Stein Paper Scissors
Great Lakes Brewery

Another project x release from Great Lakes, and another very solid offering. The recipe uses Canadian 2 row, crystal, wheat, amarillo, cascade and california ale yeast. The rocks were heated to a startling 900 degrees C.

Pours from the cask a cloudy amber with a bubbly white head. Limited retention and no lace. Good citrus in the aroma from the amarillo and cascade, with some good mineral character and a dash of ink. The taste is very interesting. A decent citric bitterness is present throughout, but underneath there's an intriguing smokiness and inkiness. The mineral character comes through strongly, and there's all sorts of neat flavours popping up. The cask gives this very limited carbonation, but a pleasant moderate body. Its ridiculously drinkable, and perhaps their best offering to date.

A neat overview of how they made this beer can be found here: http://blog.ftjco.com/2009/09/09/what-do-you-get-when-you-cross-a-goldsmith-with-a-brewer-a-stein-beer/

On cask at the brewery. Not really a smoked beer but there is no stein bier category. Pink granite was heated to over 1600 degrees fahrenheit and added to the wort to finish off the boil.

Pours a cloudy amber, very thin white head forms, slowly settles to a thin ring, no real lacing. Smell is neat, very minerally, almost salty, floral, caramel, grapefruit, nicely hoppy, really neat character. Taste is similar, lots of mineral character, heavy malt middle, neat floral and grapefruit hoppiness, more minerals/salt in the finish, very sharp but clean bitterness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with low carbonation, very drinkable. Really neat character in this one, I really liked it.