At Pub 27 in Pompeii
Guinness Open Gate Unfiltered Lager, Guinness Open Gate, Halethorp, Baltimore, Md.
Date: October 30, 2018
The Story— See the story of the brewery in the main post to the left (hopping around).
I’ll have to admit when I saw this on the beer list I couldn’t help thinking — “Oh, great, an unfiltered Harp that going to taste like Harp except for a not-designed-for-drinking edgy yeast. It just takes an evening to learn that the American Guinness brewers are better than that. And we’re certain no Irishman ever entertained the hop mixture that gives so much of the moreishness of this beer.
A number of breweries have used the Saphir hops in the last few years to brew lagers that could appeal to ale drinkers. German and Austrian brewers have used the hops to wonderful effect in their Weizen beers to augment, complement, and expand the estery taste of the weizen style. Mahr’s Brau in Bamberg and 1516 Brewing in Vienna have both produced exceptional beers with it. Ella shows more fruit– Flying Dog brewed an Ella with a pink grapefruit accent and some metal that showed of the hop quite well. We were really interested in what the combination would do for a Harp-based unfiltered lager.
The Beer— It could have been a “Dancing with the Star-Hops” as the two waltzed and blended surprisingly well. Ella and Saphir are, to an extent, new hops in old Harp yeast-skins, but the combination gives nice mix of hop spice and hop fruit that creates an interest in the return. The yeast is chewy and actually does smooth it a bit. An ending nuttiness could come from anywhere, and it has lots of flavor for a 4.4 beer. We fought over the end of it, and that’s very high praise from us.
Value — good to very good. It’s hard to rate a $7.50 “pint” a bargain, but, really, this is pretty close to unique in a 50,000 beer world where unique just doesn’t happen. We certainly didn’t resent a sip.
This week we present our first Brewery of the Week with seven fine beers from Guinness– most brewed in their spanking new Baltimore location, but a couple of Irish pots of gold as well.
After Guinness we return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE– Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.” The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.) We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.
Later in November we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night. Look for it in 2019.
About these posts: We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year. The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings. Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
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