Sunday Night Suds - Red Baron Blonde Lager

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at the Brick Brewery's Red Baron Blonde Lager.

Regular readers of this page will note that I rarely review beer in cans. There are two basic reasons. I usually prefer bottles because they do not create shabbos issues (yes, I know that there are some poskim who permit beverage cans to be opened on shabbos, but my posek is not of that opinion). The second problem was more an issue of perception - that anything which had previously been in contact with metal would be negatively influenced by the contact.

My belief as a to metal begins with something I learned from my wife's side of the family. The Heineken man has always used non metallic kiddush cups (glass, ceramic, etc.) because he believes that once the wine has been in touch with metal it picks up the taste of metal. I shared this with my parents and now my father (once he finishes making kiddush) pours the wine out of the kiddush cup into a glass cup and everyone drinks from a glass or plastic cup.

Naturally, I assumed that the same would be true of beer. After all, every time that I drank a Bud from a can (youthful dalliances, I can assure you) the beer tasted of metal.

During Sarah and my recent trip to the Saranac brewery, I learned that the metal can does not impact on the beer. Part of the excellent 12 Beers of Winter program included a guided tour of the brewery with one of the owners. When Sarah & I went on our tour with Nick Matt, he mentioned that they would soon be producing cans of Saranac on a line which had been built after last year's fire. I then asked - but doesn't that take a great beer and give it a metallic flavor? I was assured that the cans are prepared in a fashion that the beer would not react with the metal.

This brings us to Brick's Red Baron Blonde Lager. I can assure you that although the beer was poured out of a can, it does not have a metallic flavor. However, not only does it not taste like metal, it does not really taste like anything. The beer poured a pale yellow, so pale that it might be lighter in color than a chardonnay. The beer claims to be 4.8% abv, but I am not sure that an entire six pack of the lager would have that much alcohol. Yes, I know that its a Blonde Lager and therefore its not supposed to be hoppy, but there are quadriplegic rabbits with more hop than this beer.

Red Baron Blonde Lager is under the Kosher Supervision of the Kashruth Council of Canada. To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about Red Baron Blonde Lager, please follow this link http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/416/1221.

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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