Mikkeller Bedow: Summer Pilsner (Denmark: Pilsner: 4.7% ABV)
Visual: Slightly hazy yellowed gold. Half inch of bubbles loose white head and wheaty looking.
Nose: Tart grapefruit and pineapple. Vanilla. Crisp. Ground lemon rind.
Body: Bitter and hop kick. Gooseberry. Toffee malt. Lemon. Pink grapefruit. White sugar dusting. Light orange.
Finish: Orange and good amount of hop bitterness. Custard cream biscuits. Zesty lemon sherbet. Candy floss.
Conclusion: The lager is a beer so easily ignored, mainly because it is a style so easily badly made. Then by contrast we have this. Warning: It has bitterness. Now an experienced lager drinker, especially in the better German takes on the style, will not be surprised or put off by that. However it can be a wake up call for a novice.
It is a crisp beer as a lager should be but with quite the bitter bite. It also keeps things fresh with pink grapefruit and lemon zest. This beer is a wake up call to your taste buds. Between these contrasting elements it somehow managed to creates a stupidly easy to drink beer. I was half way through the glass before I realized I had barely taken any notes yet.
The two big flavor elements don’t clash but dance back and froth with each other over a line drawn by subtle candy floss like sweetness. The malt manages to bring a bit of weight, the rising toffee malt character is the only real heavy element of the beer and manages to give it that bit of body it needs to not seem too empty.
I don’t know how the beer manages warm, it didn’t last that long. However as a lager the chilling really didn’t seem to hurt, as should be expected. A good amount of flavor backing without sacrificing the lagers strengths. It is like Mikkeller went back to American Dream and gave it a redesign to see how to make it really work. A rare example of a lager that shows exactly what you can do with one.
Background: Ok, ratebeer says premium lager for style but it calls itself a pilsner and the style has enough range in it that I would happily put it under that. Anyway, another from Mikkeller and I felt like hunting for a good lager beer again. I have far too many dark beers in my cupboard right now and I felt like something a bit refreshing. Bedow, I think, is the production company that did the art for the bottle. The flowers are meant to start dark circles when cold and “bloom” when the bottle is warm. I think my bottle is broken as it never went out of bloom. I am sure I saw a reference to this having either orange peel or orange juice in it but I could be going mad, so don’t take my word on that.