Weeping Radish Fest Amber Lager

Brewed by Weeping Radish Farm Brewery
Style: Vienna
Jarvisburg, North Carolina USA

A nice straight forward festbier that is clean and malty. Well made and enjoyable.

Thin color but great head. Not much on the nose, a little sugar and hops. Thin and crisp. A decent quaffer but nothing to write home about.

Orange-amber body, thin looking. Big eggnog colored head. Decent looking. Smell is fresh hops, very sweet sugar, caramel malt...lacking complexity. Taste is roasted hops, pit fruit, nuts, butterscotch, tootsie rolls, and some fresh vegetable/carrot like flavors. Taste is suprisingly complex, given that the body and aroma were mediocre. Some woodsy, bourbon notes as well. Glad to see this a Vienna, as it certainly is nothing like the ’amber’ tag this beer sports on its bottle.

(12 oz bottles: Obtained in trades with jasonp and suttree, thanks Jason and Phil!) Pouring the first bottle of this beer, this is one of the darkest amber lagers I can remember; deep ruddy amber color, bordering on light brown, and it’s quite hazy as well. The light-tan head pours to half an inch in height, and gradually subsides to a filmy layer, leaving no lace. But the second bottle? It’s a few shades lighter in color, more like an orange-amber. That’s a pretty wide variation in the batches in my opinion, but I’m not a brewer, so maybe it’s quite common. Another difference is the amount of carbonation bubbles, with very few rising in the first glass, but a veritable army of bubbles rising in the second glass, which aids the retention of the light-tan head. While the first bottle is quite flavorful, the second one seems thinner in flavor and body, so from here on out, my comments will apply to the first bottle, the more flavorful one. It’s moderately sweet, but seemingly less sweet than many of the other Viennas I’ve sampled, and the toasty flavor is readily apparent. A bit of earthiness comes out as the beer warms up, and caramely maltiness is a pretty important component of the flavor as well, but it’s not overwhelming either, so this beer isn’t tiring out my palate at all. Despite appearing like it’s lightly carbonated, the mouthfeel is actually carbonated quite nicely. Body is light-medium, so a bit thin for the style to me. The aroma is only lightly sweet, a bit toasty, perhaps a touch earthy, and somewhat "lagerish." Overall, this is an okay beer, just about an average beer to me.

Bottle. Pours a deep, crystalline ruby with thin, off-white head. The aroma is very caramely and malty. So is the flavor. In fact, I was recently making some homebrew and boiled over the wort (messy), and when it hit the stove burner, it put off an aroma almost identical to that of this beer.

Bottle, OBX, NC. Amber lager - good oily copper color, foamy white head initially, disappers quickly, solid mellow taste, slightly sweet malt and tracing of hops followed by a fairly crisp finish. Pretty darn good.

Draught at the brewpub. Medium brown color with thin head. Prominent malty aroma. Malt flavor is also prominent with licorice and caramel in there somewhere. Tastes and smells very similar to the brewery’s Black Radish offering.

strong carbonation. went down smooth. reminded me of drinking a soda. Taste isnt’ very distinct. not a bad beer all in all.