Lakefront New Grist Sorghum Beer

Brewed by Lakefront Brewery
Style: Specialty Grain
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Bottle - Pours like ginger ale, clear and straw-colored with tiny little bubbles. Smells terrible, like the sorghum alcohol my brother brought back from Taiwan. Sharp and sour and grainy, with a real starchy character. Taste is...whew. Tastes starchy, like the water you just boiled some pasta in. There’s some Granny Smith apple sour-sweetness in there, but it almost tastes like they threw some apple juice in there to cut the horrible flavor of the sorghum. I feel bad for anyone that can’t have any gluten in their beer, and my guess is if this is the only beer I could ever drink I’d get used to it. But the way things stand right now, this is terrible, vile stuff, and I hope to never have to taste it again.

Pretty crappy beer. Aroma of rice and slightly acidic. Pale straw yellow colour. Taste is rice, yeast with a sour aftertaste kick. I’ll pass on a second.

Golden with thin, white head / Perfumed, sweet, nose of rice / LIght body, crisp and mildly sweet, with good balance and finish / Floral to medicinal flavors of sweet Japanese rice, resin, and grain / A might peculiar, but if this is all you can drink . . . . Grade this as a gluten-free beer, or as a beer?

Pours still, no head, no bubbles and a flat corn syrup color. Hard for a beer to look less inviting unless it had pond scum floating in it. Tastes plain, nose is plain as well, not much of anything coming through. Slightly papery aftertaste.

355 ml bottle from LCBO, served almost cold in a tulip glass.

App.: Bright, clear golden with a rim of white. Aroma: At first I thought of Belgian Ale with some light yeast and earthy citrus, now I’m leaning more towards a hard cider with that bright wine-like fruitiness, definitely some toasted cereal/grain. It is ecclectic if nothing else. Palate: Medium-light body, fairly sparse carbonation. Flav.: Light but pleasant apple juice, a bit of cider, a wee hint of the citrus and yeast, a little mineral, a touch of alcohol; dry with a touch of brightness and basically no bitterness.

OK, so it ain’t mind-blowing. But I found it better than La Messagere and will recommend it to a wheat-intolerant friend.

Pours golden yellow. Aroma of cheap candy and overripe fruit. Very acidic, almost like sour apples. Very chemically. Another good example of why I pass over Lakefront brews without a second thought.

Bland, lightly sour, crisp, a bit odd. New Grist Sorghum is somewhat odd and quite bland but not altogether bad. I’ve had a few gluten free beers now, and this one ranks just above Redbridge for me, pretty low overall. St. Peter’s is still my pick. Anyway, this beer is a very light, washed-out yellow color with minimal head. The aroma is very light, a bit of apple and rice. The flavor goes quickly with very little aftertaste. It’s quite watered down, and the rice keeps it crisp, but there’s really not a lot to love or hate. There’s a sour note in the finish. It tastes smaller than its 5% abv. It’s probably the furthest from normal, malted barley beer of any gluten free beer that I’ve had, but it doesn’t have the cheap, low quality characteristics of Redbridge. All in all, even though it’s not really bad, this is a beer that’s probably only going to be enjoyed by the gluten sensitive crowd.

A light golden ale with a thin white head. Aroma is watered down c-hops, not bad, but leaving you on your thirst. Perfumey notes develop. In mouth, a sweetish acidic and hoppy ale with perfumey hops, oily mouthfeel, light solvent note. I have tasted worst, but I wouldnt buy a six pack of these. Bottle from LCBO Kirkwood/Carling, Ottawa, 2$.