Lagers

US Beer Review: Anchor Brewing Special, San Francisco

20/04/2013
US Beer Review: Anchor Brewing Special, San Francisco

Follow @TheGuestAle San Francisco is possibly my favourite US city and I happened to be there on business this week. As well as being introduced to the impressive bar-cum-off licence, the City Beer Store, by my US colleagues, I also felt it would be conspicuous of me not to review beer from San Francisco’s most famous brewer, Anchor Brewery. Despite tracing its roots back to the 19th century, Anchor Brewing was at the forefront of the revival against the generic mass-produced beers of the 1970s. In the UK, we are probably familiar with the Anchor Steam brand, but in San Francisco I got hold of some other bottles to review… Liberty Ale Anchor Brewing’s Liberty Ale was first brewed...

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Beer Review: Curious Brew by Chapel Down

01/04/2013
Beer Review: Curious Brew by Chapel Down

Follow @TheGuestAle When you’re confronted by the Gold Medal Winner at the International Beer Challenge 2012, you have great expectations. That is exactly what the Curious Brew from Chapel Down in Kent promises. Curious Brew is a premium English lager and there’s one theme that runs throughout: elderflower. The beer pours clear and pale in colour with lively carbonation at first. Once the head dies down you’re left with a busy glass which reminds you a little of champagne. Those elderflower hits I told you about start at the nose and follow through in the taste. It’s crisp, light in body and pleasantly flavoursome without being overbearing. A real winner. The essentials: ABV: 4.7% Colour:  Pale wheat Nose: Sweet...

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Beer Review: Calvors Dark Lager

15/03/2013
Beer Review: Calvors Dark Lager

Follow @TheGuestAle I like a good dark lager, I must admit. They’re like light-bodied porters. The Calvors Dark Lager is the last of the English lagers in the Calvors line which I’m reviewing (disclosure: Calvors sent me a batch) and it’s probably my favourite. Suffolk-based Calvors has created a wonderfully drinkable dark lager. It’s effervescent to start with, although any trace of a head or any carbonation disappears very quickly. The colour is reddish-brown, like a diluted cola, and the nose is strong, sweet malts. The taste isn’t quite so malty as the nose promises, but it has a lovely crisp texture and there’s a tiny bit of cloves in there and some clean hops. It had gone in...

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Beer Review: Calvors Amber

09/03/2013
Beer Review: Calvors Amber

Follow @TheGuestAle We’re back on the hunt for quality lager and I do believe we have found one. Last year we looked at the Calvors Premium, which impressed, and now from the same stable I’m trying Calvors Amber. Suffolk-based Calvors were kind enough to send me a batch of beer to test. The difference between ale and lager comes from the fermentation process. Ales are made with yeast strains that ferment at the top of the wort and the flavours the beer with chemicals called esters. Lagers use bottom-fermenting yeasts, which don’t tend to add much in the way of flavour. The Amber is more of a bronze colour and the head dies immediately, although gentle carbonation remains. There’s...

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Beer Review: Ikea Öl Mörk Lager

25/10/2012
Beer Review: Ikea Öl Mörk Lager

Follow @TheGuestAle Have you been to Ikea lately? Next time you do, make sure you come away with a bottle of its Öl Mörk Lager (Dark Lager). It’s surprisingly good! It’s a dunkel style beer brewed by the Krönleins Bryggeri in Halmstad, Sweden, a family-owned brewery that’s been running since 1836, so they know what they’re doing. (I should have re-named this article “How many umlauts can you get into a single English language post?”) It’s heavily carbonated, like a cola with a really active and bubbly head that lingers. The nose is distinctively charcoal from the heavily roasted malts. As well as a cola colour, it has a cola texture to match, and as the light head dissipates...

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US Beer Review: Iron City Amber Classic Lager by Pittsburgh Brewing Company

21/09/2012
US Beer Review: Iron City Amber Classic Lager by Pittsburgh Brewing Company

Follow @TheGuestAle Hear ye! Hear ye! There’s a new lager in town! It’s called Iron City Amber Classic lager by Pittsburgh Brewing Company. I’ve been dying to get my hands on this little new-comer! I’ve asked for it at a number of local beer distributors in the Steel City region without success. But today  is my lucky day! Pittsburgh Brewing Co. has been brewing in the Pittsburgh area  for 150 years. You have  to hand it to them: They have survived the Civil War, two World Wars and Prohibition and yet remained in business dedicated to their cause of brewing innovative beers in this city. I’ve already reviewed one of its staples, Iron City Light, but today I look...

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US Beer Review: The Doppelrock by Great Lakes Brewing Co.

04/09/2012
US Beer Review: The Doppelrock by Great Lakes Brewing Co.

Follow @TheGuestAle For those about to rock, we salute you! If you can manage  get past the strange cover shot of the two guitarists on the bottle of this brew, you are in for a treat. The Doppelrock by Great Lakes Brewing Company is a Doppelbock lager that certainly delivers strong, loud flavour in this seasonal, rock-solid masterpiece. Doppelbock beers  have been brewed for centuries starting with medieval monks who developed them as “liquid bread” to nourish them with sugars and high alcohol during fasting. (Yes.  Apparently ordinary food had to be avoided sometimes in monastic orders but consuming vast quantities of strong ale was  a perfectly acceptable alternative!). Great Lakes observes the tradition of the Bavarian Purity Law...

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US Beer Review: Pious Monk Dunkel by The Church Brew Works

30/08/2012
US Beer Review: Pious Monk Dunkel by The Church Brew Works

Follow @TheGuestAle It’s Sunday but I have not joined the faithful at a house of God today. However, I did come pretty close to a taste of Heaven when I poured a glass of the Munich Dunkel-Style lager brewed with devotion at the The Church Brew Works of Pittsburgh. I’ve visited a lot of de-consecrated churches in my time. Usually they have been predictably converted into homes or sometimes wedding venues, even flats. Today I’d like to introduce you to one that’s been turned into a brewery. The Church Brew Works is located in the building that was formerly the St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh. Built in 1902 and de-consecrated in 1993, the building...

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US Beer Review: I.C. Light Premium Light Beer by Iron City Brewing Company

27/08/2012
US Beer Review: I.C. Light Premium Light Beer by Iron City Brewing Company

Follow @TheGuestAle I have one rule to live by and  that is “never mow the lawn without a beer to finish up with”. It’s 30 degrees in the August shade on this Saturday  evening in suburban Pittsburgh. Having sampled many overly hopped and heavily flavoured beers recently sometimes I  just want something light and simple on after sweltering hot day in the garden. Enter an “I. C Light”, an uncomplicated  pale lager by Iron City Brewing Company (also known as Pittsburgh Brewing Company).  Started by German immigrants in 1861, this  brewery has been producing ale in and around the “City of Champions” for more than 150 years.  It is noted for some of its “firsts” – the first twist-off,...

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US Beer Review: Eliot Ness Vienna Lager by Great Lakes Brewing Co.

23/08/2012
US Beer Review: Eliot Ness Vienna Lager by Great Lakes Brewing Co.

Follow @TheGuestAle I’m drinking lager. You read that correctly – Lager. Hell just froze over and the devil put on ice skates and neatly performed a triple-axel!  Truth be told, what I’m  actually drinking is a complex, hand-crafted lager which is a  million miles away from the tasteless, generic stuff that is mass-produced and shipped to your average supermarket shelves. Great Lakes Brewing Company have named this brew after Eliot Ness, the former US Treasury Department Agent famous for going after notorious mob boss Al Capone and immortalised by Kevin Costner in the 1987 film The Untouchables. It’s technically classed as a Vienna Lager, an amber ale first brewed in the city of the same name using a three step decoction boiling...

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