Wiedenmayer Jersey Lager

Brewed by Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
Saratoga Springs, New York USA

rocky/pillowy thin foamy light tan head that goes quickly. body is clear and coppery golden. aroma is sweet caramel malt and lightly grassy. flavor is grassy pale malt and a bit of caramel malt too. a little raw peanuts and bitter aftertaste but not too hoppy.

GABF-12oz bottle-pours a thin offwhite head with dark amber color. Aroma is sweet/grassy-grain. Taste is sweet/grassy-grain, secondary slight bitter-hops.

12oz bottle. Poured a deep amber color with a smaller sized off white head. Aromas of caramel, toasted malts, and bready. Tastes of bread, caramel, lightly nutty and toasted malts. Thinner body.

Bottle from thaichile. Bottle from 05, consumed today. This has held up surprisingly nice, almost doppel like. Huge caramel, toffee and toasted grain aroma and flavor. Any hop character that might have been present has faded away. Smooth mouthfeel. Very easy drink. Well done.

Bottle from Super Saver. This one pours very deep coppery, approaching the ruby end of the spectrum. The head is small and rapidly dissipating. The aroma is caramel malty, with some honey notes, and a slight red aley, cabernet and fruity element. The palate is medium and not extremely complex. As it warms, this one gets a little tart and uni-dimensional, but it isn’t what I would call bad by any means.

04.06.06 12oz bottle. It’s about time I got around to trying this stuff. It’s super cheap (about $5/six-pack) and I’ve always unfortunately lumped it in with the Yeungling/Chesterfield/Ballantine/Loyalhana crowd, none of which I find particularly interesting. This beer, however, was an oasis in that regional macro-micro desert, one that I’m sorry to have been missing. I only tried it because it was on the (recently revived) little rack of singles at Spirits in Red Bank. Cheers to you, Bob, for bringing that back, btw. So the beer poured out a darker amber with medium and lasting orangey beige head. I had been expecting a pale lager or Yeungling/Sam Adams clone, so this was a nice surprise. Aroma belies what is to be a full body, sweet with caramel and pretzel flavors, bready, and with touches of white pepper far in the distance. "Oh," I said aloud, "this is a marzen or alt of some kind. That was unexpected." It’s entirely possible that I took to this beer quickly and fondly simply because I expected the worst and ended up with something better than mediocre, but I liked it nonetheless. The finish was clean with just enough bite to encourage another sip, a great character of marzens and one of the reasons I quite like the style - it’s a session beer that begs to be put to use. A bit heavy handed on the carbonation, but not so much so as to detract from the overall enjoyment.

Aroma is toasty with a hint of medicinal alchohol. Thi s bronze brew sports a small quickly diminishing head with light lacing. Nutty and toasty, a crisp bitter finish creeps up slowly towards the finish, and sticks around for a long while. Very clean and crisp, this is a great East Coast lager, and should make an appearance during your summer BBQ bash.

12oz. bottle. Clear light copper color with a small off white head. Malty aroma with some caramel. Flavor starts off mildly sweet with some caramel and lightly toasted malts, before turning somewhat bitter on the finish. Decent beer.