Czechvar Dark Lager

Maybe everybody already knows about this one, but it’s new to me: Czechvar Dark Lager? Sure, I’ll take a swing on that! Brewed by the folks at Czechvar in České Budējovice, Czech Republic, this dark lager is sold in 500mL cans that feature a pair of signatures and fingerprints, signifying which brewers had their mitts all over this little 4.7%, 24 IBU offering. CDL is dark brown in colour, with attractive amber highlights. It pours with a dense and durable cream foam.

CDL has aromatics that are malt forward, with notes of rye toast, brown sugar, and grain. The flavour is initially both metallic and malty, with a mellow, toasty finish. The beer’s not overpowering, but there is some definite depth of flavour, touching on sweet grains, nuttiness and a hint of floral noble hop bitterness.

CDL is unlikely to top Chechvar’s classic recipe on many ballots, but it’s a nice, dark lager that’s far from simple.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Gladstone Czech Dark Lager

During a long weekend trip to Victoria, I purchased a smattering of local/British Columbia beers—mostly west coast IPAs, but I also came home with a 473mL can of Gladstone Brewing Company’s Czech Dark Lager. At 6% and somewhere around 24 IBUs, the beer has some heft. It’s a handsome brown lager with ruby highlights and it pours with a thin layer of cream head.

Gladstone’s CDL has a lush roasted malt aroma with a lightly metallic sweetness. The flavour is similarly constituted, though a bit less sweet, with a roasted malt foundation and an agreeable ferric element. Bitterness manifests as mild, dark chocolate and a touch of coffee. The beer has a soft and smooth mouthfeel that wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for when I purchased the beer but which really worked quite well.

From Courtenay, BC, Gladstone’s Czech Dark Lager was a welcome breath of fresh, mellow air in a weekend filled with piney citrus-heavy IPAs.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Prost! ... an Oktoberfest Märzen

 Much of what you need to know about Prost! ... an Oktoberfest Märzen is right there in the name. It’s a clear, caramel-hued lager from the team at Great Lakes Brewery in Toronto. The beer, sold in 473mL cans, pours with a lush and creamy head.

Prost! has a malty, bready nose. The flavour is sweet, malty, and toasty, with a back end that tastes boozier than its 5.6%. True to style, the beer leans toward the maltier end of the spectrum, but there is a little nod to floral bitterness in the finish.

Not a bad little Ontario take on the classic Oktoberfest style.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Occult Classic

 I love a beer with a badass name, and Occult Classic is most definitely that. The beer, a doppelbock, is the progeny of Rainhard Brewing in Toronto. It’s a 6.7% dark lager sold in gloomy 473mL cans. The beer is cola-dark, with a fluffy tan head.

Occult Classic has a malty, sweet, and bready aroma, and a nearly matching flavour. There is some nuttiness, a streak of molasses, and a bit of boozy heat along for the ride. The beer has a gentle, smooth texture that benefits from gradual warming as you slowly sip.

I’ve had more memorable doppelbocks, but not a lot that originated outside of Germany. Rainhard’s take on the style is mellow and mild, but still punchy and potent.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Tmavý Ležák 12º Czech Premium Dark Lager

 Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery gets my vote as the makers of Ontario’s finest lagers. Tmavý Ležák 12º Czech Premium Dark Lager is other high quality lager from Godspeed. The 4.7% dark lager comes in 355mL cans and pours near black with a sudsy tan head.

To my sniffer, T.L.12 has malty and sweet aroma. It features a complex flavour with roasted malt, copper, coffee, and grain elements, supported by the faintest lilt of blueberry—that last one was something I noticed initially and it is deep in the weeds. The finish has floral bitterness and is quite dry.

I don’t buy a ton of dark lagers, but T.L.12 made me feel like I should. It was a highly enjoyable and well built beer.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Black Opal Schwarzbier

Black Opal Schwarzbier is a collab brewed by Muddy York Brewing Co. and advanced Cicerone @beergirlca. The 4.6%, 22 IBU dark lager is whipped up in Toronto and comes in elegant and vaguely occult 355mL cans.

Black Opal is extremely dark brown in colour and pours with a modest circlet of eggshell head. It has a graceful roasted malt and brown sugar aroma. For flavour, there are some porter-like elements—roasted malt and molasses, but the crisp and feather-light mouthfeel is all lager. The finish mingles sweet and bitter in a harmonious melange.

Dark lagers are few in Ontario, and while there are some good ones, I’d be hard-pressed to think of one that I enjoyed more than Black Opal. It’s (sorry!) a gem.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Clair-obscur

Clair-obscur, from Archibald Microbrasserie in Quebec City, is a schwarzbier, a German-style smoked dark lager. It’s a 5.5% brew sold in 473mL cans. It’s a black, cola-coloured lager with a thin layer of short-lived, off-white head.

With its powerful smoky aroma, Clair-obscur has loads roasty malt notes. The flavour is smokier still, with serious campfire energy, along with a bold, slightly sweet malty vibes. The finish remains persistently smoky, with just a hint of bitterness.

I love a nice schwarzbier, and Clair-obscur gets the job done with aplomb. It has a nice strength (honestly, it tastes stronger than 5.5%) and a lovely flavour, though I’d like a touch more back-end bitterness.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Sagres Preta

Upon landing in Lisbon, the Bitter Wife and I checked into our hotel, showered, and she opted to nap while I went in the hunt for beer. My first bottle was a 330mL of Sagres Preta, a schwarzbier from Vialonga, Portugal’s Sagres. The 4.1% dark lager poured dark brown with amber highlights and a thinnish layer of tan head. It had a malty nose complemented with brown sugar, mocha, and copper notes. The flavour is mild, but agreeable, with roasted malt leading the charge and a metallic subtext hiding out.

The beer was not, as I’d hoped, crisp and refreshing; however, it did pair pretty well with my first custard tart of the vacation. The beer was a bit too thin to be more than merely enjoyable, with too little alcohol to warrant much revisit value. Not bad stuff, but not remarkable at all.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10.

Shevchenko 9 Ukrainian Dunkel

Shevchenko 9 Ukrainian Dunkel is billed as a “Euro Dark Lager”. It comes from the Four Fathers Brewing Co. out of Rockwood, Ontario. Sold in 473mL cans, this dark lager contains 5% alcohol. It’s a rusty and clear grog with a thin disc of off-white head.

Shev 9 has an understated but enjoyable roasted malt nose. Its flavour is toasty, malt-focused, and and has some rich brown sugar notes. Not a lot of bitterness, but there is a bit of astringency to round out the finish.

I’ve never tried a genuine Ukrainian dunkel (an oversight I’m eager to correct), but Shevchenko 9 left me reasonable impressed and thirsty for more. The well-roasted nature of this beer gave it a lot of depth. A bit more hops emphasis might have closed the loop on this stuff with a bit more aplomb, but that’s a pretty minor critique.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Dunkels Bock

I have great friends! They buy me lots of beer and that's rad. One of those great friends is a brilliant and charming SL, who gifted me with a pair of brews for my birthday, one of which was Dunkels Bock, from Toronto's Bandit Brewery. Like Bandit's other brews, this one featured a raccoon on the label of the 500mL bottle. 

 

 

At 6.3%, Dunkels Bock had some real heat, without being too strong. It was a swampy brown brew that poured with an eggshell head. It's aroma wasn't particularly pungent, but it had notes of grain and brown sugar, and a bit of spice. The flavour proved to be extremely malty, with lots of sweetness, some earthy tones, and some clove spice. Not a lot of bitterness, but there was a fair degree of boozy warmth that belied the 6.3% listing--I'd have guessed stronger.

A dark lager with some heft and some heart, I thought that Dunkels Bock was a strong effort from a good new brewery. A tad sweet, but really quite nice.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Schloss Eggenberg Doppelbock Dunkel

Schloss Eggenberg Doppelbock Dunkel is a strong beer out of Vorchdorf, Austria.  It's brewed by Castle Brewery Eggenberg, sold in 33omL bottles, and chalk full of booze to the tune of 8.5%.

This doppelbock dunkel is a deep, reddish brown colour with moderate carbonation and a thin layer of eggshell head.  It has a sweet, malty aroma with, just as the label advised, a slight coffee charge. It has an understated but purposive malty body. It's fairly rich, with some brown sugar notes.  The label prepared me for a bitter finish, but in my opinion, the flavour remains malt forward through the end. There is some considerable boozy heat, but not much alcohol taste--that makes this brew surprisingly easy-drinking.

This quality brew makes for some quality sundown sipping. It's sweet without being too sweet, unlike some other doppelbocks. A bit more of the promised bitterness would have balanced things nicely, but this is definitely a nice, dark lager.


Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Berhold Keller Premium Lager

I was drawn to this brew by its flashy powder blue can and its low, low price.  It's a nice-looking product sold for a song.  Yeah, I'll try that.

Since starting this blog, I've sampled more lagers than at any other time in my life.  I have actually been enjoying them, too.  However, as the summer turns to fall, I am feeling less and less inclined to pick up a pale, sudsy mug.  I am starting to feel my natural inclination for darker ales returning.  Enter Berhold Keller.

BK is sold in 500mL cans and weighs in at a standard 5%.  This brew was full of surprises, but its appearance wasn't one of them.  It pours a crystal clear pale straw colour and features a shock of white head.  It displays lots of carbonation and laces nicely.

For a Western European pale lager, BK is relatively complex.  The aroma has a slight metallic edge, but the predominant characteristic is a wheaty smell.  Unlike the vast majority of its brethren, the adjective "crisp" doesn't aptly apply to Berhold Keller.  Smooth yes, but not crisp.  Rather, the taste is somewhat round.  It's oat sodas like this that remind my that beer is fundamentally composed of wheat, grains, and other agricultural products.  Berhold Keller has a very grassy taste.  The finish is unexpectedly sweet, with a corn flavour (I couldn't decide whether to call it corny or cornish, so I stuck with the noun).  Notably, I wouldn't want to drink a few of these in one sitting.  Too sweet.

This was a pretty nice beer.  Definitely not what I expected, but an interesting departure from the traditional pale lager format.  I'd recommend it to friends as a nice transition beer to ease back into fall.  For my student friends, call this one a "back-to-school" beer.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Cameron's Dark 266

A 6-pack of Cameron's Dark 266 arrived in my fridge courtesy of the lovely and brilliant Krista, a great friend and big supporter of the blog.  What kind of ungrateful sod would I be if I failed to deliver a review?

The Dark 266 hails from Oakville, Ontario.  It is produced by the Cameron's Brewing Co., is served in 341mL bottles and weighs in at a slightly light 4.5%.  Frustratingly, there is no indication what the enigmatic "266" stands for.  If anyone out there knows, I would love an answer.  Though this brew came to me in 6-pack form, one of my favourite things about Cameron's which I think is worth mentioning is that they sell their products in 9-packs.  Nine beers!  What a concept.  To me, the 9-pack makes a lot of sense.  Fits nicely in the fridge, easy to carry, great for parties when six isn't enough, but 12 is too many.  I wish more breweries would get on the 9-pack train.

Anyhow, back to the beer.  The Dark 266 would, I suppose, be classed as a dark lager.  It pours a very dark brownish red, with a thin head.  However, despite the thin head, it does display nice lacing.  The beer has a bitter aroma of roasted nuts.  Its taste is decidedly malty, with a mildly bitter aftertaste oddly reminiscent of sourdough bread.

This is a pretty fine product; one well worth checking out.  I suspect that it might be even better on tap, though I have never had the privilege.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.