Iron City Beer

Brewed by Iron City Brewing
Style: Pale Lager
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

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

UPDATED: NOV 30, 2004 Clear and deep yellow with a patchy head and some lace. Mouthfeel wasn’t too bad: smoothish malts below, with a nice carbonation level above -- not overly fizzy, either. Malts were sweet, complemented by some chewy hops, carrying with them a slight bitterness. Somewhat of a flowery/herbal bitterness ... some of it aroma. A little DMS surfaces in the aftertaste. RERATE: Aluminum bottle. Texture was light, but it had a richness to it. Sythetically sweet malt base. Notes of popcorn, and a little DMS. Extremely mild bitterness.

I’ve been looking forward to Iron City for some time now. It’s classic bad beer. Smells like a can of chiles verdes for some reason. Corny, bland, underhopped. The light version is actually better. Rotting the livers of blue collar men since 1861.

When I recently read about the financial struggles of the brewery, I wanted to get a bottle of this to say I had one of America’s classic brands. Lo and behold, they actually started bringing this to Dallas in the past month or so. I had the aluminum bottle, and I love the design; there are touches in the bottle that are both "throwback" and "modern" in styling, very attractive. The beer itself is a vivid yellow but otherwise unremarkable in appearance. The aroma and flavor are both adjunct-laden, sweet with some corn and a fair dose of spaghetti bolognese (verily, I say), but I would also say this: it was clean in the sense that it wasn’t light-affected. I gave credit to the aluminum bottle and this is something I’d like to see more of in the future (I’ve had a few others, as well, and it is one of those convention-challenging moves that I like...it doesn’t come out metallic and it actually helps the beer. This was a particularly fresh bottle as well, of course.)

Could we try a little harder please? Made with water from the ’Mon’. Favorite swill where I grew up. It would be better if they put as much imagination in the beer as they do on their cans.

12oz can, labeled as Olde Frothingslosh, courtesy of hopscotch (via argo0). Thanks, guys! Pours a hazy, whitish-yellow color; white head with patchy lacing. Light citrus and sugar in the aroma; nothing offensive. Light-to-medium mouthfeel: grapey upfront, with some sugar and average carbonation. Quick, slightly grapey finish.

12oz aluminum bottle. Pretty much your standard pale lager, maybe a bit on the sweeter side.

(12 oz aluminum bottle: Obtained in trade with Eyedrinkale, thanks Mike!) Well, cool bottle, let’s start off with that. Pop the cap, pour the beer, and the medium yellow liquid is capped by a white head that is nearly an inch tall. The occasional carbonation bubble rises through the beer, and if there were more, this would be a really nice looking beer initially. The head does fade to a rim within 5 minutes or so, and any lacing left on the glass dissipates as rapidly as the head. The nose is dry straw and grain, typical of the style. A rather light flavored lager, wow, there’s just not much going on here. Watery and thin on the palate and the flavor. Hard to hate how this beer tastes since there just isn’t much flavor. Lightly sweet, grainy, minimally bitter, can’t really detect any hops. The finish is very short lived, fading away rapidly. Probably not something I’d ever buy, but if I were really thirsty, I could probably finish an entire pint without retching. Not nearly as bad as I was expecting.

clear gold and watery looking. no head. sweet honeyish aroma. flavor is sweet with honey, butter and malt. maybe a hint of toffee and citrus. really not too bad for a pale lager.