Sixpoint: Alpenflo Helles Lager

Any Wisconsin sightings yet? I leave the state for good in a week! I need to take a 12-pack with me.

Didn't see anything on the Desktop Beta finder--could be user error though

 

Thank you Senor Poo-Bah....

 

Okay...did what beers like this deserve and had three in a sitting just now. (I know...tough life we industry folks have....) Poured rigorously into a Masskrug. Great clarity and lovely, sticky head. Slight but very faint malt aroma. A touch of bite in the nose from the yeast I can't place...not SO2 or DMS. (Always describe it as smelling somewhat like a hairdresser's perm smell.) Malt at first is crisp and at the fire, and beer has a good dose of carbonation. Rigorous pour softened a little. Initial taste is very clean. Hint of toastiness underneath. Then the more you drink the more the malt sweetness follows. Still very clean in the front and middle, with a slight lingering toastiness and minty hop flavor in the finish. As with the best lagers, gets better and better the more you drink. Prost!

 

*at the fore

 

Well, as a friend of mine used to point out, "It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!"

Thanks for the comments. Very helpful.

 

I'm at about a can and a half into my glass now, and I'll also join the enthusiastic 'thumbs up' crowd! Just the right touch of hops, richly malty in flavor yet dry; if I had to have a quibble I'd say it comes across as a smidge too dry at first, but maybe balances out after the first 8 ounces or so. For the experts: can this be a result of lagering for so long a period?

@herrburgess , I'm getting a touch of toasted cornbread, if that's what you're also getting. I'd normally process that as 'good DMS', but will also defer to your expertise in identifying it. It really works well with the beer, imo. And at about this point it's fading back as the hops start to step up.

I'm really enjoying it overall, though, and will certainly be getting another pack soon. Well done @Sixpoint !

 

Sounds like SO2 to me.

That's a new one -- in the flavor or aroma?

 

Mostly aroma, but it also comes out if I exhale while swallowing.

ETA: that's the overall impression, but it is possibly a combination of malt and yeast contributions.

 

Michael, I really don't see why duration of lagering would create "too dry". The aspect of dry is typically a combination of creating a fermentable wort and having a primary fermentation condition which results in a low final gravity.

Permit me to discuss a recent batch of Kolsch (which is not too dissimilar from a Helles). My grain bill was 100% Pilsner malt (German Pilsner Malt) and I decided to mash at a low temperature (149 degrees F) for an extended duration (75 minutes). Both decisions of temperature and duration were to create a very fermentable wort. After two weeks of primary fermentation I achieved a final gravity of 1.009 (the OG was 1.050). This beer is now being lagered but I fully expect that this beer will be dry in nature due to the conditions I mentioned above.

Cheers!

 

But aren't there trisaccarides like raffinose that the yeast only break down and consume over the long haul?

 

Ha, didn't take it as a slam.

Happy to share it, maybe I can buy you a beer sometime!

How do you exhale while swallowing?

 

If you want to get fancy, it's called retronasal olfaction- just exhale through your nose while the beer is in your mouth, before and after swallowing (okay, maybe not exactly simultaneously), and you'll get more detail and cohesiveness between the flavor and aroma.

 

You'll may also pick up nuances with retronasal that may not appear in orthonasal. They don't give identical results all the time.

 

The initial dryness with that hint of (yes) cornbread maybe is what dominates the front end for me. Dryness could be a result of a number of things, but I suspect it lies with how some of the initial aromas and flavors can get a bit scrubbed as the beer is moved around from primary to the lagering tanks and then to brites and finally to packaging. Forced CO2 just seems to introduce a sort of tangy dryness that has nothing to do with fermentation in my experience. It has been quite the task for us to maintain those volitiles while mitigating the effects of forced CO2 (even if only used as pressure to move beer around) in these subtle beers. I am convinced more and more that they require transfer directly from tank to gravity keg in order to truly retain all the best flavors and aromas. For that we recently purchased six gravity Bayerischer Anstich kegs to serve at our beer gardens. It's a helluva style to get just right, and I applaud Sixpoint's effort here.

 

There is little to no raffinose in typical beer wort.

Cheers!

P.S. Below is a pie chart of sugars in typical beer wort:

 

Good description of what I might not have conveyed as well, but just about the only aspect that I noticed that would keep me from calling it perfect. I am far from an expert though.

 

True, but on the plus side it's a beer that you can easily get into a groove with. I did have a third can after that and could've kept going.

 

Oh yeah. A stein at a time is not a problem. Or is it?...

 

It's 4.9% ABV. They drink Oktoberfest beers by the liter and those are ~6% on average. I don't see a problem at all.

Also...10 pages for a thread on a Munich Helles is impressive...is Beer Advocate maturing before our very eyes?

 

Nice goin' -- yeh killed it!