Old Combine 4-Grain Lager
Moonlight Brewing Company

Grainy but smooth. Give you a full spectrum of flavor but instead of hops, we have grain. It’s definitely nodding towards the more complex flavors that you would expect in a multigrain bread. I truly enjoyed the complexity and look forward to future releases.

Poured at fridge temp. Pours a nice transparent yellow with abundant white fluffy head. Tons of bubbles rising throughout. The nose is bread, biscuits, grainy, wood, slight spice, and a nice earthy note. The taste is super smooth. Honey, slight lemon, biscuits, caramel, malts, leather, some wood, and almost no bitterness. Overall, very tasty and easy to drink.

 

Can received in a Lif associated in Bif16 from @beersnake1

Brewers notes: Oats, rye, wheat and barley give this lager an unusually rich and intriguing mouthfeel. Just the perfect zing of hops brings these grains to vibrancy!

American lager has little in the way of hop and malt character. A straw to gold, very clean and crisp, highly carbonated lager. Hop aroma and flavor are low to medium-low, deriving from noble-type hops. Hop bitterness is medium. Toasted, biscuit-like, and/or bready malt flavors along with low levels of fermented-malt-derived sulfur compounds may be evident.

Canned on 10.5, opened 11.29

Creamy , fluffy , long lasting off white frothy cap lazily lingers over a clear golden liquid with numerous carbonation streams . Very good retention , spotty lacings, settles to a thin layer

Aroma is spicy, malty , grains

Taste is malty, rye, spicy notes , the rye seems to dominate , biscuity

Sudsy mouthfeel , hop nibble on the finish

Good beer

 

Howdy, partner! Raul pictures Billy the Kid drinking this thing before Pat Garret got to him. And maybe even John Wesley Harden before they shipped his ass to Yuma. I don’t know, but this is just a quality Lager that is no fodder.

Woo ha!

Appearance - Beer beer pouring orange-ish copper color with a white head crowning the glass.

Smell - I detected a lot of rye in the nose.

Taste - once again, I got a lot of rye in this beer. That is a good thing. Other notes included wheat and lager yeast. The rye provided just a touch of spice that really came out in the finish.

Mouthfeel -More body would’ve went a longer way in terms of staying power. Carbonation was not to be toyed with on this one, brushing away sweetness and allowing the rye to linger.

Overall - Moonlight does such a good job with lagers.

 

16oz can, dated 10.01.2020, poured into a Gueuze Tilquin tumbler glass.

The beer pours a bright golden straw color, somewhat cloudy with a foamy white head, modest retention and spotted lacing. The aroma is nice, bready malts, doughy, hearty, sweet yeast, a touch of earthiness but a very mild lager. The flavors are good, a touch of earthy hop bitterness, lightly grassy with a great bready malt base, chewy, doughy, rustic and not so sweet with a steady crispness. The mouthfeel is good, coating and lively with a heavier medium body that finishes easily.

Verdict: A nice American lager from Moonlight Brewing. Very bready with just a little bite that keeps it from being too sweet. Straightforward and simple, but refreshing and enjoyable.

Recent drop to lupulo from brewery.
A- Clear deep gold color with a white head & lacing.
S- Bittersweet grain some biscuit.
T- malty, biscuit/cracker. Some bitterness Almost sour.
F - fairly thick And full For a lager.
Overall - powerful complex grain flavors. Won’t be for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On tap at the 2014 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest held at the Paso Robles Event Center in Paso Robles, CA.

Pours a hazy orange with a foamy off-white head that settles to wisps of film on top of the beer. Small dots of lace form around the glass on the drink down. Smell is of malt, grain, and yeast aromas. Taste is much the same with malt, grain, and yeast flavors on the finish. There is a mild amount of hop bitterness on the palate with each sip. This beer has a lower level of carbonation with a slightly crisp mouthfeel. Overall, this is a very good beer with a tasty grain forward presence all around.

 

 

Draft service into a becker glass at Flavor Bistro in Santa Rosa.

A: Clear, medium golden color with one finger of dense white foam head. Heavy lacing remains on the glass and bubbles rise in a central cylinder within the column.

S: Floral and cracker notes are a bit understated; rather typical for a craft pale lager, although it is particularly free of fermentation by-products such as DMS.

T: Begins barely off-dry, with heaps of pale malts that exhibit a considerable breadth of qualities: doughy, toasted, nutty, and even a rustic uncultivated thread that must be at least partly due to the presence of some rye. Complimentary hops are floral and a little green until the finish where bitterness is moderately strong for the style. A drying trend throughout the profile seems to ensure that this beer makes a quick exit.

M: Thin to medium viscosity, full and substantive on the palate, with moderate carbonation.

D/O: This pale lager gushes with a wide variety of grainy flavors upon first taste. It would be easy to simply say that Moonlight did not hold back with the Munich malt, but such a statement would be misleading; it is evident that species besides barley contribute to the bill. Unfortunately the fullness of the flavors proves to be not very durable, with the potential to get lost amongst stronger food-derived flavors.

 

 

 

On tap at Toronado. Pale golden-amber in color with a small but lasting head. The body has a hazy, unfiltered, slightly chewy look to it.

Clean malt and yeast dominated aroma, delicate and mild. Light spiciness with herbal hoppiness, hints of lemon oil.

Flavors are delicate and complex; the spiciness of the rye is immediately evident, but it's at balance with the sweeter, cleaner barley malt flavors. A grassy and herbal hop character is surprisingly prominent too, right up there with the malt and leaving a firm bitterness on the tongue in the finish. Quaffable and complex with a silky mouthfeel, this is one of the more enjoyable American lagers out there.

Tap, City Beer Store. Glowing medium gold in color with a small white head that fades mostly. Looks thick and rich for a lager. Not a big smell, but it's all clean lager yeast and rich, fresh grain. Flavor is mostly dry with grassy hop notes. The yeast flavor dominates when the beer is cold, but as it warms up, the wonderful grain flavor comes out more. Moonlight makes the best light, pale malt flavors I've ever tasted. The mouthfeel is relatively thick and luxurious for a pale lager. The beer drinks very cleanly, but the feel is still quite full. Very drinkable as with all of Moonlight's beers.

I adjusted scores up a bit given the style comparison, but the scores should probably go up even more. It's not the best beer in the world, but it's a ton better than any other American Pale Lager that I've tried.

Had this on-tap at Toronado in San Francisco. Pours golden withb a very thin head- wispy white, and some scant lacing. This is a four grained beer, and there are some elements of the different grains, but to me, the lager yeast somewhat overpowers the grain subtleties. Smells grainy with strong notes of lager yeast, and some sweetness from the grain. Tastes slightly sweet and grainy with a smooth almost slick feel. There aresome spicy notes from the rye, and some earthy and citrusy hops. Very well rounded. Very smooth in the mouth. I have to say, this beer grew on me as I continued to drink it and it opened up. The lager yeast that was so forward through much of the beer started to take more of a back seat role. I wish it had been that way all along.

Pours the prototypical pale gold of a lager with decent enough head & lacing.
A bit of grassy malt to the nose, otherwise not much scent worth noting.
Crisp, somewhat sweet and grainy in flavor with a mild hop note in the finish.
Easily drinkable, if not distinctive. This will do in a pinch if you're in the mood for a lager, otherwise not worth seeking out.

RBSG09 on tap at Toronado SF. Pours an orangey gold color with a nice lasting white head. Earthy aroma with some grassy hops, spicy rye, and light malts. Flavor is toasty and grainy with a super crisp grassy hop finish. Lightly bitter and satisfyingly dry. Another good one from Moonlight.

On-tap at Beachwood BBQ,

A: Pours a light amber, with a thin white head, has some nice lacing though.

S: Very bready, some spice, light hoppiness.

T: Very spicy on the first taste, probably from the rye, then the other malts come in and balance the spice with notes of freshly baked multi-grain bread. Grassy hop notes finish the beer.

M: Light and crisp, smooth, high carbonation, creamy.

D: A really nice lager from Moonlight, interesting with all the different grain used, definitely a different flavour profile than in any lager I've ever had.

Had on tap at Jupiter in Berkeley. I was told that this is a four grain beer (barley, wheat, rye and oatmeal I believe). I was expecting a dark syrupy concoction, and was surprised when a light butterscotch lager was presented. It has a limited head when it reached my table, but had decent lacing. The beer was nice and crisp and refreshing, with several layers of complexity, as the spicyness of the Rye showed through, as well as the bready sweetness of the oatmeal. The hops seemed toned down, but I imagine this may be on purpose to let the malts show through.

This is a great lager. Just do not expect a large beer. I would love to get bottles of this for a tailgate on a hot day if they existed.

Had this in santa Rosa after leaving RR, right around the corner is a restaurant with a bar that serves only Moonlight brews on tap. Place is called Flavor.

A- Clear butterscotch color with a 1.5" white foamy head, with adhering lace.

S- Bitter grainy notes with some sweet biscuit. Slight metallic hint.

T- Light malty sweet forward, followed by light biscuit/cracker. Some bitterness cuts right through.

M- Active bubbles all the way down. Crisp & refreshing.

D- Easily sessionable, no etoh heat makes it easy to drink.

From some notes scribbled at the Toronado...

Pours a light and clear brown color with a faint head.

Aromas are light, bready, crisp, and biscuit like.

Beer is smoky and spicy flavored. Almost reminds me a bit of steam beer. Some bready rye like flavors, slightly creamy and tea like malt flavors, and a light bitter and sharp hop bite.

Mouthfeel is good and full. Carbonation is about right, this feel about right in the mouth.

Drinkability is good. This is a tasty and interesting session worthy beer. I like the smoky rye flavors. I was tempted to have another, but it's tough when you are staring at the impressive beer board at the Toronado.

Tap, Toronado, San Fransisco. Not bad for a lager, i had this pegged as a really weak APA, lemon, with some piney citric bitterness, not too bad as far as pale lagers go, and definitely one of the better American lagers i had on my trip, quite decent in the end.