff, this had all the hallmarks of yer typical adjunct lager stankiness - however, that impression (warranted or not, it is in a can, after all) soon blew off, leaving us with a plain, but drinkable enough Euro-esque lager. Nothing to write home about, which is good, because airmail to this one's point of origin wouldn't be cheap.