Czech Dark Lager
Fracture Brewing

Poured from 16oz can into a dimpled mug. Canned 10/30/23.

Appearance: deep, rich amber-brown revealing a haze-free body when held up to the light. Head is a finger of frothy tan foam. Looks good.

Smell: caramelly aroma with a lightly sweet nuttiness and a dash of fruity yeast character. Simple, but I like it.

Taste: malt character is a bit toastier than the aroma, with a little bit of biscuity malt as well. This is starting to teeter on the edge of an amber lager flavor-wise, but I think it works well enough as a dark lager too.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a decent level of carbonation and creaminess.

Overall: a pretty solid dark lager. I might say it’s a bit more biscuity and amber-lager-ey than I like in the style, but still, it’s not bad at all.

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a very dark reddish orange that still passes a bit of light in the glass and a fine, two finger khaki head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly toasted biscuit malt, postum, mild cocoa and brown bread. Flavor follows, with lightly toasted biscuit malt with a hint of char, bakers chocolate, brown bread and dark dried fruit. Lingering malty and dried fruit finish. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess; nice mouth feel. Another nicely made Czech dark lager; so happy that this is becoming a more popular style, because I like it way more than the lighter lagers. This starts off a little mellow, but builds flavor throughout with a great residual malty finish. Fine flavor depth for the ABV and more complex flavors than I expected. Well done. I look forward to trying something else from this new-to-me Oregon brewery.

my first from these guys, really clever can art, solid dark lager, definitely and old world meets new kind of beer, a little more richness to this than is common in europe, a little more roast and depth too, but still with a flavorful lager yeast strain and pretty easy drinkability, i liked this a lot, even it it sort of starts to play in that baltic porter space a little bit, just a bit more substantial than a lot of these, even with the lower alcohol content overall. deep brown pour with a frothing inch of big bubbled tan head, fine retention. the nose is roasty, milk chocolate, root beer, slight toffee, fig and raisin fruitiness, and the bready lager yeast which kind of keeps it in the right style realm, very little hops here as expected, and a sort of baked warmth to the whole thing. the flavor is similar, very chocolate forward with layers of molasses and brown sugar, peat and smoke, date and raisin, and some minerality late. its a bit sweeter in the middle and into the back end than i want it to be, and it has a little more body than it needs for being a session type, but this is well made, distinct because of that robustness, and a nice roasty flavorful brew overall. i will look forward to my next one from these guys, this is good.

Draft of this at the brewery, served in mug

Very dark brown, almost black, cream colored head. Good head retention. Aroma of cocoa, raisin, bread crust. Taste is similar, on the drier side, little earthy bitterness. Medium to bodied for a lager