Enterprise Brewery Knappstein Reserve Lager

Brewed by Enterprise Brewery (Knappstein Wines)
Style: Premium Lager
Clare, South Australia, Australia

Just love it! Just come back from Tasmania where I was determined to search out all local brews. Stumbled across Enterprise lager (yes, I know it’s from South Australia) after trying yet another disappointing Tassie beer and thought well, this is just great! Now trying to buy it locally (Sydney) but can’t get hold of any.

Very different. Fizzy bubbles and a straw colouw. Lots of passionfruit and a white wine hybrid. Ver good.

Wow, it’s about time Australia produced a decent NZ-style lager, those Kiwi hops seem really well-suited to good, distinctive lagers, even though they can get a bit funky for my tastes. Very pale and very clear with pretty patchy head retention. Initial aroma is like LCPA if it were brewed in NZ - floral lychees and Nivea hand cream like LC with lemon pepper, kiwi fruit, an odd hint of treacle and some other raunchy NZ hop stuff. The aroma’s really strong actually... in both senses of the word. I don’t particularly see the sauvignon blanc comparison. I suppose it has a bit of a white grape aroma, but sav blancs don’t have that. Malt flavour is pretty limp, a touch sweet, thin and papery, lacking somewhat in both quality and quantity (esp. at the higher ABV) I’d say. It’s all drowned out in a mass of hop flavour anyway, which isn’t as impressive as the aroma. It’s kind of weedy and awkward, with a really awkward prickly, almost chemical note that I can’t really describe. At normal hopping levels it probably wouldn’t be an issue but the hop flavour is so obvious here that it gets quite rough. It’s not bitter, in fact the finish is quite weak, but there’s so much hop flavour that it more than balances the malt. It’s weird though, when you start drinking it this beer seems amazing, but the more you delve into it the less fun it becomes. Perhaps it’s the disproportionately large hop flavour, or the lack of quality malt, but by the end of a glass you aren’t exactly tearing off to the fridge to grab another bottle, and the more I drink it the more obvious its flaws become. That said, this is a really impressive beer, and quite unique in the Australian scene, especially considering its wide distribution. Top marks for doing something interesting - hopefully they’ll do some more quality lager styles too.
RR: Drank the last couple of bottles I had from the bottle itself and there was something decidedly dodgy about it. I suspect it is actually the hops, but it gave the impression of something much worse. Weird.

Clear pale yellow with a fluffy white head that left minimal lacing. Aroma of passionfruit and some grainy malt, with some obvious parallels with a fruity white wine. The flavour is quite sweet to start, with a noticable hop bitterness coming through after swallowing. Fairly standard on the palate with an even carbonation, creamy texture and medium body. Quite a well constructed beverage, but it doesn’t really inspire me to reach for another. Re-rate: Well, it certainly does vary a bit in quality. Half of the bottles I’ve had have been good, and the other half very good. It’s a shame the quality is temperamental, but when it’s on song it’s a lovely lager, somewhat like a bottom fermented LCPA. Fruity and creamy with a lip-smacking satisfaction. Bring on the next Knappstein!!

A really intriguing beer, but why would a winemaker turn his hand to making beer if it just going to taste like wine?? The aroma is so strongly similar to sauv blanc and the palate so light and sweet that it is difficult to believe that it doesn’t contain wine, in fact, with its sharply sparkling character and lack of any lasting head, I am convinced it does! It’s a bit too sweet to be truly refreshing but it’s fairly well made and an intertesting display of the nelson sauvin hop character none the less.

Poured from bottle. Found the first two sips to be quite metallic, I think this was aided by the carbonation which was a bit full on. The malt is the instant taste, but after this the grape taste is very overpowering. Nice for about half the bottle, however eventually I found the after taste similar to the non-alcoholic wines you can get from the supermarket... A nice beer, but I would be tempted to almost say this is a wine cooler disguising itself in some respects. I would drink it again - but it won’t be filling my shelves of my fridge as a regular session beer.

despite the nelson sauvin this is still a "premium lager" - a sweet grainy lager with aroma hops but not much bitterness. lovely floral hops in the aroma, with a bit of malt. the head fizzles away immediately which i think is a grave flaw. in the mouth, obviously quality malt used - pleasant honeyish malt flavour. quite full bodied for a lager. main impression is sweetness though, and not very complex. finishes dry with a bit of green high-alpha bitterness. alcohol evident. this is slick but just too sweet. the combination of sweetness and fruity tanginess puts me in mind of an old-style riesling (like one out of a cask that is). now give me a beer!

Bottle: Lots of good things are being said about this lager, so I was looking forward to seeing how it shaped up. I was also interested to see how the Nelson Sauvin hop presents as I had not tasted it before. Put simply, this is a lovely Pale Lager.
Crystal clear gold (probably the clearest beer I have ever seen) with a very short-lived white head. It looks like white wine in the glass as not a trace of any head remains. In the nose... Well, my first reaction was "mmmmmmmmm". Initially this was just delightful; pears and passionfruit with golden grains. As it opened some fleshy grape notes emerged (hence the hop name I imagine), though after a few minutes it dulled a little. In the mouth a very nicely done fruity, herbal hop flavour dominates over a pleasant slightly sweet ’sticky-though-not-cloying’ resinous chord and some juicy malts. Very nice and harmonised very well indeed. The bitterness and carbonation are blanaced but sharp and work excellently I tohught. Fabulous example that good wine-making experience can produce excellent beer.