Aecht Schlenkerla Helles Lagerbier

Very nice beer. Lighter then the other smoked beers I have had, it still had that mice BBQ flavor.

Pale yellow in colour. Coriander grass and smoked aromas; bitterish taste with pepper and smoke aromas; bitter finish with pepper and bacon. A very interesting beer - a smoked helles. It has a good combination of smoked malt and spicy hop flavours. Very full-flavoured for its strength. It doesn’t contain any smoked malt in the grist, but picks up its smoky character from the filter. So it really should be classified as a Helles not a smoked beer. Though the beer is unique and really falls into a style of its own.

Wow, I didn’t expect this one to be smoked, just an ordinary helles. Actually it comes across more like a pilsner, with its distinct hop bitterness. Begins with a bright golden, crystal clear color with a creamy 2 fingered head. Aroma has a touch of charred wood. Flavor is more smoke, with some rounded clean bready malts, which melds evenly into a full hoppy finish, with a resiny almost grapefruity character. This is really outstanding and characterful for a low gravity lager.

Smellls very smoky. Taste is like a piece of smoked ham. Really nice. I think I like the smoked lagers best, maybe even more than the smoked porters.

Clear medium gold. Medium head of crunchy white foam. Lots of carbonation bubbles after the pour, slows to a few steady streams as it sits and the cap fades. Ghostly thin lacing in inky stringed patterms. Aroma is smokey with a clean, crisp, pale malt profile. Very distinct and peculiar with a tang of smoked meat and grain. Nice. Taste is broad and lasting with a savory little spiceyness of grasses and beechwood. Topping taste in the middle of the smokey stuff that stays nicely weaved within a pale malt sweetness and mild, easy going tang. Perfect floating finish of leftover smokeyness and a feathery spiced hoppy dryness. Feel is bold, rounded, smooth, and solidly placed in a medium body. Nice little centering sweetness and one fantastic finish of spice and impressionable length.. One very solid, straight up goodalicious, Helles Lager!