Too cloy and predictable to compete with serious lagers. Perfunctory fruit blandness cannot overcome routine malt-hop mustiness.
Monthly Archives: January 2009
KILLIAN’S IRISH HONEY LAGER
Sweet-scented lager offers dominant honey coughdrop essence for refreshing carbolic change-up. Creamy malted barley-oats spruce up ashy mouthfeel to sweet caramel finish. But light water texture and dank grain indulgence ruin its combustion. Still, preferable to Sleeman’s Honey Ale.
KILLARNEY’S RED LAGER
Irish malts enliven frisky apple stint and sweet barley flow (typical Budweiser characteristics). Luckily, it lacks the cloy nature of its cheaper predecessor and instead pours thick with beautifully cascading auburn bubbles drifting elegantly towards the top. More robust and flavorful than Killian’s Red Lager and much closer to the delicious tap beers Bud gives away to patrons at Florida’s Busch Gardens Sea World.
KEY WEST SUNSET ALE
Popular cereal-grained barley-roasted South Florida suds reliant on hop-fizzed bittering to tone down glutinous glucose sweetness. Tertiary orange and grapefruit notes linger. On tap at Bonefish in Kissimmee, light hop-spiced yellow fruiting picked up brisk-watered phenol fizz. Try with fish.
KEYSTONE LIGHT LAGER
Lame, watery, solvent-like straw-hued macrobrew lacks grain character and gets tinny by musty faux-citrus finish. Pedestrian third-rate cheapster. Will no doubt find cans of this astringent waste at underage parties.
KEYSTONE ICE
Insipid tin-canned ice-brewed version of rancid lager is flatter and more offensive than already lowered expectations. Decrepitly metallic corn-oiled sorghum frontage, pungent solvent-like oxidization, and stale breading ruined further by tepid malt liquor-like skunking of queasy 6% alcohol refuse.
(KERKOM) WINTERKONINKSKE DARK ALE
Ruby amber tan-headed dry-bodied winter warmer (with herbaceous juniper hop bite), reminiscent of malt-stricken barleywine, beckons caramel apple, purple grape, cherry, and plum penchant. Soured raisin-fig conflux overlays powdered chocolate jaunt, gingery orange expansion, and cinnamon-allspice spicing, mellowing to medicinal prune finish.
(KERKOM) BINK BRUIN
Suspended yeast particles dot unassumingly thick-bodied, heavily viscous German Rauchbier-styled dark ale. Smoked malts punctuate quince mince plus mild dried tobacco, burnt wood, and black toast bitterness as pumpernickel, chicory, and rye adjuncts reinforce abstruse original.
(KERKOM) BINK BLONDE
Delicate orange-spiced clove-coriander-allspice entry gives puffy cumulous-headed blonde its light tangy thrust. Wheat-backed lemon rind tartness and floral-herbaceous accents reinforce dried vermouth insinuation.
(KERKOM) BINK BLOESEM
Raisin-wafted prune trouncing and oncoming honeyed barleywine warmth define creamy malt-imbued butterscotch-hued ale. Off-dry hop finish allows mandarin orange souring, lemon peel tartness, and leathery floral retention to seep in.
(KEOKI) KAUA’I GOLD
Embodying meritorious simplicity, this medium-bodied cereal-grained ale aims its toasted barley-oat frontage and ancillary almond-macadamia caress towards sunny citric ambience. A light whiskey snip augments cracked wheat spine to creamy butterscotch finish.
KEO PREMIUM LAGER
Cold filtered off-dry lager opens with soured yeast splurge and leathery horsehide penetration as peppery hops perk up moderate-bodied resin grain finish. Similar to politely embittered American harvest wheat beers.