Iron City Beer

Brewed by Iron City Brewing
Style: Pale Lager
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

I bought this beer thinking that it probably was not very good. I was proven correct.

When I recently read about the financial struggles of the brewery, I wanted to get a bottle of this to say I had one of America’s classic brands. Lo and behold, they actually started bringing this to Dallas in the past month or so. I had the aluminum bottle, and I love the design; there are touches in the bottle that are both "throwback" and "modern" in styling, very attractive. The beer itself is a vivid yellow but otherwise unremarkable in appearance. The aroma and flavor are both adjunct-laden, sweet with some corn and a fair dose of spaghetti bolognese (verily, I say), but I would also say this: it was clean in the sense that it wasn’t light-affected. I gave credit to the aluminum bottle and this is something I’d like to see more of in the future (I’ve had a few others, as well, and it is one of those convention-challenging moves that I like...it doesn’t come out metallic and it actually helps the beer. This was a particularly fresh bottle as well, of course.)

(12 oz aluminum bottle: Obtained in trade with Eyedrinkale, thanks Mike!) Well, cool bottle, let’s start off with that. Pop the cap, pour the beer, and the medium yellow liquid is capped by a white head that is nearly an inch tall. The occasional carbonation bubble rises through the beer, and if there were more, this would be a really nice looking beer initially. The head does fade to a rim within 5 minutes or so, and any lacing left on the glass dissipates as rapidly as the head. The nose is dry straw and grain, typical of the style. A rather light flavored lager, wow, there’s just not much going on here. Watery and thin on the palate and the flavor. Hard to hate how this beer tastes since there just isn’t much flavor. Lightly sweet, grainy, minimally bitter, can’t really detect any hops. The finish is very short lived, fading away rapidly. Probably not something I’d ever buy, but if I were really thirsty, I could probably finish an entire pint without retching. Not nearly as bad as I was expecting.

Very true to type. Taste is more robust than most macro lagers. No surprises here. Aroma is malt with some hops. Appearance is golden with a thin head. Flavor is sweet and bitter with some corn. Palate is better than average for a lager. No complexity, but not bad.

It has been some twenty years since I drank my last “Iron City” beer, and as I doubt it has changed much, it was still like seeing an old friend from my distant past, and memories are sometimes better than the real thing.

The archetypal lager pour, a resplendent gold color, the head brilliant white, modest in size, frothy in texture and as it erodes, it leaves behind a thin coating of lace. A quintessential lager nose, all malt, somewhat sweet, fresh and clean and altogether not a bad aroma. The start all malt, lightly sweet, the top skimpy in its feel to the palate, finish is stingingly acidic, the hops apropos to the style, dry long lasting aftertaste. Good “No”, bad “No”, drinkable yes, and still better than the big three, in my humble opinion that is.

I’ve been looking forward to Iron City for some time now. It’s classic bad beer. Smells like a can of chiles verdes for some reason. Corny, bland, underhopped. The light version is actually better. Rotting the livers of blue collar men since 1861.

Golden colored beer with a foamy white head. Weak aroma, slightly hoppy. Hoppy and flowery flavor with something undefineable in the finish.

Fizzy white head on a pale yellow body. Light hops aroma dominated by corn. Strong corn flavor with a watery consistency.