Shiner Bock

Brewed by Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus Company)
Style: American Dark Lager
Shiner, Texas USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Lager glass, Shaker

Ruby-colored body with a very thin off-white head. Overall sweet and nutty aroma...brown sugar and malt. Fairly thin palate, smooth all of the way through. Much like the aroma, the flavor is sweet with brown sugar, malt, and caramel. Very easy to drink and pretty tasty.

Pours a disappointing slightly dark amber, with medium off-white head, no lacing. Aroma surprisingly mild of slightly toasted malt, caramel, and slight nutty character. Flavor matches well with an additional slight sweetness and reminds me more of an ok nut brown ale rather than a bock. Drinkable, enjoyable, and refreshing, but lacks character.

Quite light and simple (the Shiner way!) for a bock, which makes it refreshingly easy to drink and pretty dang good.

UPDATED: SEP 28, 2009 Pint glass. Pours a dark amber with a relatively thin head. Initially it was served very cold - too cold. Tasted like a basic lager until warmed up and revealed some decent, though very mild, character. As others have mentioned, it is relatively one dimensional but that dimension is pretty good. Basically, it has a sweet malt taste with strong caramel overtones and a tiny bit of bitterness. After it gets warm it has a slightly more bitter aftertaste that balances the malt pretty well. Its easy to find and easy to drink so I’m giving it a decent rating. Certainly not my favorite and definitely not a bock bit still a decent beer.

12oz bottle, appearance is dark amber brown with small white head, aroma of caramel and stale malt, flavor has some caramel but mostly malty. nothing to special.

She poured a clear but deeply rich and polished mahogany which sparkled with coppers, ambers, garnets, and treacle. A faintly tinged head receded fairly quickly into a thing ringlet, but she does puff up with generosity upon some friendly swirls. Her nose is all about brown spices, brown sugars and breads lightly buttered and toasted with caramel and maple drizzles while fresh lemons are sliced in the background. Her nose is soft but crisp, leading me with tried assurance into my first quaff. Of course, this isn’t the first Shiner Bock I have drunk, but the first in at least a few years and the first where I dedicated my full attentions. So while she is a glass of wistful memories, she is also a glass to celebrate the moment and the moment is now. Bright. Maple and lemon zest greet my tastebuds with a celebratory song, ensuring they are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and paying her their full attention. The sweetness which was highly prominent in her nose is now settled into the background while melba toast and cooked brown sugars crunch with each thirsty quaff. A well balanced bock, she goes down easy with just the right touch of complexity. Further in, my lips smack of maple while lemon peel dries the top of my tongue. She hits fast and leaves fast which is fine and dandy with me.

Not the richest bock I have quaffed, but a fine contender if I do say so. Maybe Texas finally does have something to be proud of; the Shiner Bock is certainly a gleaming light in a sea of festering ignorance and political puss. Ok, maybe that isn’t a fair generalization; good people and good things can come from Texas. If you have the chance, give the Shiner Bock a fair chance in your fridge, and if she happens to be sitting next to her sister, the Bohemian Black Lager, take them both home. Good girls come in twos, after all.

Oh joy of joys. I was both excited and a bit sad when I saw this show up as a bottle free for the taking (and thus rating) at BCTC (I think thanks to EDA). Excited because I haven’t had a Shiner Bock in probably about 7 or 8 years, since the last time I was in Texas, and drank a ton of them. Sad because I knew that in that time my palate has grown a great deal, and while back then this was a huge step up from the typical college fare, I knew now it wouldn’t hold up to my general standards. Pours a clear caramel brown with a thin white head. Grain on the nose. Hot grain on the nose actually, with a little bit of roust backing it up. Very thin. Light acrid bitterness. Not so good. Fortunately, I’ll just look back fondly at it and the memory of drinking a lot of these amongst some incredible friends in Texas nearly a decade ago.

First had it on draft at a Copelands in Mississippi years back. Nice tasting beer from a small brewery. They have better beers, but I have a liking for this. Malty, not a great aftertaste, but is passable for something betterthan mass produced.