A Limnological Pilsner: Lager of the Lakes by Bell's Brewery

Likely because I don’t drink much beer from Michigan, I get Bell’s Brewery confused with Founders Brewing. I have to stop and think, “OK, now which one am I supposed to avoid because it was sued for racial discrimination or whatever it was?” That was Founders which was sued by a former employee who claimed that he was called n***er and otherwise discriminated against. Bell’s to my knowledge has never been sued for such a thing.

With its genesis in the mid-80s, Bell’s is surely the granddaddy of microbrewers in Michigan. If Stroh, which is long gone and exists only on paper in a trademark office, is like the Miller of Michigan, is there an old regional brewery? Like their equivalent of Point or Leinenkugel?

…

That appears to be Frankenmuth Brewery which opened in 1862.

Still, Bell’s is a relative veteran in the beer game. When I hear the brewery’s name mentioned, visions of Oberon dance in my head. In addition to their much ballyhooed wheat ale, I also tend to think of Two Hearted, an IPA, Hopslam, a double IPA, and Expedition Stout, an imperial stout. Bell’s is generally highly regarded and I tend to regard them highly too. They don’t discriminate against black employees, the company is family owned and not a subsidiary of AB-InBev or Molson Coors, theirs is a reputation for brewing high quality beers, and they’re fellow denizens of the Upper Midwest. It’s just that I don’t drink them very often. Rarely, in fact.

American IPAs are not my thing while American wheat ales and Russian Imperial stouts are styles that I rarely seek out and quaff only once in a blue moon. Of course, they brew other styles as you can tell from the title of this post. I ran into Lager of the Lakes recently and it rang a bell, pun intended. I believe I’ve had it before but couldn’t say when. After doing a bit of research, I felt a bit silly when I read that A) it’s brewed year-round and B) it has been around since 2003. Surely I’ve drunk it previously. Why am I only now giving it some attention?

Bell’s calls this beer a Bohemian style pilsner. You may recall back in June when I was a ball of confusion over the differences between German and Czech pilsners. Well, because I approach these posts about beers with the utmost seriousness, I brought home some Pilsner Urquell fairly recently so that I might become thoroughly acquainted with the Bohemian pilsner. I failed in that endeavor but nonetheless I am ready to take on another Ameri-piwo that a domestic brewer would like you to think could have come from Pilsen itself.

My Lager of the Lakes poured from a wonderful can celebrating the Great Lakes generally and Michigan more specifically. A lot of the label’s decoration surrounding a map of the region is equally applicable to Wisconsin and pretty much anywhere in the Upper Midwest: a fish, a pine tree, a maple leaf, etc.

The beer was a lovely light yellow hue and clear. On top was a big, frothy head that had staying power. Lots of bubbles were visible inside heading on up. A very pretty beer. And it smelled nice too with an enchanting grassy hop aroma along with cracker, just a touch of malt sweetness, and a faint lemon scent to boot.

A nice, firm fizziness kept a mix of biscuit and grassy/herbal hop flavors in line. There was a hint of malt sweetness but that was all so the beer's body was rather light. It was lagered to perfection - clean and crisp. The finish was quite dry with the hops taking on a peppery taste. There was a wee bit of lingering malt as well as a similar amount of astringency.

I really enjoyed the fizz and the dry finish here. Well, I really enjoyed this beer as a whole. Those tasty Noble hop flavors shone through although the less prominent malt flavors were no less delicious. It was a wonderful brew that seemed like a German style pils to me yet the label purports that the can contains a pilsner of the Bohemian variety. I suppose one can argue that Bohemia was part of Germany from 1939-45 but that's cheating.

Since the last time I ran into the old Czech vs. German pilsner conundrum, I've had some Pilsner Urquell. It was decidedly not light yellow - more of a deep gold or light amber. And the malt taste was much more prominent. When I look at pictures of Budvar and Staropramen, they too are much darker than Lager of the Lakes.

Regardless of the taxonomy, this a great beer.

Junk food pairing: Pork rinds! Plain or spicy.