Beer Review: Stoudt's Gold Lager

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: Five percent

Appearance: This Helles Lager had a lovely straw gold color to the body. There was some form of a haze gradient. It started in the upper portions of the brew and faded away to something a bit more transparent down below. The head was quite thick and had an attractive white fluffiness to it. It didn't appear to be fueled by many carbonation bubbles, but it did end up caving in on itself to leave some web-like sticky lacing inside my glass.

Smell: This smelled quite clean. I also noticed a grassiness as well as a bready backbone. Very crackery and a slight hop nose.

Taste: I mainly tasted crackers and bread for the most part on each sip of this beer. Those flavors were especially dominant from the front to mid portions of the tongue. An additional flavor on the mid portion was a touch of sweet caramel to offset some of the stronger savory flavors. The finish was very herbal, crisp as well as hoppy. The caramel in the middle helped to counteract with the bitterness I caught on the finish. Very clean and crisp, overall.

Overall Rating: 

I really enjoyed this. A really quality Helles Lager. A very clean beer. Good cracker flavor with a hint of sweet caramel. It also had a nice hoppy bite on the back. This was very balanced in all aspects of flavor. If anything it did play a bit light. Carbonation was also a tad lacking. Still, those aren't huge reasons to deduct points, in my book.