Berghoff Original Lager

Brewed by Minhas Craft Brewery
Style: Pale Lager
Monroe, Wisconsin USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Lager glass, Shaker

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UPDATED: AUG 9, 2009
Date: August 19, 2007
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting, Ticker Tasting
Appearance: crystal clear yellow, fine white head, drippy lace
Aroma: sweet grain and corn aroma with light floral hops
Flavor: sweet cereal flavor, only a hint of bitterness leaves it sweet

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 5/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 9/20
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4

Name: Berghoff Prairie Lager Beer
Date: August 08, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting, Ticker
Appearance: clear pale yellow, wispy white head, drippy lace
Aroma: sweet corn and grain aroma, light floral hops
Flavor: sweet malt flavor, nice grain character, light floral hops, balancing bitterness

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 5/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 10/20
Rating: 2.6/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4

Draught at Berhgoff Cafe, O’Hare Airport
Blond color. Very simple, just a light crispy touch.

@ORD. Golden and bright with a gentle sparkle and a thin head. Lightly malty and vaguely appley aroma. Moderately malty palate - almost all pale malts. There is a noticeable light bitterness around 20IBUs, but not really any hop character besides that. Good for what it is.

Draft at the Berghoff Cafe at O’Hare. Light noble hop aroma. Dark golden color with a white head. Near medium body with sharpish carbonation. Flavor is very full pale malt. They didn’t cheap on this one. The hop is rather fruity. The finish is fairly dry and definitely bitter. One really good lager. Amazing.

Bottle 12 oz. Clear amber color with medium white head that diminished slowly. Moderate balanced malt, hop and citrus aroma. Light to medium body. Medium flavor with small bitter finish.

12oz bottle acquired in trade with JCapriotti (thanks!). Poured a lighter and see through golden color with an averaged sized white head. I’m straining to get some aroma out of this one - some grain. Tastes of grain and some sweet malts. Not worth spending too much time on this one - I’m on my way to the drain to pour it out...

UPDATED: AUG 19, 2007 Clear bright golden color has a thin, wispy-lacing white head. Aroma is pretty standard for a lager. Smooth and semi-sweet with a noticeable earthy hop bitterness. Subtle crystal malt presence helps the flavor a little bit toward the crisp bittersweet flavor.

Draft at brewery. Poured a pale golden with a light white head. Nice lacing. Faint floral hops and some sweetness in the aroma.. quite pleasant. Flavor was much like the aroma, with a little more of a malt backbone than I had anticipated. Smooth across the palate, with some nice hop bite on the finish. This was nice and refreshing.

Bottle: Golden color, light head and lacing. Nose is a bit floral and grassy with some light sweetness from the malts. A bit husky, but not much. The flavor is a bit sweet, but clean and drinkable. Light malts, a bit too light in hops. The finish is grassy, wet, eh, not bad.

In my opinion, The Berghoff beers, which used to be a good thing in Chicago years back, have gone way down-hill since the move to Huber-now-Minhas. This bottle of beer, picked up at the Binny’s Beverage Depot in Willowbrook, IL, helps further my case. It pours a clear yellow body with a one-fingered head that quickly reduces to a film. The aroma is sugar sweet, pale malt with some creamed corn and light, grassy hops. The flavor is horrendously sweet, and a tooth rotted and dropped out before I finished the glass. The finish is sweet with a light metallic grass finish. Wondrous.
Earlier Rating: 9/20/2004 Total Score: 2.6
I buy this occasionally as my "fridge-lager" because it was once a Chicago original and I remember when it was still brewed locally. I think it was better then. Not a bad golden color with a thin white head and decent carbonation. There’s a slight fruitiness on top of a mild roasted malt aroma. The taste is of a macro lager, perhaps indicating corn and rice have been added. It’s hard to detect hops. Clean finish.

<font size=-4><a href=http://www.berghoff.com/>The Berghoff, Chicago, IL<font size=-1>