Schlenkerla unfiltered helles Lagerbier
Brewery: Heller (Schlenkerla)
Town: Bamberg
Style: Lagerbier 4.3%
Color: unfiltered golden
Head: rocky, white, chiffon-like
Nose: slight smoke
Body: medium
Palate: balanced, initial light smokiness, dry, semi-bitter
Finish: clean, semi-dry, semi-bitter
Served: from a bottle bought locally
Impression: The filtered Lager was a beer I’d written off for years since it’s never on tap at the brewery. I figured it was for people who just didn’t want to try a smoke beer. Then I read some very good reviews of it and when I saw it at a local beer store, I picked one up to try. Wow, was I surprised. This is the only beer the brewery makes which does not use smoked malt but since all their other beers do and they use the same yeast, unwashed, it imparts varying degrees of smoke to the finished product. That soon passes and you have a great dry hoppy beer. The special edition unfiltered version is more rounded yet somehow more robust in flavor and fuller-bodied. It’s definitely worth picking up if you see it.
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