Sunday Night Suds - Saranac Helles

This week's (belated) Sunday Beer Review looks at another new offering from Saranac (courtesy of their Beers of Summer Box) the Saranac Helles.

I have to admit, although I have tried many styles of beer, the Helles style was foreign to me until this week. When I first saw the style listed on the side of the Saranac box, I wondered whether the Helles was more of an inside joke than beer style.

To follow up on my suspicions, I looked to the experts at Beer Advocate and found that there was a class of beer called Munich Helles Lager, which was explained as:

When the golden and clean lagers of Plzen (Bohemia) became all the rage in the mid-1800's, München brewers feared that Germans would start drinking the Czech beer vs. their own. Munich Helles Lager was their answer to meet the demand. A bit more malty, they often share the same spicy hop characters of Czech Pils, but are a bit more subdued and in balance with malts. "Helles" is German for "bright."

The Saranac Helles does not exactly meet the classification above as it did not taste like it had a spicy hop flavor. This is not to say that I disliked the beer, to the contrary, I found it to be one of the better lagers I have consumed in recent memory.

The beer poured a light gold and that perfect carbonation which Saranac's generally possess. It also had a good degree of dryness to the lager (unlike macro lagers) which may be one of the main reasons that I enjoyed it. I had the Saranac Helles on its own, and could probably have consumed more if the box had contained additional bottles (there were only two in the box and I had one in the fridge).

Saranac Helles is under the kashruth supervision of the Va'ad of Detroit, as are all other beer produced by Saranac. For the experts' take on Saranac Helles, please click here http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/99/48541.

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

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