Coney Island Albino Python

Shmaltz Brewing Company
Brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Brooklyn, New York USA

Serve in Lager glass, Tumbler

Star & Shamrock, DC tap ($7): Pours a cloudy yellow. Aroma is lemon and cough medecine. Taste is lemon and cough medecine. It is a little sweet and has some hoppy notes. Individual aspects of this beer are well done, but as a whole, this beer is hardly worth drinking. The girl I was with couldn’t even finish her’s.

22 oz. bottle, pours a hazy golden with a small white head. Aroma of spices (cinnamon and nutmeg), lemon / lime, candy and ginger. Flavour of all of the above, with spicy lemon dominating. Eccentric and interesting, but not overly enjoyable.

I’ve often said that just because something is novel doesn’t necessarily make it good. The entire Coney Island brand of unusual lager recipes is certainly novel, but not everything is a success. The Albino Python being a good example, as it’s intended to be the lager equivalent of a witbier. But the brewers went way overboard with ginger and the net result is a ginger-tasting lager with little else to show for it.

I poured a 12oz bottle into a lager glass.

Appearance: Dark gold/maize-colored body. Mostly clear with a slight cloudiness and plenty of visible carbonation. Forms a small, white, soapy head that does not retain or lace well at all.

Smell: Mostly ginger with a spicy, wildflower aroma. Also a noticeable chemical-like scent of cleaning products, plus a prominent lager smell, too.

Taste: Everyone has some flavors they cannot enjoy no matter how many times they’ve tried them. For me, ginger is that flavor and it’s pretty much the only thing I can taste in Coney Island Albino Python. It begins with a strong ginger spice - so strong it’s akin to a mouthfeel of cinnamon or even curry. There seems to be a mild sweetness of honey or maybe even chamomile to balance it out, but the ginger is just too strong and too distracting to ignore if you’re not a fan of this taste. There’s a light spicy hop bitterness through the middle, but the palate ends where it began with dry ginger spice. This isn’t refreshing and there’s no complexity to the palate at all. Plus you can still tell that it’s a lager at the core which makes it seem like a beer just trying to mask its true identity. While not a disgusting taste, this just isn’t what I want in a witbier.

Drinkability: Coney Island Albino Python is so spicy at first that it actually stings the tongue on the first swig or two. Once you get used to it the ginger flavor becomes more tolerable, but still makes you (well, me) wince on the finish. The mouthfeel is somewhat thin and surprisingly tepid and watery for a stronger lager. It doesn’t seem to match its 6% ABV weight - which also seems to do the beer a disservice

650ml brown bottle. Golden pour, hazy. White head, rocky, airy, fades to a thin film. No lace. Nose is spicy with lemon notes, grass and some fairly prominent anise notes. Taste has some pretty clean malts over which notes of orange and soft cloves, anise, grass, faint pepper sit. Grassy finish with a short bitterness. Medium body, strong carboantion. The particular spice mix used in this beer didn’t do much for me, getting anise/licorice notes and just not digging that.

12oz bottle from Pick’s poured into a shaker. Pours a lightly cloudy gold with about a finger of fizzy white head. Aroma is mostly wheat with some light citrus and skunk. Taste is light bitter. Citrus hops and wheat along with something that burns a little bit and some skunk. Medium-full bodied with a thick and creamy texture. Fizzy carbonation and not much of a finish. Overall, not very good. I’ll finish this one, but won’t be buying it again...ever.

Cloudy orangey yellow with chunks, decent white head. Light fruity, spiced malt aroma. Spiced lager malty taste, some citrus. Dry, musty finish. Interesting, but one is enough. LF (Lagerboy Friendly)

"Worst beer I’ve ever tasted," one of my drinking partners said. Anise is no good in anything, much less beer. Tastes like the spray they use to sanitize the shoes in a bowling alley. It’s lagery but sour, astringent with a slight citrus. Too much spice but no beer taste.

The spices in this one is a little bit too dominant for me to truly appreciate, looked ok in the glass, golden body with short head, spice on the nose and in the taste, noticeable cinnamon, aniseed and ginger.