Berghoff Original Lager

Brewed by Minhas Craft Brewery
Style: Pale Lager
Monroe, Wisconsin USA

On tap at the O’Hare tap room. Yellow-gold with a white head. Very sweet malty aroma; sweet cookie flavors on this purely malty beer. When you’re not in the mood for bitterness, this is good.

Bottle: Medium golden hue with a fizzy fading head and some lace. The aroma has notes of noble and arocmatic hops, very floral, toasted and bready malts, and a slightly corny. The taste starts with a nice snap of bitters, very minor acidic tones, and a good dose of sweet malts...but then the flavor just fades with a lingering bitterness. The feel is crisp and mostly clean but a metallic aftertaste is noticed. Above the mean for the style so you can do much worse. Can be a refreshing summer quencher if very thirsty.

Quickly thinning small head over a crisp light gold beverage. Not much of an aroma. Smooth slightly fruity flavour and a touch of hops in the finish. Not sure where the fruitiness comes from but at least you know you are drinking something. Somewhat thin. Reminds me of a brewpub lager. Needs food to be washed down with.

Boring, pale, decent american lager. Wow, I think they actually used some hops! Has a bit of flavor. Much, much better than other cheap lagers.

Bottled. Original rating; 7/30/04. Slightly offputting, yet there’s some attraction to it. There’s nice golden pour, certainly darker than any mega-lager. There’s minimal bubbling under a thin head. Taste seems a bit "old-timey;" I would have guessed a pre-Prohibition lager with minimal adjunct, but their website doesn’t suggest this. The site also says they’re now using Spalt and Tettnang hops instead of "domestic." At 20 IBU’s, twice that of their pilsner, I can taste it. This is a beer that wants to be liked, but it demands an attitude adjustment by the drinker.
New rating; June 7, 07. Had a bottle with lunch at the Berghoff Café on my birthday today. Maybe it’s because it was a hot day, but I feel much better about this. I did remember not liking it as much 3 years ago, but things have improved (new brewery ownership? Who knows). The yeasty bite (or was that iron in the brew water) is gone. Color tends closer to a pils than before. And a nicer balance with appropriate hops makes this a much more refreshing beer. Slightly dry finish, went well with a BBQ pulled pork sandwich. So yeah, I’ve notched my rating up a few tenths from 2.6, and happily, too.

Everything seems fine until the lager rolls down the windpipe. There is an odd taste to Berghoff in general, yet this beer seems worse than their others. I had it in a can and could tell--there’s a reason that a 12 pack of aluminum ran $2 less than the bottles. I’ve had it on tap in Monroe, as well, with a similar taste exerience.

Sort of a boring lager with an unusual taste. The taste seems to be reminescent of many other berghoff products. It has a nice mouthfeel and a decent overall flavor, but this thing just didn’t really do it for me.

I will make this concession. As the owners of the worst beer on the planet, Rhinelander, I'm really impressed with the berghoff brand of beers. This is a much better product than I expected from this company. I like the flavor, the tastes, its a good beer. Retire Rhinelander and you'll move way up the ladder with me.