Lagers

Posted in Monday Night Brewing, New Releases

Monday Night Saint Monday blesses the market this week

Monday Night Saint Monday, a new seasonal Helles lager debuts for the first time this week. 

This lighter alcohol by volume beer (4.4%) is designed to be a “recovery beer” of sorts, after a full weekend of boozing. The beer’s name “Saint Monday” refers to the tradition of being “absent” on Monday. We are assuming to recover from drinking or to continue drinking. As a cultural reference, Saint Monday is documented back to the 18th Century in England. Even Benjamin Franklin referenced Saint Monday in his autobiography. 

Monday Night has made a lot of fun and experimental beers lately, but brewmaster Peter Kylie wanted to take a run at German traditional style like the Helles Lager. Saint Monday is brewed with German Pilsner and Munich malts, as well as German Hallertau and Czech Saaz hops. The brewers put a strong focus on matching the water chemistry of southern Germany. 

Spicy and floral notes culminate in a clean, bready, and dare we say benevolent finish. 

Monday Night Saint Monday is available in 12-ounce cans and draft the week of November 8th. 

Style: Helles Lager
Hops: Hallertau Mittlefruh, Saaz
Malts: Pilsner, Munich 

Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft. Seasonal Release. 
Distribution: GA, TN, AL. All taprooms. 

4.4% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Tucker Brewing Company, Don't Miss This

Tucker Brewing takes home Georgia’s 1st lager gold in 30 years

Georgia’s Tucker Brewing Company just took home Great American Beer Festival Gold in the Light Lager category. In an American landscape of nearly 10,000 breweries, that’s not an easy feat. 

American craft beer is in a bit of a “lager renaissance” of sorts it’s finally normal [again] to see a lager on tap at a brewery. Hell, just a few years ago in Georgia folks were all but drowning in a sea of IPAs and stouts, but now – the Peach State is home to at least three lager-focused breweries. We’d like to extend a personal thank you that no one has tried to make a milk lager. (Yet.)

Tucker Brewing’s Lager, aka Tucker Lager, is barely four years old. The brewery’s appropriately named head brewmaster Tucker Eagleson (purely coincidental) was brewing at Heavy Seas in Baltimore, Maryland when he stumbled across the head brewer job at Tucker Brewing on ProBrewer. His name naturally got his foot in the door. 

One of the conditions of getting the job was that Eagleson had to have at least two lager recipes ready for the brewery’s upcoming Tucktoberfest that year. Within weeks of landing in Georgia, he had a märzen and Honeysuckle Helles Lager, that would eventually be Tucker Lager ready to go. 

The märzen is seasonal, but Lager immediately became year-round. “The recipes for either beer never really changed after the fest,” Eagleson says. It was just a series of [a thousand] different tweaks and sensory panels to improve the beer,” he adds. 

Light Lager may sound like a common beer, but it’s unforgiving if you don’t know what you’re doing. A stout or porter might hide imperfections or off-flavors, but a lager is like changing clothes in the front yard. You see everything. 

Here in 2021, Eagleson figured it might be time to enter it in GABF, which still held the competition despite canceling the public festival for the second year in a row. Last Saturday morning, Eagleson woke up to a text from brewery co-founder Ashley Hubbard that out of 137 category entries, Tucker Lager won gold. “It took a second for it to set in,” he says. 

It’s actually the first gold medal for a lager in Georgia in more than 30 years. A medal that’s well deserved. The all-German hop and malt lager is about as clean and crisp of a beer as you’ll find anywhere. 

Taking home gold for a light lager on your first try is no easy feat I say to him. Eagleson smiles and simply replies. “I’ll drink to that.”

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Champion Brewing, Headlines, New Releases

Champion Brewing creates a beer to pair with Duke’s Mayo

I grew up on Duke’s Mayo, which was highly unlikely considering I lived in state that was completely devoid of Duke’s. To this day I couldn’t tell you what mayo my friends ate growing up, but I’m sure it was something with a tangy zip, or some crap like that. We would vacation to see family a few times of year, whether upstate South Carolina, or Charleston and my father would stock up on Duke’s. We’d drive back north with a trunk full of mayo, and Beanie Weenies to get through another few months.(The pimento cheese was always a short term delicacy.) Later he would have family members ship it.

Either way. My southern born and raised family however, was and still is – a Duke’s Mayonnaise family. 

Charlottesville, Virginia based Champion Brewing Company has just introduced a new lager, meant to be paired with a southern sandwich favorite – A Duke’s heavy BLT.

The beer is a 5.1% ABV vienna lager perfectly named Family Recipe, brewed with Vienna malt, Magnum and Saaz hops. While I haven’t had the beer, I can tell you a BLT, with crispy bacon, lettuce as cold as the fridge, topped with Duke’s on white bread washed down with a crisp lager is a thing of beauty in the humid southern summer heat. Champion Brewing only uses Duke’s Mayonnaise in their restaurants for a reason. 

When I told my father about this collaboration he literally stopped speaking mid conversation and wanted to know where to get it. The irony now is that he can get all the Duke’s he wants, but not the beer. Life can be so cruel. 

READ MORE: COLLABORATIONS

Champion Family Recipe debuts this week Champion’s Tap House, Champion Grill, and Champion Ice House. The brewery will also be pouring Family Recipe at the Duke’s Mayo Classic games this year in Charlotte, North Carolina.  The  Doubleheader features East Carolina University versus Appalachian State University and UGA opening against Clemson.

Additionally, Family Recipe is shipping 16-ounce cans across Virginia and North Carolina for a limited time.

Style: Vienna Lager
Hops: Saaz, Magnum
Malts: Vienna

Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft. Limited Release
Debut: 8/20/21

5.1% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in NoDa Brewing, Seasonal Return

NoDa Roaring Riot, a lager for Carolina Panthers kicks off August

NoDa Roaring Riot cans return to kick off (pun intended) August. Brewed for the faithful beer drinking fans and hardcore tailgaters of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

The brewery is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and as you can probably imagine are big Panthers fans. NoDa Roaring Riot is dedicated to the passionate fan base. The beer once was a pale ale brewed with rye malt, and now has shifted to something more crushable – a lager. 

NoDa Roaring Riot will be available in 16-ounce cans again Friday, July 28th.

Style: Lager
Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft.
Debut: 11/11/16
Latest Return: August 2021

4.5% ABV, 18 IBUS

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Ecliptic Brewing, Chuckanut Brewery, New Beers

Ecliptic Chuckanut Vienna-Style Lager

Ecliptic Chuckanut Vienna-Style Lager

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Stone Brewing Co., Don't Miss This, New Releases

Stone Buenaveza Salt & Lime Lager debuts nationally

Stone Buenaveza Salt & Lime Lager has started shipping nationally as April winds down.

From a brewery best known for their love of India pale ales comes a Mexican-style lager brewed with fresh lime and sea salt. Stone Brewing was founded in 1996 just 17 miles from Baja California. The south of the border inspirations are evident in Stone’s love of hot peppers in brewing, as well as Xocoveza Mexican hot chocolate imperial stout.

Brewer Ben Sheehan created this beer at Stone’s World Bistro & Gardens Liberty Station. Look for Buenaveza Salt & Lime Lager in 12 and 19.2-ounce cans, 12 and 22-ounce bottles as well as draft.

Style: Lager (w/ Sea Salt. Lime.)
Hops: Liberty
Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft.
Debut: April 2020

4.7% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, New Releases

Wild Heaven releases perfectly named ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ lager

Atlanta’s Wild Heaven Craft Beer has an appropriately named beer release this weekend – Don’t Stand So Close To Me.

Perfect for social distancing, Don’t Stand So Close to Me is a Vienna Lager, brewed with Saaz and Hallertau hops.

Georgia now has a shelter in place order, but both brewery locations will be open for beer-to-go, and food at their West End location. Free to every person WITHOUT purchase is a bottle of brewery made hand sanitizer.

Wild Heaven Don’t Stand So Close to Me is available in 16-ounce cans for your quarantine drinking pleasure.

Style: Vienna Lager
Hops: Saaz, Hallertau

Availability: 16oz Cans.
Debut: 4/3/20

?? ABV

by Reid Ramsay