Roosters Brewery Lager

This beer is an underdog. In typical fashion of Roosters, they sell it without hype, as a German style lager. When I first tasted it in their brewery it reminded me of a Bavarian Helles, and on the first sip immediately took me back to my time in Bavaria (maybe I'll do another blog on the neuroscience linking smell and memory, but it's a legitamite phenomenon - the smell centre in the brain is right next to the memory centres). I was a little tiddly after a day of wine tasting, so I thought maybe I was just over-enjoying it, and bought some to take home. Yesterday I had it at a bar on tap, and today I had it at home, and still got that same enjoyment from it.

It's a beer that has a solid but not overwhelming malt character, balanced perfectly with a solid and bitter but not over whelming hops character; typical for a Bavarian Helles, and reasonably uncommon in an NZ lager. By no means is it a craft beer, or a beer that you'd taste and think tastes like something amazing you've never had before - this is a classic solid lager, that really epitomises what a lager should taste like: a perfect balance of clean, crisp and light while maintaining a solid hops and malt flavour.

This little brewery keeps impressing me, and I think in a country full of massively hoppy new world beers it's really refreshing to get a classic old world style beer that is still perfectly suited to a 28 degree Hawke's Bay summer. 

Yum!

https://www.roosters.co.nz/

ABV: 5.0%
Brewery: Roosters Brewery
Region: Hawke's Bay
Style: German Lager (they don't claim it, but I'd say it's really a Bavarian Helles)
Wife check: "Not really into it, think it tastes a bit like a Carlton Draught."