Black Star Beer
Note: this is a review of a promotional sample received from the brewery.
First brewed in 1995 by the Great Northern Brewing Company (before going on hiatus for a few years), Black Star Beer is a dry hopped American lager that is brewed with a 80/20 mix of Mittelfruh and Czech Saaz hops as seen in the well produced video below.
I cracked open both the can and bottle I received for comparison while grilling up a flank steak on a beautiful evening earlier this week. While I couldn’t really pick up any real difference between the two package types, I did come to the realization that Black Star Beer is a pretty tasty little brew. It’s got a subtle hop character built on a malt backbone and at 4.6% ABV is quite sessionable fitting in nicely with other craft brewed lagers I’ve enjoyed.
Appearance
The beer pours a pale gold in color with a frothy white head that faded to patchy lacing.
![Black Star Beer Black Star Beer](/images/black-star-beer.jpg)
Aroma
The dry hopping comes out nicely in the nose as light, grassy hops mingle with the more dominant, bready malt base. The canned brew had a slight “metallic” note to the aroma, but that may have been preconceived in my head prior to even pouring the beer.
Taste
This is certainly a malt heavy brew. A slight sweetness, subtle caramel and biscuity nature of the malts combine with a much lighter hop footprint for a well balance palate. The grassy hops in the aroma (due to the dry hopping) don’t make it into the taste all that much, but there is a light balancing bitterness in the finish to mellow out the sweeter malts. This medium-bodied beer is crisp, clean and damn refreshing.
Overall
Of the two samples (bottle vs can), I think I enjoyed the bottle a bit more it had a cleaner flavor and aroma. Regardless of packaging, I quickly got to the point while grilling when I could have certainly gone for another one (or two) Black Star Beers as the samples had vanished a little too quickly. Great Northern Brewing Company have themselves a well crafted, flavorful lager that I would most certainly pick up the next time I grill that is if they eventually make it out to the East coast.
Rating: 3/5