Let's Give Lagers Some Love (2025)

Yes, creating soft brewing water is not a difficult thing. Each brewer gets to choose here. When I homebrew my Bohemian Pilsner I purchase distilled water to ‘create’ soft water: mostly distilled water but a small portion of carbon block filtered municipal water.

Cheers!

 

He’s definitely not media shy which I appreciate. It’s great to see an American brewer embrace tradition, going with open fermentation and all of the other stuff that the do, I’d like to check it out, maybe Notch West is in the works?

 

Enjoying a Notch Black Lager. The can is a bit dated (January), but man the toasted caramel, coffee and chocolate combine for an excellent subtle flavor that is perfectly balanced. Definitely need to make the trip cross state to Notch while vacationing in Western MA this fall.
Cheers!
Tom

 

Acquired a can of Tucher Rotbier at the end of March. It is very old having been born last spring with a BB date of 6-1-25. Went into this without high expectations but was pleasantly surprised at how flavorful what the hopping is contributing, getting apple and pear on top of the baked sweet bread/caramel malts. Would love to have a younger example to compare.

 

Drekker Good Company Helles Lager, 4.8% ABV. Pours golden, with a three-finger white head that left some lacing. Aroma is malty and bready. Taste is sweet malts, bread, hops, slightly sweet, slightly bitter. Crisp mouthfeel, overall excellent.

4/5 rDev +2.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

 

Enjoyed a lovely Vienna Lager from Schilling with round one.
Cheers!
Tom

 

Just mowed the lawn and took the dogs for a walk- time for a beer!

Goldfinger Pils.

 

Did you share your beer with the dogs!?!

Cheers!

 

Not for their lack of trying….

 

Enjoying a Schilling Italian-style pilsner. Notes of cracker and biscuit from the malt base and some lemon and black pepper on the back end. Well done!
Cheers!
Tom

 

Purchased this at the Pollyanna's Lemont location, need to take another drive.

 

Enjoying a lovely Czech Pils from Halfway Crooks in ATL.
Cheers!
Tom

 

A fun Memorial Day Weekend!?!

Cheers!

 

Yep but I gotta drum Sun nite and Mon as well. Beers shall be earned.

 

Really tasty simple beer.

 

Halmonie is a Korean Rice lager also brewed with German malts and Harmonie hops. Nose did not show much cold but as the brew warmed the white bread from the German malts came thru. Finish was peppercorn spiciness and a touch of banana (I had to look up the flavors around this hop never having experienced it before to confirm this was not an off flavor). Overall, this is another solid lager from the Good Word team.
Cheers!
Tom

 

What's next, Arkansas Rice Lager!?!

“The state that grows the most rice in the United States is Arkansas. Arkansas produces over 50% of the total rice grown in the U.S.”

Cheers!

 

I found some Ayinger Maibock which is my favorite in this style. It comes in at 7% abv. I decided to compare it with the maibock from one of my local breweries, Territorial Brewing's Three Nancies. It comes in at 6.3% abv and was just released two weeks ago.

Drinking them side by side allowed me to notice that the Ayinger version is a bit hoppier than Three Nancies, and I've never considered the Ayinger beer to be hoppy. It's the mellow, slightly-sweet malt taste that I remember in this beer. The Three Nancies is maltier but it doesn't have the richness that I've experienced in previous years. I'm wondering if the brewery has chosen not to use German malt, which I've always considered to have a richer flavor, much like what I get in the Ayinger beer.

After about half of each beer remained, I mixed the rest and came up with the maibock version that I've grown to like.

Other notes: The Ayinger beer was not cloudy at all like this photo seems to make it. Maybe diffused backlighting did it? The foam on the Ayinger beer was greater after the pour and kept a thin coating on top while I drank the beer. Three Nancies poured with a nice head but it disappeared faster than I could take the pic. Bummer!