Down in one

Brooklyn Lager

When it first went on sale in Britain in the 1990s, Brooklyn was not a great success and disappeared. I suspect that, for many lager drinkers, who expect a pale beer devoid of challenging taste, it was too dark and too flavourful. A decade later, with greater knowledge of classic beer styles, I trust it will find a more appreciative audience.

Brooklyn Lager belongs to the style known as Vienna Red. When commercial lagering developed in central Europe in the 19th century, the Vienna style was a halfway house between the dark beers of Munich and the golden Pilsner of Bohemia. The great Austrian brewer, Anton Dreher, used some well-cured malt in his lager: the result was a burnished copper colour. The impact of golden Pilsner was so profound that Dreher's style went into decline, though it survives in the March beers of Munich, brewed in that month but not tapped until the Oktoberfest, and in Mexican beers such as Dos Equis and Negra Modelo, which reflect the period when Mexico was, briefly, an outpost of the Austrian empire.

Brooklyn is based on a pre-prohibition recipe devised by a retired brewer named Bill Moeller. It's a fascinating indication of how rich and tasty most American beers were before prohibition and the subsequent rise of bland beers such as Budweiser and Miller. Crystal malt is added to pale malt for a slightly fruity and cobnuts character. American and German hops give a superb floral and resiny aroma, and a gentle but persistent bitterness. Unusually for a lager, the beer is 'dry hopped', which means a generous portion of hops are added to each finished batch of beer for additional aroma and bitterness. The 5.5% beer is available in 350ml bottles in Sainsbury's for £1.45.

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