Lakefront New Grist Sorghum Beer

Brewed by Lakefront Brewery
Style: Specialty Grain
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Pale yellow with an off white foam that is loud and fizzy. Aroma is that typical harsh sorghum acidity, lemony, some rice. Taste is better, a bit fruity, still lemony and bordering on tart, rice in the finish.

Bottle from the LCBO. Starts out well with a nice appearance - bright golden with a small white head - but the aroma is another story. On first whiff, it’s oddly reminiscent of pizza crust, i.e. doughy with Italian herbs, then it develops a vague fruit character. The lack of barley becomes very apparent in the body, which is thin to the point of being almost non-existent, and also in the flavour, which has none of the elements that would come from the use of malted barley. Instead, there’s a nondescript sweetness that is neither sugary nor caramelly, followed by a mildly sour graininess and hints of overripe apple. Hops are supposedly present, but are pretty much undetectable in the flavour.

Bottle - Pours like ginger ale, clear and straw-colored with tiny little bubbles. Smells terrible, like the sorghum alcohol my brother brought back from Taiwan. Sharp and sour and grainy, with a real starchy character. Taste is...whew. Tastes starchy, like the water you just boiled some pasta in. There’s some Granny Smith apple sour-sweetness in there, but it almost tastes like they threw some apple juice in there to cut the horrible flavor of the sorghum. I feel bad for anyone that can’t have any gluten in their beer, and my guess is if this is the only beer I could ever drink I’d get used to it. But the way things stand right now, this is terrible, vile stuff, and I hope to never have to taste it again.

Pretty crappy beer. Aroma of rice and slightly acidic. Pale straw yellow colour. Taste is rice, yeast with a sour aftertaste kick. I’ll pass on a second.

Golden with thin, white head / Perfumed, sweet, nose of rice / LIght body, crisp and mildly sweet, with good balance and finish / Floral to medicinal flavors of sweet Japanese rice, resin, and grain / A might peculiar, but if this is all you can drink . . . . Grade this as a gluten-free beer, or as a beer?

355 ml bottle from LCBO, served almost cold in a tulip glass.

App.: Bright, clear golden with a rim of white. Aroma: At first I thought of Belgian Ale with some light yeast and earthy citrus, now I’m leaning more towards a hard cider with that bright wine-like fruitiness, definitely some toasted cereal/grain. It is ecclectic if nothing else. Palate: Medium-light body, fairly sparse carbonation. Flav.: Light but pleasant apple juice, a bit of cider, a wee hint of the citrus and yeast, a little mineral, a touch of alcohol; dry with a touch of brightness and basically no bitterness.

OK, so it ain’t mind-blowing. But I found it better than La Messagere and will recommend it to a wheat-intolerant friend.

Pours golden yellow. Aroma of cheap candy and overripe fruit. Very acidic, almost like sour apples. Very chemically. Another good example of why I pass over Lakefront brews without a second thought.