Guess The Dry Hop Local's
Short's Brewing Company

 

Bottled on 7/11/16. 12oz bottle poured into a tulip. Pours a hazy yellowish golden; fluffy eggshell white head that falls leaving great retention and sticky lacing. The aromas are full of faded hops. Lots of caramel, bread and orange. Lots of malts. The flavors follow the nose. Lots of fresh bread and more caramel. Solid malt backbone. More hints of orange and citrus. Some grass and pine in the mix. Alcohol goes unnoticed. Mouthfeel is nice. It's on the fuller side of light with moderate carbonation. It's very fluffy, creamy and smooth.

I know this is an "older" bottle and this one was intended to consume while fresh. I only grabbed a single not realizing the date. I assumed it was relatively fresh considering the variety pack just recently hit my local shelves.

 

 

 

 

12 oz bottle. Pours hazy bright yellow with a big fluffy white head that retains well and leaves some lacing.

The aroma is crisp malt with fruity piney hops.

The flavor is bready malt with some sweet fruity hops with a little resin. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with low carbonation.

Overall, a nice hoppy lager.

Short's Brewing Co. "Guess The Dry Hop Local's Dry Hopped American Lager"
12 fl. oz. brown glass bottle, packaged "07/11/16" and sampled on 09/29/16
$2 @ Wegmans, King Of Prussia, PA

Notes: Surprisingly lighter than I'd expected with a slightly hazy yellow-gold body beneath a thick head of frothy bright white foam. Good to very good head retention. Slightly better than average lacing. So this seems fun! - "Guess the dry hop" is like a little game. OK... there's an odd earthy woodiness to it... I'd go Sorachi Ace because of that, but there is a hint of lemony citrus to it as well, and peach, and a subtle papaya/melon note. It's odd, there's something weird to it overall. I get it in both the aroma and the flavor. It seems oxidized, yet it's not even three months old... ? I'm thinking oats, like in a granola bar... on the other hand it's definitely biscuity, so maybe that's just the malt itself. Back to the hops, it's also a touch spicy like a Saazer... or is it more 'raspy' like Spalter? Or is that just piney, but because it's a little worst for wear it's not coming through as such? Well, game over... their website states that it's "Bursting with tropical fruit aromas,..." but I certainly don't get that so I don't think this is a fresh enough sample. I'll look for it again, but I'm guessing I'll have to wait until next year.

12 ounce bottle into lager glass, bottled on 7/11/2016. Pours slightly hazy gol,den straw color with a 1 finger dense and rocky white head with fantastic retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lasts. Nice dense soapy lacing clings down the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of big grapefruit, tangerine, lemon/orange peel, pineapple, peach, citrus rind, light pepper, pine, cracker, bread, and floral/grassy earthiness. Very nice aromas with good balance and complexity of citrus/pine hops and light-moderate pale malt notes; with great strength. Taste of big grapefruit, tangerine, lemon/orange peel, citrus rind, light pepper, pine, cracker, bread, and floral/grassy earthiness. Light-moderate pine/citrus peel bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of grapefruit, tangerine, lemon/orange peel, citrus rind, light pepper, pine, cracker, bread, and floral/grassy earthiness on the finish for a short bit. Very nice complexity, robustness and balance of citrus/pine hops and light-moderate pale malt flavors; with a great malt/bitterness balance, and zero astringent hop flavors after the finish. Very clean on lager flavors, with zero yeast notes present. Medium carbonation and light-medium body; with a very smooth, crisp, dry, and lightly grainy/sticky balanced mouthfeel that is great. Zero warming alcohol as expected of 5.2%. Overall this is a great pale lager! All around great complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/pine hops and light-moderate pale malt flavors; very smooth, crisp, clean, and refreshing to drink. I would guess Chinook or Columbus on the hop variety. A very enjoyable offering.

I picked up a bottle of Short's Guess the Dry Hop Local's a couple weeks ago in their new variety pack. I've had locals light more than a few times and I'm interested to see how it takes to dry hopping, so lets see how it goes. 2016 Vintage. Poured from a brown 12oz bottle into a imperial pint glass.

A- The label looks nice, it goes well with the beer and it's a little eye catching. It poured a slightly hazy golden color that took on more of a pale yellow color when held to the light with almost two fingers worth of creamy white head that died down to a thick ring that stayed till the end and it left some nice rings of patchy lacing behind. This is a good looking beer, I have no complaints.

S- The aroma starts off with a medium amount of sweetness with the hops being the first to show up and they impart some nice fruit aroma with some citrus rind and stonefruit like aromas coming through along with a little bit of green hops and floal hops showing up in the background. Up next comes a little bit of doughy yeast that leads into the malts which impart a sweet malt, bready, grainy and more doughy aromas. This beer has a pretty nice aroma, I have no complaints.

T- The taste seems to be similar to the aroma and it starts off with a medium amount of sweetness with the hops still being the first to show up and they impart the same aspects with the fruit hops still sticking out the most and this time more of those green hop flavors come through with less floral hops. Up next comes a little bit of doughy yeast that leads into the malts which impart the exact same aspects that they did in the aroma. On the finish there's hardly any bitterness with a hoppy and grainy aftertaste. This is a pretty nice tasting beer, the flavors work well together.

M- Smooth, crisp, clean, light bodied with a medium amount of carbonation. The mouthfeel is pretty nice and it works well with this beer.

Overall I thought this was a nice beer and a good example of the style,.the dry hopping helped add more complexity and it didn't let any of that bitterness in which keeps it true to being a light lager. This beer had good drinkablity, I could drink a few of these. What I like the most about this beer is how well wit the hops worked with this beer, t was nice to have more complexity than normal. What I like the least about this beer is nothings, it's fine just the way it is. I would buy this beer again on it's own and I would recommend to someone looking for a light beer with some hops, but not much bitterness. All in all I was happy with this beer and I think it delivered what it was suppose to. At first I thought the dry hop was fuggles, but after having a couple i'm now starting to think it's centennial. It's not a favorite shorts beer, but it's a good example of the style. Good job guys, this is a nice light beer.

 

Nice light bodied look. Hoppy smelling for a lager. Light and refreshing tasting lager. Was pleasant surprised defiantly worth a try.

Third variety of Local's that I've had. There's Local's (formerly Local's Light), a solid bridge between macro AALs and micros. There's Citra Local's, which was a fantastic juicy surprise earlier this year. For me, this one fell between the two.
The aroma was familiar Local's, lemony biscuit, but the hops used in this version gave it a tropical, fruity burst. The taste had a berry - like quality that I usually get when drinking ales with a certain hop profile (review is spoiler free).

 

Bottled 7/15(?) and poured 8/19. I had Local's Light just once before, and it was about an eight month old bottle from a small Short's pack. Needless to say, I didn't like it...

Appearance: A gold color with a bright white head on top that leaves a ton of lacing. There's a slight hop haze in this beer as well.

Smell: I'm terrible at putting the smell of hops with particular varieties, so I won't even venture a guess as to which hop variety this is, just that it's one that I smell pretty often. This smells very resinous and a little piney with some citrus peel in there as well. Very inviting to the nose. Slight bready notes as well on the nose. This smells considerably different -- and better -- than the Local's Light I had before.

Taste/feel: There's actually quite a bit of hops in the taste ... and here I am believing what I heard -- that dry hopping only adds to the aroma, not the flavor. Goes in and down smooth, but with a very pleasant earthy and resinous hop flavor with that tinge of citrus I got in the aroma. Finish is a little biscuit/cracker-like and delicious. This is such a simple and maybe SHOULD BE mediocre beer (again, based on the Local's Light I had), but this is actually pretty outstanding.

Are Local's and Local's Lights two separate beers? I'm feeling like they have to be... Local's Light is 3.6% and this is 5.2% -- I'm no brewer, but I don't see how dry hopping would add an extra point and a half ABV to the beer. Also, this beer just doesn't taste remotely like the last beer I had... I know, this beer's much fresher and dry hopped, but even still...

Anyway, a welcome addition to the Short's July/August variety pack. Definitely worth a look, as this is a solid lager.