99 Years of Shiner on the Wall, 99 Years...
Written: Aug 02 '08
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: crisp, clean, refreshing
Cons: really nothing all that special
The Bottom Line: Spoetzel is certainly proud of their Shiner 99, but I say "What the helles? It's nuthin' special!"
|
|
|
| scmrak's Full Review: Shiner 99 Munich Style Helles |
Texas brewing icon Spoetzel Brewing is approaching a milestone: in 2009, the company will have been slaking the thirsts and wetting the whistles of Texans for a nice, round 100 years. In the leadup to their centennial celebration, the folks down in the little town of Shiner have released a different commemorative brew in each of the past three years. These days, the penultimate release in celebration of 99 years - Shiner 99 Munich Style Helles - can be found on a grocery store shelf near you... assuming you live in the right state. It's available in about half the country; excluding the northern Rockies and much of the Midwest and Northeast.
"Helles" lager is a classic German brewing style, about the only brewing style ever to come out of Spoetzel. A familiar (to most) benchmark for this pale lager would be Löwenbräu, others may be more familiar with the Spaten Premium label. Helles lagers are typically light and bright (Helles translates to "bright"); the name was chosen to differentiate the beer from the sweeter, darker, and stronger Dunkel style of brewing that's also practiced in the Munich region. Helles lagers are the progenitors to the paler and much more characterless corn- and rice-based beer styles practiced in famous American brewing cities such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Golden.
Tasting notes:
The pour: a clear, golden straw color with a single finger of coarse head that dissipates quickly, leaving little or no lace. Relatively low carbonation for a mass-market beer.
The nose: a sweet attack with faint notes of citrus and hops; malt notes clarify upon hand warming of the glass.
On the tongue: mild carbonation; a relatively dry brew with only minor hop bitterness. Light malt notes dominate. Clean on the palate, but about as complex as kool-ade (although not as sweet)
Finish: finishes clean: short, a little sweet, and light on the hops. A beer might be best suited for "lawnmower beer" - the one that you slam after finishing the lawn but before moving on to something that takes more effort to appreciate.
Official word from Spoetzel is that 99 , as it's affectionately known, has 5.0% ABV and a bitterness of 18 IBU (I said that it's weak on hops!)
Overall: like most of the company's products, Shiner 99 Munich Style Helles falls in the category of perfectly acceptable beer that remains nothing to write home about. It's a fairly ordinary representative of its type, but "fairly ordinary" categorically rules out "extraordinary."
Though nowhere near as large as the giants of the brewing industry (whatever's happening to Busch and whatever has become of Miller plus Coors), Shiner is nonetheless not to be confused with a microbrewery. With its core releases including Shiner Bock distributed over some forty states, Shiner is well into the class of macrobreweries. That doesn't stop the distributors from lumping the company's products with "imports" - meaning that this slightly better than average beer commands an "import" price. If you have the choice, save a few cents and buy a Leinenkugel instead. The beer's not much better, but you're not paying extra for tradition.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.