Sunday Night Suds - New Belgium Summer Helles Lager

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at New Belgium's Summer Helles Lager.

As has mentioned here before, the style of beer known as Helles is actually short for Munich Helles Lager. The experts at BA explain that Helles arose:

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 American Summer Helles which I have tried have uniformly lacked the hop character of a Czech Pils, but do have some other similarities to pilsners as they are bright yellow in color with a crispness which cleanses the palate. The New Belgium Summer Helles Lager follow along this track as it poured a pale yellow, almost straw in color. The beer lacked much in the way of bite (hop and/or alcohol) but was crisp and refreshing.

I enjoyed the New Belgium Summer Helles with a bag of NoTatoes Cassava Tortilla Chips. The beer meshed well with the salty cassava chips and provided the perfect late snack following an intense zimriyah at Camp M.

New Belgium Helles is under the Kosher Supervision of the Scroll-K of Colorado. Although the beer does not bear the kosher symbol on the label, I have verified its kashruth with the Scroll-K and it is listed on the LOC. Often times, a kosher symbol can be found on the bottom of the six pack holder for New Belgium products. Unfortunately, I did not buy a six pack of this beer, so I could not verify that it is found on the bottom of the Helles Lager six pack holder.

Please note that not every brew produced by New Belgium is under kosher supervision. For a list of the New Belgium brews currently under supervision, please click on the link on the left side of my home page for my latest Kosher Beer List.

To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about New Belgium Helles Lager, please follow this link beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/116586. 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).

Finally, if you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!