Mikkeller Draft Bear

Mikkeller
Brewed at De Proefbrouwerij
Style: European Strong Lager
Copenhagen V, Denmark

More gratitude to the STL guys for sharing another choice beer. Pours golden / amber with a light off-white head. The aroma has lots of pils malt, grassy hops, cream, smoothness, some sugariness, light onions and grapefruit. Medium crisp body with normal pils style carbonation. The flavor starts more pils-like than most of these impy pils beers. It is grassy with lightly sweet pale malt ans spicy. The finish remain grassy and is very clean. Nice beer.

My Bottom Line:
Orangey and piney hoppiness overtakes the polite caramel maltiness before it plants a lengthy resinous and herbal bitterness to this fluffy hybrid of a Strong Lager.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-Mountainous foam lasts forever atop the nearly clear amber-orange.
-The foam, which you have to take a bite of before getting your first sip, is very bitter!
-The Amarillo and Cascade intensity (especially in the finish) might be a little too much for the malt structure. Then again, I don’t think they were going for balance here.
-Alcohol burns at first, but is not bothersome after a few sips.
-The cushiony effervescence helps to make this powerful lager quite drinkable.
-I found the first half of each sip to be rather easygoing, while the second half was much louder.

Bottle; best before 13/12/2008.

Bottle at tasting at Chris Fischer’s (from Liars Club) house. Pours with an orange gold body topped by a thin to medium thick head with some lacing. It’s slightly sweet yet hoppy wtih notes of grass and pine. Light bodied, smooth and a touch dry.

What this isn’t classified as malt liquor? Joking aside this was pretty good. A dark golden appearance. The aroma contains some citrus mainly lemons and perfume. The flavor contains some citrus and is rather hoppy for a lager. Not a bad effort.

Bottled. Hazy golden. Medium, white head. Grassy hoppiness and pretty sweet and malty aroma. Grassy bitterness with some faint alco-notes.

Draught at Københavnske Øldage. Hazy dark golden with a rich and sticky white foam. Dryish hop aroma of grass, grapefruit and pepper, almost no signs of sweetness from the malts despite the ABV. Full and really dry hoppy flavour of minerals, wet grass, grapefruit and metal. Long bitter finish of grapefruit. Quite tasty but it felt fairly unbalanced, leaving no room for the sweetness from the malts.

Bottle: Poured a deep cloudy copper color ale with a large foamy head with good retention and good lacing. Aroma of European dry hops is totally dominating. Taste is a mix between some huge dry and somewhat floral European hops and a huge malt base. Full body with some great carbonation and no apparent alcohol. Very well done for the style but this is a style that I have a hard tie to dig – I find beer tend to be too dry.

Best By Cork Date February 2009; Sampled March 2008
A vigorous pour yields a four-finger thick, light tan colored head that forms some structural mesas and leaves some crunchy lacing on the sides of the glass as it slowly recedes. The beer is a honey color, but shows a lightly hazy, orangish copper color when held up to the light. The aroma has a nice grassy hop character to it up from, but this is immediately followed by a mix of sweet malt and hop notes that contributes an almost honey-like, wild flower nectar aroma. Aromatic notes of orange blossoms, lemon zest, fresh mown hay, grassy grain, soda crackers and a distinct fruitiness that is like a cross between apricot and pear. The fruit notes in the aroma are quite interesting, though this seems to dissapate as the beer warms and I work my way through the beer.

The beer is still fairly well carbonated after sitting for the last ten minutes; it foams up a bit as it hits my mouth. There is a nice grain sweetness to this beer, but it is not so much that I would characterize this as a sweet beer. Lots of hop character helps to offset the grain sweetness; flavors of hay, herbal grass notes, and a touch of menthol. Towards the finish the hop character gets much more herbal, with an accented menthol note and it even gets a bit astringent and green; a sure sign of a hopped up brew. The bitterness is not overwhelming here, it is solid, noticeable and even lingers on for quite a bit in the finish; either some low cohumulon hops were used or it does not have an over-abundance of IBUs when compared to the malt. The malt sweetness accents flavors of wild-flower honey with a touch of bergamot and orange flower. While this is certainly not a light Pilsner, it drinks fairly lightly for a beer of its strength, capturing perhaps the intent of a Pilsner if not the actual lightness.

As the beer warms up it picks up some more sweetness and a bit of warming alcohol in the finish, though I will admit that over all the alcohol is fairly well hidden here. A pretty tasty brew; the hop character can be a bit green and grassy at times, but this is perfectly in line with an "imperial" Pilsner and certainly distinct from an IPA.

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