Let's Give Lagers Some Love (2025)

One of the best dark lagers to be had..

 

This was great:

 

Sew Hop'd Oktoberfest, Huntley Illinois.

 

In Hot Springs, Arkansas and tonight had dinner at a great German place called Steinhaus Keller.

Had a liter of Hirter Morchl, a tasty dunkel from Austria
Paired great with the schnitzel

 

I was in Salt Lake City the last couple of days, and they have a great little gem of a brewery that focuses on traditional lagers, Bohemian Brewery. I immensely enjoyed the following lagers yesterday - and some great German food, too.

Munich Helles …..



Viennese Amber (a Vienna Lager) …..



….. and Cherny Bock (a Schwarzbier). If you’re in the area, I highly recommend this brewery and restaurant.

 

Love that place. I've been there three times now when passing thru the area; last time was back in the spring to get some Helles Bock to-go. It's a bit of a drive from the city but well worth it.

 

Yesterday I purchased my fourth brand of Oktoberfest beer (so far) of the season and as soon as I got that beer home, I chilled down one can of Fat Head’s Oktoberfest Bavarian-Style Festbier. Whew, a long brand name. Below is how this beer is detailed on the brewery’s website:

“Eins, Zwei, Drei, G’suffa!

Oktoberfest

Bavarian-Style Festbier

July – September

Beer Details

ABV 5.0%

IBU 26

OG–FG 11.9–2.6 Plato

Hops: Perle, Tettnang

Malt: Pilsner Malt, Munich Malt, Vienna Malt, Acid Malt

Yeast: German Lager”

With an ABV of 5% this beer is a bit ‘light’ for the Oktoberfest/Festbier beer style.

I enjoyed drinking this beer, it is very good - excellent! This beer had a pleasing & balanced flavor profile with an aspect of great drinkability.

Prost!

 

We just finished our final tasting of the Marzen category of our Oktoberfest tasting of this year (Festbier will be this Wednesday). We scored each beer tasted in a few aspects, but ultimately ended up with our final three.

This year it was Paulaner, Ayinger and Troegs. Many others were just a point or so away, lots of great competition up top.

These final three were tasted blind in a 3-way battle. Same glass, temperature and blindfolded.

My winner ended up with... Paulaner!

The other half chose Ayinger.

This was out of 26 different Marzen beers over the past few weeks.

Prost!

 

I'm trying a new beer from Sweden's largest brewery. Spendrups Signatur. 4.7% abv. It has languished as a beer only available for order by the case through the monopoly until it won a tender for nationwide launch this September (the tender asked for a pilsner type beer made by a Swedish brewery afaik). The beer is being marketed as a North German-style pilsner and is being sold as a premium brand by the brewery, with the family name on the label. The color of the beer is very light golden, a tiny bit darker than what the pictures make it out to be. To style for a German pilsner.

The aroma of the beer is very clean but with a distinctly herbal hop aroma, akin to a hoppy German pilsner. Not quite as bright as that of some German pilsner brands from smaller producers, such as Riegele Herrenpils, but heading in that direction, and more aromatic than a standard German pilsner. In the taste the beer is quite hop forward with a marked bitterness, it must be around 40 IBUs, and with a distinct herbal hoppy flavor (German hops are used). The beer is also very clean.

What stands out in this beer is the mouthfeel, which is fuller and softer than what one would expect from a modern 4.7% abv pilsner. This is clearly not an 11-11.3% plato pilsner beer (of the kind that this brewery also produces). This can also be seen from the beer's calorie count which is 48 per 100ml, that's the same as the Export strenght beers of this brewery, the main brands of which have abvs of 5.3% abv and an OG of 12.4% abv. So this beer is at the very least brewed in at 12% plato and fermented out to be 4.7% abv, which is unlike the typical modern North German highly attenuated style of pilsner. So in this sense it is more of a combination of the bitterness of a Jever with the mouthfeel and hoppiness of a smaller pilsner brand. Or simply put, a pilsner that retains both the bitterness, hoppiness and malt backbone of an historical pilsner.

The aftertaste has a lingering bitterness and herbal hop flavor. The beer tastes dry throughout despite of the fuller mouthfeel, the hops no doubt helping to keep the beer dry tasting.

I think this is a really nice addition to the brewery's portfolio and a credible German-style pilsner in all respects.

 

Reads like a tasty & well balanced Pilsner to me!

Cheers!

P.S. Do you happen to know which hop variety(s) was used to brew this beer?

 

They only mention them being German and organic, I would wager to guess that they use a bittering hop such as Magnum or Herkules and one or two aroma hops such as Perle and or Spalter Select (which are the standard hops of this brewery).

 

FWIW, German Magnum is my preferred hop variety for homebrewing the majority of my homebrewed beers. I just received a pound of German Magnum in my recent order.

Cheers!

 

Triumph

My wife and I conducted some business in New Jersey and on the way home we stopped at Triumph Brewery in New Hope, PA for lunch.

I chose the Keller Pils (on left below) and my wife chose the Festbier (Pale Oktoberfest), both beers were excellent!!



Triumph is having an Oktoberfest event tomorrow (9/20/25) and consequently there was some German food specials on the menu. My wife chose Bratwurst with a curry sauce accompanied with German potato salad while I chose a Leberkäse sandwich accompanied with German potato salad, very tasty lunch!



Prost!

 

Oops, This should have been cross-posted earlier this afternoon.

Northern Brothers Brickyard’s “Canadian Pilsner”

Brewed with “Canadian Malt and Rocky Mountain Lager yeast” and no mention of the hops. Gotta say, this is a nice beer. I really had expected Brickyard’s beers to be meh, and so far they have all been legit.

 

Modela Negra

 

Solid pilsner. Not a fan of the packaging but was really keen to try this one and it did not disappoint. Cheers!