Got a lot of stories in the hopper. I was going to post to my markmcdermott.com web page, but it suddenly went “down for maintenance.” Got to look into actually paying for some hosting. But meanwhile, here’s a beer that was sent to me for my impressions.

Spoetzl Brewery of Shiner, Texas—better known simply as “Shiner,” has, I’ll admit, offered up several beers for my perusal. The latest one is one of what they call a “Heritage Beer” series. 1909 is described as a callback to their earliest, pre Shiner Bock brewing. It’s a simple recipe, focused on “heritage” 2-row barley and a single hop, using German Saaz. 4.5% abv, 20 IBU.

It’s another video beer blog!

The beer pours a slightly gold color under a thick head. That head fizzes away after a while in my glass. The smell seemed to have a bit of yeast in it, but I’m seeing that the Shiner beers are pasteurized, so it’s probably my nose playing with me again. But otherwise, there is some mild, toasty malt and a noble hop in the nose.

The taste is a solid light German lager style. Some listings for this beer have it as a “hoppy” pale lager, but that’s not right. It’s just a solid toasty malt taste, clearly an all-malt recipe. Very little aftertaste, just a reminder of the hops on my tongue. A little more substantial than a lawnmower beer. If the warmer weather is done for now, it’s still there for watching sports from home.

I’ve always got another beer waiting to be written up on my One-Take Beer Review YouTube playlist. And somewhere on this blog’s “right rail” are the latest of the nearly 3,700 beers I’ve reviewed on Ratebeer.com since 2003.