Around this time last year I was in Boston, Massachusetts trying some amazing beers. I particularly fell in love with the beers I tried from Night Shift Brewing. Their Santilli IPA is an absolutely beautiful beer. Their Awake Coffee Porter is one of the best coffee beers I have had. Their summer hefeweizen Furth, compliments warm weather wonderfully. In short, I enjoyed everything I tried from them last summer. When Santilli & Awake occasionally find their way into local bottle shops in my area, I try to pick some up. Taking a sip from each of them instantly takes me back to last summer's amazing wedding anniversary trip with two incredible Pearl Jam concerts. The goodwill I have towards Night Shift Brewing brought me into a bottle shop last week to pick up their Pfaffenheck German-Style Pilsner. I had yet to try it but due to how positive I felt about Night Shift Brewing, this became a beer I looked forward to drinking and writing about. So the question is, would Pfaffenheck take its place alongside the other Night Shift beers I have put on a pedestal? Or would this be the first disappointing beer I have had from a brewery that time has made me think could do no wrong?
It took a lot to resist drinking Pfaffenheck out of the can. I can think of nothing more refreshing on a hot summer day than a fantastic lager out of a can. I resisted that temptation, poured it into the glass and was immediately greeted with aromas of bread dough, grassy, herbal hops and a light honey sweetness. The taste pretty much matched the nose. Pilsner malt, honey, grass, spicy hops immediately attack the palate before a lemony, peppery finish. The finish can certainly be described as crisp but it is by no means clean. The hops linger around on the palate. At first, I did not mind this but by the end of the pint, I had grown tired of this. It is rare that I wish a brewery scaled back the hops on a beer, but in this case it could have significantly improved the beer. Everything else here is really solid. Pfaffenheck is just not the crisp, clean, refreshing beer I hoped it would be.
Night Shift Pfaffenheck is kind of a middle-of-the-road beer to me. It is not a bad beer by any means but with all the goodwill I have towards Night Shift Brewing, I just expected to like it a bit more. If you like pilsners it is certainly worth a try but if you have to chose between this, Awake, Santilli or Furth, I would chose one of the latters instead.
Overall rating: 3/5. It is not a bad beer but it is by no means as good as I hoped a pilsner from Night Shift would be.
Rating Scale:
1. Repugnant and undrinkable
2. Acceptable but forgettable
3. Good, worth a purchase
4. Excellent, a step above the norm
5. Truly Exceptional. Drop everything, BUY IT NOW!
To discuss this blog or all things beer like my Facebook page
Look for me on Instagram & Untappd and Twitter @ACraftyLook
For more beer reviews check out: http://www.acraftylook.com
Thanks for reading. Sláinte!
No comments:
Post a Comment