Gypsy Inc: Tipsy Gypsy (Denmark: Pilsner: 4.7% ABV)
Visual: Pale grain.
Nose: Malty. Light lemon sherbet. Light cardboard.
Body: Prickly and pickles. Lemon on pancakes. Apricot. Light bitterness. Toffee and malt character. Condensed cream. Strawberry.
Finish: Lemon sherbet. Cadbury cream egg centres and brown sugar. Light hop prickle. Growing bitterness after starting initially low.
Conclusion: Ohh, bad luck on timing for this one. For the beer anyway, and maybe me. You see, it’s a lager. Just after Prague. Which I did kind of pick deliberately. Ohh boy this is going to get closely examined.
The aroma had me worried straight away, it was fresh, but indistinct. Worse still there was this kind of wet cardboard aroma. A bad sign, and not what I expected from something linked with Mikkeller.
The main body did a quick, and very necessary, recovery of expectations. It quickly throws in lots of freshness, some sweet and creamy notes and a slight backing of prickling flavor. It was nice enough but the malt character seemed a bit heavy. The toffee, condensed cream and other such elements seemed to be the most prevalent ones. Now these are not bad flavours, but they don’t sit right here, they don’t quite fit with expectations of the pilsner, which is forgivable, but they seem to hinder the expression of the other elements, which isn’t.
That actually sums up a lot about the beer. There is a nice hop prickle, but it doesn’t do much to show the rest of the beer in a good light. There is a bit of fruit, but again fails to synergise. Also, and quite a harsh criticism for lager, it really doesn’t feel that crisp and so smoothly drinkable.
So, not bad beer. It has charming elements, but yeah, it really does not show itself as massively interesting as either a lager or a beer. It is ok at best.
Background: Ok, can someone help me? What is the difference between Mikkeller and Gypsy Inc? It is a new project from Mikkeller and, well that’s all I can find. So why the different name? I know not. Anyway, being back from land of the awesome lager (Czech Republic) and needing my quality lager kick I decided to break open this Pilsner I had picked up from the Guest Beer section of Brewdog.
