Time for a beer. Time for a local beer. It's summer, and I'm told that summer is a good time to try out a lager, and I'm going to try one from the infamous Bearded Iris. I love trying their IPAs, and even their stouts have been fun, but I notice that their ratings aren't quite as top-heavy as my love for them is. Instead, most of their beers get an average rating, and then they just kind of lean towards the top of my chart. I haven't figured out the pattern yet.
This isn't the dense, juice-like texture that I am used to from Bearded Iris. Instead, the lager looks, well, like a lager. It's a little darker than your average American macro-lager, but the generally honey color is pretty much what you should expect from a craft brewery producing a lager. The white head settles down to a patchy and not quite complete covering on top of the beer with a strong ring around the sides and more lacing than a lager has any right to have. I could have sworn that I just smelled skunk in it, but I'm drinking this outside, and maybe someone hit one with their car nearby. Because, as I lift the beverage to my nose, I smell nothing but sweet malt.
First sip is very good. The sweet malt is counteracting any bitterness that the reluctant hops might even think about bringing, and the beverage is smooth in its ability to convey those flavors. It's only after the beer is gone that I gaze longingly at the beer and think that maybe I want a little more flavor in this thing. Yes, it's smooth, and it has that sweet malt, but it seems like there's more heft to the beverage than there is accompanying flavor.
Tip-in is sweetbread malt with actually a little bit of a skunk. The middle is smooth, but it's thin with water making up a great portion of this mixture, and the relatively low ABV is shining through. The finish is some grains added to honey before sending it off into a relatively nondescript finish.
2.0/5