Trader Joe’s Name Tag Classic Lager – $2.99

Trader Joe’s has come to Kansas City and after having visited both the KS and the MO stores, I am… unerwhelmed. I’m a diehard Whole Foods guy, though, so I’ll revisit them both in a few months to see if they’ve added to their selection or done anything that would make me want to not shop at Whole Foods, but for now, “meh” is about as excited as I am about ol’ Joe.

We have great bottle shops in the area like Lukas Liquors and Gomer’s, too, but we’re getting married in a month so I was sent to TJ’s to pick up some wine (yeah, Two Buck Chuck) and do a taste test. While I was there I scored a 6-pack of TJ’s “Name Tag Classic Lager” which is a 5% ABV canned American Lager that is advertised as “no adjuncts, 100% malt.”

The ONLY reason I considered buying this beer is that it is $2.99 (everyday price) for a sixer. Brief research revealed that the beer is made in Monroe, WI by a contract brewery/bottler called Minhas Craft Brewery. After looking at Minhas’s beer list on Beer Advocate I spotted one or two other beers I’ve had that Minhas made, too, but they were lifeless and boring, as far as I could remember.

I’m not going to belabor this review… this is cheap American Lager lawnmower beer. I’m VERY surprised and quite skeptical of the “no adjunct” advertising, too. This tastes like a corn-adjunct beer, it’s very sweet, has barely a trace of hops and leaves one of those high-fructose corn syrup goobers in the back of my throat.

It’s certainly no worse than any Miller or Bud products, or Old Style (which is my go-to cheap beer), or PBR or any of the other lifeless, soulless zombie beers! At $2.99 it’s a steal. If the price stays the same, this will probably be my go-to cheap canned beer on the few occasions where I need such a thing. It’s as good any other macro American beer and it’s half the price. I call BS on Trader Joe’s claim that it is adjunct-free, but I could be wrong.

New Belgium Blue Paddle

I was at Hy-Vee liquor store on State Line recently and picked up a mixed 6-pack because I wanted to try a few different light and summery beers. I’m not sure if I’ve had New Belgium’s Blue Paddle before, so it was an easy choice.

Blue Paddle is a pilsener lager. Pilseners (sometimes spelled “pilsners”) tend to be light, crisp, easy to drink and dry. Perfect for summer, in other words! On a side note, not only is it close to 100° in Kansas today, but Overland Park has a water boil alert on due to a water main break, so I’m getting back to my pioneering roots by subsisting on beer instead of that dirty water!

Pilseners were first brewed in Bohemia in the 1800′s and they spawned a whole new movement in beer. In England, where thick, dark porters were the norm during this time, the German pilseners took over a large part of the market, causing English brewers to dream up (thank God!) the English pale ale style.

Blue Paddle pours super clear with a yellow-gold-straw color. Nice full, fluffy white head and a lot of bubbles in the beer. If you weren’t paying attention, you’d think you were served a Bud Light or something, although the color is deeper and more robust. It’s a nice-looking beer after I’ve been used to dark and cloudy stuff for so long.

Aroma is very mild with a little maltiness and maybe a touch of noble hops. The first sip is just wonderful. I’ve always found the first sip of a pilsener to be the best one! This is one of those flavors that takes me back to the 1970′s when my dad would sneak me a little taste of his Pabst or whatever he was drinking at the time (back when macro beers at least tasted like real beers). It’s a great memory and pilseners always take me right back to that time!

Each sip is malty with a good hop balance, and the aftertaste is all noble hops and slightly bitter for a very dry finish. Pilseners are case studies in proper beer balance and Blue Paddle is a great example. Lots of carbonation, a dry, almost astringent finish, and a touch of sweetness tempered by a touch of bitterness. This is what a summer beer is all about. Very refreshing, easy to drink, simple but still with flavor to explore and enjoy. The 4%-ish ABV is a nice side-benefit in that it is a session-able beer and you can stay hydrated throughout a long summer day without ending up face down in the pool! If you’re on the fence about a beer to pick up for this holiday weekend, make things easy on yourself and grab a six-pack of Blue Paddle!

Shmaltz Brewing Co. Mermaid Pilsner

The Coney Island line of lagers are a series of beers made by Shmaltz Brewing Co., which also makes the Hebrew brand of beers. I picked up a 12-pack sampler of the Coney Island beers this summer and found a couple still hiding in my fridge, so it seemed like a review (albeit out of season) was in order.

The Mermaid Pilsner is a pilsner made from four hops and seven malts and I found it to be an easy drinker and a great example of a clean pilsner beer.

Coming in at about 5.0% ABV (according to BeerAdvocate… Shmaltz’s website is light on info!), Mermaid pours a fairly clear dark yellow color with a foamy head. I drank it from a pilsner glass, of course.

Aroma is clean and has a sweet, malty character. I thought of honey when I was smelling the aroma, although it isn’t brewed with honey nor does it have any honey characteristics in the flavor.

The beer has a nice amount of carbonation which makes it really easy to drink. It has a malt-forward, but well-balanced flavor, with a finish that is slightly bitter from the hops. This beer is REALLY easy to drink and just goes down great. It’s a nice thirst-quencher, and at 5%, you could drink a few of these without being in too bad of shape!

Mermaid is a really crisp beer with a surprising amount of complexity. Although it is well-balanced, there is a distinct difference between the malt-forward initial part of the sip and the hoppy end/aftertaste.

Initially turned off a little by Shmaltz’s corny schtick, I’ve found that their beers in both the Hebrew and Coney Island line are really well made, and I’m a fan. Mermaid is a great example of a pilsner and it should be a go-to beer in the warm months. This would be an excellent choice to have at a party for your non-craft beer drinking friends, too. Can you say “gateway” beer?

Capital Brewery Wild Rice Lager

Another beer review from my Wisconsin trip last month! I was very impressed by Capital Brewery’s Autumnal Fire doppelbock, reviewed previously, and the other beer I tried from them was almost the polar opposite, their Wild Rice lager.

This is one of Capital Brewery’s seasonal beers, produced for the summer of 2009. Previous to ’09, the beer had not been produced since 2005, but I was glad they resurrected it! I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked this off the shelf… I mean, “wild rice?” An adjunct lager? I was REALLY going to take up a spot in a short bullpen with this? Well, for some reason I did, and it was a good choice!

Rice breaks down into fermentable sugars that can be used to brew beer. Big breweries use rice as an adjunct because of a clean flavor, and it’s cheap and cuts down on the amount of barley needed. Using wild rice, however, is another story altogether. Capital Brewery gets its wild rice from northern Minnesota. Wild rice is technically a grass, and brewing with it causes a pretty sticky mess. Although lightly hopped, the brewers wanted to get most of the flavor of the beer from the wild rice itself, so there is a touch of balance from the hops, but mostly the flavor is a little sweeter and very clean.

I didn’t get much aroma out of my plastic hotel glass, and I think it poured like a pilsner, with a gold color and white head. The aroma was hard for me to pick up, but my nose was working even worse than normal. I found the flavor to be sweet and a little nutty, maybe, but with a nice finish and no cloying sugars giving me goobers in the back of my throat!

I think a little balance came from the hops, and there was a tough of bitterness in the finish, but really it was an extremely easy beer to drink at 5.4% ABV and I remember thinking that this beer would be the perfect “lawnmower beer.” It was incredibly refreshing, clean, smooth and just a joy to drink. I could have used a few more that night!

Fort Collins Brewery Brewer’s Lunchbox

“Brewer’s Lunchbox” is a sampler 12-pack from Fort Collins Brewery in, you guessed it, Fort Collins, CO. Fort Collins seems like a great place to go for beer… you have this brwery, New Belgium, O’Dell’s… yum!

My “lunchbox” contained 2 each of Major Tom’s Pomegranate Wheat, Rocky Mountain IPA, Kidd Lager, Z Lager, Retro Red and Chocolate Stout. My first sample of a Fort Collins beer was at 2008 Beerfest in Kansas City and I’ve been eyeballing this sampler at Lukas Liquors ever since, so I finally bit the bullet the other day and bought it.

So far, I will say that every beer I’ve had from my “lunchbox” has been a gusher! They must all be bottle-conditioned beers because when I pop the top I lose about 1/4 of the beer as it explodes all over the place! Once things calm down, what’s left in the glass is pretty good beer.

The Chocolate Stout was my first Fort Collins beer. It’s about 5% ABV and has a strong chocolate flavor from the malt, with a nice roasty component and a touch of hops. I think bringing this up to around 55-60 degrees will give you more of the flavor you’re looking for. This pairs well with good quality vanilla ice cream and especially with chocolate desserts!

The Z Lager was next on the list. I had no idea what to expect, and obviously didn’t read the label, as I was surprised that it is a smoked beer. At about 5.5% ABV, the Z Lager is in the style of a German rauchbier, a style that dates back to 16th century Bamberg. Rauchbiers are made from malts that are dried over a beechwood fire, giving the malt a smoky flavor. The only other rauchbier I’ve had is New Holland Brewing Company’s on-tap-only Rauch Hatter, a smoked version of their IPA, Mad Hatter. I’m not the hugest fan of smoked beers in general, although I’ve never paired one up with food, which I think would be a good idea. That said, I like the flavors in Z Lager, and I think they’d pair up well with some good Kansas City barbecue.

Fort Collins’ Retro Red is a 5% ABV red/amber with a surprising flavor profile. I generally steer clear of “amber” beers as the style is so widely varied and, in my experience, often contains mediocre selections. Retro Red is a nice, full-bodied and well-rounded beer, though. Tettnang hops give Retro Red a nice hop aroma and slight bitterness while crystal malts provide a nutty and toasty flavor reminiscent of the Goose Island Nut Brown Ale I’ve been drinking lately. Retro Red would go great with a variety of foods, and the carbonation is enough to help scrub the palate of some higher fat dishes, too. This would be worthy of keeping a 6-pack of in the fridge.

Finally, the only other beer I’ve had from the lunchbox is the IPA. I was not terribly impressed by this IPA, but in all fairness I was drinking it from the bottle at a party last night, so before I pass judgment on Rocky Mountain IPA, I feel like I should do it justice by devoting some time (and at least a glass!) to it at a later time.