Tappeto Volante

Brewed by Menabrea (Forst)
Style: Pale Lager
Biella, Italy

12 oz bottle -pours a white head and yellow color. Aroma is malt, then medium malt-caramel. Taste is medium malt-caramel then doughy, secondary hops bite. Nice Vienna lager OK carbonation.

What can I say? Another boring euro / pale lager. Bog standard appearance; golden amber and no head. Sweet corny nose; I’d be surprised if there’s much malt here. Thin fizzy palate with more corn / adjunct notes, broadens on the finish with slightly stale notes. I was going to pose the question "why does Australia have to be an export destination for every shitty pale lager ever maded" but I see Mr Bridge has beaten me to it!

Bottle (at the Bentley Bar): Pretty standard Pale Lager. Clear gold, white head, where it does succeed a little is in the aroma - lightly malty with a touch of grassy hops. In the mouth there were no surpirises with sugary water coming to mind with most sips.

Magic Carpet eh? Unfortunately the magic couldn’t transport this beer into the realms of top quality. Poor effort that tastes like all the other pale lagers. Thin, corny and unremarkable. I had this on a hot day which made it passable, of sorts.

Bottle. Ooooh I’m the 10th to rate this. Aroma is unpleasant. DMS, corn, boiled vegetables. I also detect some weird sort of mintiness as well. Perhaps that is some floral hops? Either way, it’s a pale lager. Transparent yellow color with a big, fluffy whitish head and surprisingly nice lacing. Smooth, lightly sweet and floral flavor to start. A bit grainy in the middle, with some more floral hop notes later on. Decent body that isn’t thin, either. A bit sweet and some may find it cloying. This is inoffensive, drinkable, and a nice pale lager.

Had this one at the Italian festival in Delaware a month or so ago, but couldn’t find anything on it. Just came across a bottle that musta been thrown out someone’s car window. This isn’t something to write home about. It’s a basic swill style lager from Italy that seemed to have a pilsner influence. Looked like swill, nothing special in the head or pale yellow color. The flavor was somewhat balanced between malt and hops, but the grassy hops won out in the end. These type of beers are a dime a dozen, although credit Tappeto for at least coming in a brown bottle.

If this is a flying carpet, I’ll take the bus, thanks. It’s a passable Italian lager, but little more. It’s pale gold of course and briefly doffed a short cap of froth. The aroma showed some genuine bready malt character with hay and marmalade notes. But there was sweetcorn lurking there, too. It’s surprisingly acidic on the tongue, with watery orange juice fruitiness, some spritz and a late-hopped frisson in the swallow. The malts are reasonably forceful and provide some spine but it’s over-sweet and generally forgettable. I’m probably over-rating because I’ve just had a Carlton Empire. (330ml bottle; Amatos)

Why is it that despite so many great beers in the world, Australia has to import every dodgy pale lager it can find while neglecting virtually everything else. This is mostly like every other pale lager, but with some sour lemon thrown in. Pale, adjuncty and overly carbonated, there’s not much going for it. The things we go through to get another rate...