God no

I don't know where Thomas picked me up this bottle of Nils Oscar God Lager, but somewhere in the UK. The back label is particularly interesting, where it describes itself as an "ultra premium craft" beer -- in for a penny, eh? -- and makes clear to the punters that the contents will deliver the "big flavours of a real ale", though there's a somewhat cavalier approach to German styles in these Danes' Swedes' description of their product as a "Dortmunder/Helles Pilsner". Why not throw in Spezial, Kellerbier and see if you can complete the set?

The three dense paragraphs had talked up a good game before I raised the glass. The smell is definitely on the Dortmunder spectrum: a sweet bready aroma, like cornbread, with a flash of metallic hops behind it. No fireworks on tasting, however. Though it's within its expiry date and has been looked after since I got it, there's a distinct staleness: a harsh not-quite-right roughness to a malt flavour that should shimmy charmingly past the palate and down the throat like good Dortmunder Export does. The bready sweetness is too sugary and the hops are nowhere to be found. And while I'm throwing the book at it, I detect a nasty gastric acidic note in the finish too.

I probably wouldn't have been so harsh on this if it had just presented itself as a plain old Danish Swedish craft lager, but by invoking German lager and British ale on the packaging Nils Oscar wrote me a cheque that their beer simply couldn't cash. The lesson for me, then, is never read the label first.