Coney Island Sword Swallower Steel Hop Lager

Shmaltz Brewing Company
Brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: European Strong Lager
San Francisco, California USA

22oz. bottle. Rather delicate aroma, showing just a bit of citrus, spice, floral sweetness and faint, grainy, pale malt. Clear light-medium golden color with a fine, white head that lasts. Flavor is very mildly sweet and malty to start, turning gently bitter about midpoint, and finishing with a blend of noble-tasting, citric, grassy hop and vaguely sweet malts, managing to remain semi-dry and mostly clean by the end. Very fine but active effervescence and a somewhat thick mouthfeel for a lager, body is medium-full. This really is a European Strong Lager style, exactly as indicated here on the site, and fairly refined (as these sorts of beers go).

Bottle. Amber beer with an off-white head. Light malt aroma with light earth amd light mineral. Malt flavor with resiny bitterness and grass and ending in a bit of a metallic note. Medium body. Resin lingers with metallic, grass, and plastic notes.

This strong lager pours a light gold color from a 22oz bottle. Small sized white foamy head. The aroma is floral hops, biscuty malts and some alcohol. A medium bodied Strong Lager. The malts are biscuty and caramel. The hops are floral, piney and grapefruity. It’s kind of sweet, and sort of reminds me of a malt liquor. It doesn’t have any of the weird adjunct flavors, but it has that high gravity alcohol feel to it. Think of it as a hoppy malt liquor. Fairly lively carbonation. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly sweet with a fairly prominent alcohol aftertaste.

Golden with a lasting white head. Aroma of malt with a little honey sweet note. Malty flavour with a nice hop flavour and bitterness.

Bottle:   Fiery golden, translucent, light carbonation, moderate sudsy white head, spotty lacing.   Soft alcohol nose, otherwise corn and/or rice like attributes.   Maybe its cornmeal I am smelling.   Grassy on the tongue, sweet straw but also a touch astringent.   Very mealy on the finish.   Moderate body and mouthfeel.   Not as crisp or clean as other examples.   Not bad, but does feel too alcoholic, astringent, and mealy.

(bottle - 22 oz) Lightly hazy amber pour with a very thin white head. Aroma is light and sweet with some very subtle hints of hops and flowers. Very large hop bitterness begins the flavor with a lot of floral and citrus notes. A good peppery bitterness and spicy flavor in the middle that goes to a very bitter and lingering finish. Not what I was expecting from the aroma at all.

Bomber from State Line. Pours deep golden with 1-finger white head. Nose is grainy pale malt, hopcitrus. Tastes pale malty, not terribly hoppy, but with no apparent flaws. Fairly smooth and drinkable. For their next release, I hope they name it Coney Island Kielbasa Gagger Ale.

22 oz. bottle that I received as a birthday gift. Pours a slightly hazed gold with a thin-moderate off-white head that lasted through the first third of the glass and left spotty lace. Light aroma of malt and slightly sweet. The flavor is weak malt, which is almost immediately washed over by moderately bitter citrus pith. Somewhat dry and bitter at the finish, lingering briefly beyond the swallow.