No mean lager

Following on from last month's review of BrewDog Avery Brown Dredge, another British lager, this one from Meantime in east London where BrewDog's regular lagers are currently produced. London Lager comes in a dinky 33cl and is designed, I assume, for the style-conscious bottle-by-the-neck brigade who'd otherwise be on the Corona or similar.

It's certainly rather lacking on the aroma front: I get little beyond fizzy water on the nose. But the flavour is quite pleasantly full-on, even cold from the fridge. Lots of toasty whole-grain pilsner malt, given a gently herbal complexity from the hops, plus a smack of golden syrup as it warms. I fall to my knees in thanks to the lager gods that it's not nettley or otherwise unpleasantly Germanic. I'm not sure it's especially British either, nor yet is it generic world lager. While comfortingly familiar, I can't really place where I've tasted something like this before. Maybe I just don't drink enough lager.

Anyway, Meantime's dry yet thirst-quenching London Lager gets a thumbs up from me.

The mashtun and the critics

If you read any beer blogs other than mine you'll probably know all about this one already. BrewDog invited three English beer writers to Fraserburgh to devise and brew a beer, and Avery Brown Dredge is the result.

It's a pale lager at 7.5% ABV and loaded with Saaz hops, earning it the punning style designation "Imperious Pilsner". And it burns. Right from the aroma there's an alcoholic heat I tend to associate with much stronger lagers, along with a sour musty grain thing I've met in quite a few German pale bocks, and is one of the main reasons I avoid them. On tasting, the boozy warmth continues, in a soupy central-heating-for-tramps sort of way, and it's added to by the acid bitterness of the hops. There's enough weight to balance the heavy hopping and stop it from making the beer harsh, but it still sizzles greenly on the tongue as it finishes.

It's not really a reflection on the beer that I don't like it: browse these pages enough and you'll find I have a history with strong intensely Germanic pale lagers. They're just not my thing. I prefer my pilsner to be a little more meek.