I would've loved to approach this beer blind: pouring it out and tasting it without knowing what it was.
The style name had me expecting it to taste light and crisp like a rice lager. Don’t get me wrong – red rice does have a different character than white rice, with a slight sweetness, nuttiness, earthiness… but with just 25kg in the brew, I wasn’t expecting that character to shine through.
The colour, however, is an amber- or coppery-gold, and if I’d seen that without knowing what the beer was, I definitely would have expected something full and malty.
Anywho. It turns out this did, in fact, drink like a malty amber lager, with a touch of toffee flavour, some of that tackiness on the tongue, and noble hop character alongside a real light refreshingness.
Mick Wüst
PS Apparently Dear John is a Taylor Swift song, but I just thought of that movie with Channing Tatum in which he brings his classic Tatum emotional range of an Easter Island head. I saw more of that movie than I wanted to (ten minutes instead of one minute), and would’ve much preferred to just watch Magic Mike again. Five Barrel, please name a beer Magic Mike.
Published February 27, 2024 2024-02-27 00:00:00
