Tasting the Periodic Table of Beer Styles: Day 47: German Pilsner 23, American Amber Ale 44, Dubbel 43

So this is about half way through the challenge, which I may still need to extend, but we are at 25 beers down and 40 more to go. There will be some other ones like the Scottish from last week that I will have to combine into one to save time and money and the hassle of searching for some of the more obscure beers. On another note I almost quit the blog today because I am really annoyed with how long these posts take and that by the time I get around to writing a post I have like two or three beers to write about and the viscous circle continues. I was about to write a blog saying that it's over, but decided that I will continue and only because this is a good way to put my taste notes down on "paper" and help me remember how things tasted, smelled and looked. This will be especially important when brewing soon because I hear good note taking is an important part of brewing in order to later recreate or adjust recipes and/or techniques.

Bitburger Premium Beer, which is a German Pilsner in style. I bought this beer at Top Foods and had it with dinner the other night. It came in a 500mL brown bottle. I was excited about this beer because of how much I liked the Czech Pilsner from Lagunitas that I had for the first ever post, and i was just a little bit disappointed. It wasn't a bad beer, but it wasn't perfect. It was golden and bubbly with a decent head, the taste was crisp and balanced, but nothing special, and the smell is where it failed me. I think it was a little smelly like the Kolsch I had last week. So it was ok with dinner, but would not be able to hold it's own without the cover of food.

On a 0-3 scale: 1. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: Probably not, I would give other Pils a chance, but why go back to this one?

Would I recommend to a friend: no
What would I do different: nothing, have a different beer.

Lazy Boy Dumb Luck Amber Ale, from Everett, WA was a decent enough sounding, and I have seen a lot of people wearing the Lazy Boy Brewing shirts so wanted to give one of their beers a try. Dan came over for this one yesterday and so this was a welcome change to the usual drinking by myself that I do. This beer was of course amber in color, decent head with bigger bubbles that didn't really last. The aroma was very hoppy, but not like an overpowering IPA, just enough to know that this is a fresh beer. It was a little light in mouth-feel, not too watery, yet still very drinkable. It was a very balanced beer, but had some kind of sourness to it, I'm not sure what it could have been, it wasn't necessarily bad, just not something that I have ever had in this English ale style beer.

On a 0-3 scale: 2. (for rating info see first tasting)

Would I buy it again: maybe, if on tap somewhere, but it wasn't that special

Would I recommend to a friend: sure, try it friend
What would I do different: Maybe have it be a little bit more biscuity and have a little more body, but it was decent.

Ovila Abbey Dubbel, is a beer that is a collaboration between Sierra Nevada and The Abbey of New Clairvaux. This Abbey is apparently a monastery in California and there is an old building that a portion of the proceeds of this beer go toward restoring. More about that here. This beer was pretty tasty, but I think that I like the lighter Belgian beers more. This reminded me of the Belgian Dark Ale that I had some weeks ago, except this one was a little easier drinking. The beer was dark on color with a cream head a pretty one to look at. Don't remember a lot of fruit aroma, more malty on this one and not much hops either. The taste was well balance, but didn't have a whole lot of a Belgian character that the yeast is suppose to impart. Decent beer over all, but for the price ($8.99), I think I could find something better.