Brew Blog: Pinkus Organic

We've always chuckled on seeing the offerings from Pinkus Organic on the shelf. We tend to think all German breweries have venerable, awesome names. And then we see Pinkus. And the world returns to balance.

This time we chose Jubilate, a dark lager. After having pedants beat us about the head with the Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines after a few mediocre posts, we buckled and visited the site this week to check our work.

Having picked a "dark lager" made in Germany, we apparently chose a "Schwarzbier" (though it didn't carry that label) that in many ways was synonymous with an "American Dark Lager."

Tossing the vaguely unhelpful reference books aside, this was a good beer.

It was surprisingly creamy, probably the smoothest lager we've had. There was some roasted flavor, some vague sweetness. But it was still a lager, and still undeniably sharp (the positive version of "thin" ... basically the difference between a good lager and a bad lager, if you ask us).

It made a quick transition from smooth to sharp when swallowed, with a few (but only a few) of the flavors waving on the way down. It'd be wrong to call it malty, but the flavors that did show up certainly leaned that way.

For all we can tell, many dark lagers live up to their names with food coloring (something the BJCP didn't deny, actually). Not so here.

Still, this isn't really our type of brew, not at $3.50 for 500 milliliters of good but still simple-tasting lager.

But hey, if organics are important to you, pick it up at Central Market.