30 July 2014

Summer in the mountains

From the official brewery of the American outdoors comes Mama's Little Yella Pils, a 5.3% ABV pilsner lager. Yella is right: a brilliant glaring gold, shot through with just a slight haze and topped by a stiff white foam.

I'm sure a brewery of integrity like Oskar Blues brews this from an all-malt recipe, but there's a certain corny quality to the taste; a sweetness I normally associate with the cheaper 'n' nastier sort of lagers. The aroma is dry, grainy and not entirely pleasant. So where's all the Saaz at? There's a tiny bitter bite -- no more than  a nibble -- in the finish, but none of the lovely grass notes you get in good pilsner. At this point I looked at the bottom of the can and noticed that this was packaged nearly seven months before I opened it. Perhaps that explains some of the problem, though I'm positive that the likes of Pilsner Urquell is more robust than this, distance travelled notwithstanding.

A bit of a disappointment then. It's even a little too fizzy to be properly refreshing. If I were hiking up the Rockies (don't laugh; it could happen) I'd be packing Dale's Pale Ale instead of this.

And staying in Colorado but flipping to the other end of the calendar, I recently acquired this unseasonal can of Euphoria, the winter pale ale from Ska Brewing. It pours the brown-amber of a twiggy English bitter, and it's fairly malt-forward, a warming 6.2% ABV with smooth chocolate flavours infused with oily mandarin and a classy touch of rosewater. While it's far from fresh at this time of year, there's still a lovely sharp citrus aroma, though that's where the big hop action starts and ends. Still, good in any weather, and very much preferable to the elderly pils above.

6 comments:

  1. Nearly ordered a couple of cans of Yella Pils last night, but decided against it at the last minute because we couldn't imagine what we would be getting for the price over Urquell or similar.

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    1. Definitely one of those situations that makes you wonder why a) it's being imported and b) people buy it, when there's no shortage of pils available in Europe. A tick's a tick, though, eh?

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  2. "like Oskar Blues brews this from an all-malt recipe, but there's a certain corny quality to the taste; a sweetness I normally associate with the cheaper 'n' nastier sort of lagers"

    Sounds like a DMS issue with could from either poor kettle boiling/cooling or poor fermentation or even infection

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    1. Didn't think of that, but that might be what's going on.

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  3. Not a fan of Mama's Little Yella in cans, though it is decent enough on tap. Unfortunately over here 'pils' is often used as short hand for 'yellow and bland'.

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    1. That's very often the case here too.

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