Penn Dark Lager Beer

Brewed by Pennsylvania Brewing Company
Style: Dunkel
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

Brewtopia ’05 Ruby brown in color with a small off-white head. Aroma is of sweet malt and subtle roast. Flavor is malty with an acrid finish.

(12 oz bottle: Belmont Station in Portland, OR) Though modeled after German dunkels, this beer is rather sweet and sugary, plus it’s noticeably floral so it falls far short of the real thing in my mind. Maltiness shows some caramel and a bit of roast, and there is a mild bitterness throughout, but the light smokiness in the finish is a pleasant surprise. The nose is a bit floral, malty, lightly roasty, a bit sweet. Medium bodied, but not the smoothest of beers. Dark brown, but fully clear, and topped by a tall tan head that slowly settles to a wide ring, but leaves no lacing on the glass. I used to like this much more back when I first started drinking craft beer, but this beer has clearly slipped as I’ve become more knowledgeable about beer.

Dark brown pour. Off white head that coats the glass very well...very creamy. Aroma is of roasted malts. Got plenty of roasty malt in it’s taste, too. Just a little sweet in the finish.

Draft at Pennsylvania BC. Small ivory head that mostly diminished, fine-medium sized bubbles, excellent lacing, no visible carbonation, opaque, and a reddish brown hue. Malty and a tad sweet aroma. Flavor was malty and burnt tasting. Smooth mouthfeel. Medium body.

This draft brew from the brewery poured a small sized head of foamy finely sized mostly lasting off-white colored bubbles that left behind an unnoted lacing. The body contained soft carbonation, was transparent and dark brown in color. Its aroma contained notes of roasted malts dark malts and was mild. Its mouth feel is initially tingly mildly malty with a lingering tingly palate. Its flavor contained thin dunkel drak malt notes. A very average brew.

Harrisburg Beer Festival 2... Draft... The woman at the Penn Brewing Company’s serving station was bitchy. She couldn’t understand why I needed her to rinse out my tasting glass before the pour and gave me hell about it. So much for these festivals being a way to mingle with beer drinkers and attract more of us to one’s line of beers. I was hoping for something great out of this one so I could show how non-biased my rating would be after the incident... not to be. The brew was thin, watery and nondescript. Even when I let it warm, I got nothing out of it. It wasn’t offensive, just tasted like a dark Coors light. Maybe a whisper of chocolate in the nose... maybe I’m reaching. Next beer please!

Pours brown with a tiny head. Aroma is malty. Taste is smooth and a little smokey almost. Slightly watery. Good stuff for the style.

The pour yields a hefty head, and it looks appealing, although not as dark as I hoped. I don’t detect much aroma at all. It has a dark golden red color, with lively small carbonation bubbles. The lacing is pronounced at first, but then fades to speckled ghost lacing. Solid mouthfeel, but just never really hits any part of my palate from first tongue touch all the way to finish. The malts seem weakly represented, and the hops virtually undetectable. Certainly not a beer I’ll be sending in a beer trade...