Buccoo Bay Lemon Lager
Compañía Cervecera de Puerto Rico

 

Appearance: Deep, clear golden color, with a modest, fine-beaded head, which soon collapses. to a ring of foam on the glass walls, and a dusting on the surface.

Aroma: Prominent dry lime aroma, also a bit like Rose's Lime Extract. The typical lager notes are present as well,with a little cooked corn.

Taste: Lots of sweet lime, lesser lager characteristics, very much like a macro lager infused with Rose's Lime Extract. The lim e notes carry throughout, lingering on to the finish.

Mouth feel: Smooth, soft, pleasant.

Drinkability/notes: I would think this would be quite refreshing on a hot summer day, but it is autumn in Texas, at last. This sample was given to me by a friend, who had properly cellared it for years in a very cold refrigerator. He stated that, by his notes and recollection, it had not suffered at all from aging.

Presentation:Packaged in a green glass long neck-style bottle with a pry-off crown, served in a New Belgium Brewing chalice.

New in town. Has a nose tickling artificial citrus sweetness. Sprite/7-UP is not far off, but this is MUCH sweeter and more concentrated. More like a Nehi Lemon-Lime soda or the many South American citrus sodas popular at Latin Food Stores. I rather like the aroma, to be honest I find it fairly pleasing. The body is a murky yellow and though an off white head forms, briefly, it doesn’t look very beery. Very sweet lemon-lime soda fore. This is practically a malternative. No beer here. But, again it doesn’t taste bad to me just soda-y. I’d actually love to marinade a pork loin in this. Would be great I imagine. Basically a tropical shandy is what this is and if you like lemon-lime soda you’ll tolerate this just fine.

This lemon-lime infused lager is darker than might be expected with a very dark gold, almost amber appearance beneath a thin head of white that fades quickly away. The nose is distinctly lemon-lime-ish, but it's more sweet than tart; and there's even a touch of "skunked/isomerized" hops. It's light bodied but somewhat dextrinous; and crisp in the mouth with an average carbonation level of around 2.5volumes. What malt is present in the flavor acts as a bready compliment to it's sweetness; which is then offset by its lemon-lime flavor and tart component. In addition, there's actually some hop bitterness present, and when the tartness and bitterness combine they almost completely eliminate the sweetness, leaving it fairly dry in the finish! It never builds on the palate, and the sweet/tart/dry flavor profile is actually fairly nice. It's nothing more than a summer quencher, of course, but at least there's more beer here than a malternative. Surprisingly enjoyable!