Kaiserdom: Lager Beer: Alcohol Free (Germany: Low Alcohol. 0.0% ABV)
Visual: Clear yellow gold. Large white mounded head of loose bubbles. Lots of small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Wet cardboard. Soft banana. Creamy lime. Vanilla. Low bitterness.
Body: Wet cardboard. Slightly sulphurous. Charred bitterness. Sour-dough. Slight chalk.
Finish: Slight charring and bitterness. Wet. Sulphur. Sour dough.
Conclusion: This is so “meh”, just sub par in most elements and in general mildly, though not offensively, bad.
Unlike that start to the notes, the start to this beer is actually not too bad. It looks like a larger, being fairly bright in color and clear, with a good sized and robust head. Beyond clearing that very low bar it also had a passable aroma. While it opens with less pleasant wet cardboard, it also brings some soft fruit notes around it which hold some promise. So, not the worst way to kick off.
The body is, well, to put it bluntly, fairly shit. Still wet cardboard, but now matched with vaguely sulphurous elements, and, at best, it can be described as sour dough like. The sulphurous element means that it doesn’t refresh like a cleaner lager would. Worse still, it doesn’t give an extra flavor to make you want to take your time with it and examine it if it isn’t going the refreshing lager route. It has no way to look at it where it works.
The finish continues to be sulphurous and charred, and in general just stuffy feeling. So, it isn’t actively terrible, it just tastes like what uncomfortable feels like is the best way I can describe it.
So, not enjoyable, and nothing actively going for it. Even the aroma which is the best element barely passes ok and that is the only bit that manages that.
In this time of amazing low alcohol beers there is no excuse for one like this.
Background: This is a fairly simple story, saw a bunch of canned low alcohol beers at Independent Spirit from Kaiserdom, a German brewery I had not tried yet. Needed some low alcohol, or this case no alcohol, beers for a few days dry, so grabbed some and decided to do notes on them. Ta dah! Decided to do the lager one first, see how they manage the basics before trying the more fancy beers. Music wise Garbage had just released No Gods, No Masters, so as a huge fan of them from the 90s I picked it up and put it on while drinking. Pretty impressed so far.
