Bud Light + good = Augustiner

In light of the unfortunate Shatner/Rick Astley string of posts (for which I feel partly responsible), I feel the need to add something substantive. And what better than a good ol' beer review.

One of the wedding presents Mrs. BMac and I received was two bottles of Augustiner Helles, a Munich product brought stateside by a friend. I was not very familiar with the helles genre, so I did some research.

I drank one.

It poured a nice pale golden with a two-finger white head, though the head dissipated fairly quickly. Nice lacing.

On first smell, I was nervous. It echoed of every American, macro-brew, shit-I-drank-in-college lager. However, when I actually got my nose in it, it was actually pretty complex. Some citrus, but definitely a lot of malt. Some other stuff I couldn't place.

I can sum up the taste in one words: crisp. It was very light, but with unexpected body. It was (as one would expect) quite malty, but there was a nice understated balance of hops. Clean, crisp mouthfeel. It finished with a hint of lemony citrus and just a touch of hops, but nothing overpowering. The taste lasted for a surprising length of time.

While drinking it, I kept thinking "this is what Bud Light would taste like if they didn't suck". No adjunct, real hops, real malt, an attempt to create balance. For anyone looking to make the jump from Coors Light to 'real' beer, this would be the best catalyst I can imagine. It's structured the same way, but with a much better result.

Overall, I fell in love a little bit. This may be the ultimate session beer, especially for the summer. I could drink a dozen of these poolside and die a happy man. The only problem is that they only make the stuff in f-ing Germany, which I rarely visit.