Le Cheval Blanc Lager Blonde

On tap at La Cheval Blanc. Pours a slight hazy yellow gold with a thin white head. Aroma is mostly grain. Body is smooth, but flavor is all metal and grain. Ends crisply with a light hop bitterness, and more of the metallic flavor that has permeated this.

nothing special typical lager, nice malt, and some slight hops, crips drinking beer. Nothing special, but solid.

[518-20070811] Tap @ Cheval Blanc (Montréal, QC). Wheat straw aroma with a hint of horse. Clear, orange body with a long-lasting creamy white head. Flavour continues straw and hay characteristics with a mildly spicy yeasty grain. Medium body is a little complex. Good.

Draught pint at the brewpub on 1/27/07
Highly clear maize with a bit of copper-gold. Light carbonation in the liquid, leading to a small white head showing low to moderate retention, no lacing.
Medium strength nose tells of diacetyl lushly mixed with sweet pale malts. Soft, grassy hops are rather evident, as is a touch of sweet corn and fresh, crisp yeast. So you’ve got quite a paradox in the nose (and flavor). On one hand, the pleasant, crisp yeast on the finish and moderately aromatic, fresh hops are lively and crisp as a lager should be, but the somewhat underattenuated pale sugars and buttercreamy diacetyl work completely in the opposite direction. It comes out to something like an English pale ale, though maybe a bit more crisp and less fruity than that. No alcohol and only mild corn-like notes prove marginally troublesome.
Soft, well-malted texture is not overdone with carbonation, while the grassy/mossy hops have a touch of citrus to them and are moderately apparent, leading to a pleasing dryness. Unfortunately, a profound buttercream-like flavor all but drowns out the hops. It’s well-integrated with the malt and not of the burnt/dry popcorn or paper variety (the nuances of diacetyl.....) and just gives, well, a buttery-sweet beer that has a favorable texture. The finish has lightly crisp yeast, bits of corn sugar-like notes and some lingering nuttiness. Low fruitiness, but more than I’d expect from a lager. Probably just their house yeast fermented at cool temperatures, as others have suggested.
Get rid of the diacetyl, crank the attenuation, and they’d really have something lovely.

Bu sur place en fut (12 oz). Blonce claire, presque pas de collet. En bref, elle a l’air comme tout les autres lager pale, seulement l’air et pas la chanson! Arome de malte au sucre d’orge très impossant. Goût de malte d’orge une peu sucré!

Draught. Clear gold with a creamy white head. Smells like cereal, bread, and tropical fruity hops. Clean palate with faint dusty yeast left in the finish. Fruity flavour is evident and you have to really wonder where that came from. Firm biscuit closing off. Interesting enough and reasonably quenching.

Fragrance of berries and peaches? Golden, with a small white head. Mixed fruit flavour, like when you have two different jello fruit flavours together. Light bodied, pleasantly sweet, refreshing, but it doesn’t meet the style.I’m wondering if this beer replaced a fruit offering on the same tap?

On tap at LCB in Oct ’05. 5oz taster. Light gold color, great clarity. Sweet aroma, honey, lemon?, vanilla? The taste is moderately sweet malt. Not a huge depth of flavor, but the same lemon and vanilla hints. There are some finishing hops that add and ever so slight bitterness at the end, but do not seem to add to the flavor. Finish is malty crisp, but does carry some residual sweetness through. Good session beer.