Photogenic as hell, isn’t it? As you can see, bright amber in the evening sun of early spring, with a fine white head. Pretty clear, for an unfiltered lager, so the wee bubbles are evident even after a swirl & pour of the bottom two fingers and the sediment in the bottle. The aroma is primarily of…honey(!), with a bit of cereal and American pale ale. The background flavors are appropriately German beer-like, but with that novel honey tinge. The foreground, however, is dominated by hops bitterness, like the pale ales that are currently in vogue. The bitterness is the first thing to hit, then it almost seems to accumulate, carrying nearly through to the finish, where it’s outlasted by the honey flavor, hanging on like that piano chord at the end of that Beatles tune. In a nut shell, it’s an old-fashioned pilsner with modern hopping.
Since I don’t have any nut shells that hold 11.2 fluid ounces, I used a pilsner glass, and since I find this hops-forward flavor profile less than optimum on its own, I decided to find some good food pairings. I mean, it’s dinner time, the cats are hungry, I’m hungry, so what’s in the fridge? Well, muenster cheese-ooo! Some cheese for the feral cat, some for me: savory creaminess plus the honey finish; good match! Cats don’t like beer. I also had ingredients to make creamed spinach (recipe on request), but that has a bitter quality of its own, so it matches in a two-toned color scheme kind of way. It was good, but while I was cooking it, I went and got a golden delicious apple from the windowsill: sweetness and acidity puts the bitterness back in its proper place, then the honey note does its thing-very nice; better match! I need to get more apples. Four beers left.
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