The Grand Parade of Shipping and Packaging: My Turn - Anthony by Lakefront Brewery

I don’t know who this Anthony fellow is, but I like the cut of his jib.

Wait. I do know who this Anthony fellow is because it says right here on the six-pack carrier: he’s a Shipping and Packing Technician. At Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, that is. Anthony chose a Kellerbier for the 43rd iteration of My Turn, Lakefront’s series of beers with the styles selected by employees. If I lived in Milwaukee, I would get a job there and then start using those Mission: Impossible masks to impersonate my co-workers so that every My Turn brew would be a Rauchbier. As it is, though, I can’t really complain about a Kellerbier.

Not long after trying their new Kölsch, Bierzeit, I discovered that Lakefront now had a Kellerbier on offer. It was a welcome 1-2 punch of German-style lagerbiers. I think that the Kellerbier is fairly obscure in its homeland and is even more so here in the U.S., although a few years ago it seemed that the Keller Pils was poised to go from being completely unknown to just mostly unknown with a few breweries offering the style. Summit kept brewing the stuff even after the pico-trend had passed but it too is now gone. But, with new IPA variants in demand, surely a Keller IPA is on the horizon. (Maybe even a Keller Cold IPA.) Heck, most breweries wouldn’t have to do anything beyond tweaking labels and ad copy.

These days Weihenstephaner 1516 Kellerbier is not totally impossible to find while I don’t know of any domestic Kellerbiers to be found in Madison area beer coolers. Well, none that aren’t Anthony.

To the best of my knowledge, Kellerbier is simply beer that is unfiltered, usually a Helles or Märzen or, at least, something in that ballpark. The word means “cellar beer” and I think it refers to the beer being served right from the lagering cellar, i.e. – no intermediate filtering anything. I also read here that, traditionally, the cask that the beer is aged in has the bung left unplugged so Kellerbier has very little fizz.

The packaging includes the rather telic description “a German-style lager meant for summertime biergarten enjoyment.” Truth be known, I performed my thorough and highly scientific testing in my dining room and not at a biergarten. However, if someone from The Biergarten at Olbrich Park is reading this, please know that having Anthony on tap at your fine establishment would be most agreeable.

Anthony’s Kellerbier is a gold-tinged amber hue. There was the requisite haze beneath a nice, frothy head of off-white foam that had staying power. Bubbles could be seen inside. Apparently this Kellerbier was not lagered with an open bung. Or fizz got added later, perhaps. The aroma was a wonderful mix of grassy hops and bready malt with a touch of honey thrown in.

The first sip was heavenly as my tongue was caressed by delectable waves of malty goodness that tasted like bread that had been lightly toasted. A good fizz lurked underneath which helped make the beer’s medium body seem a bit lighter. In addition to bread, there was a little honey and some spicy hop flavors that kept things in balance.

On the finish, some of that luscious malt flavor lingers for short spell before ceding to a moderately spicy hop taste that adds healthy doses of bitterness and dryness.

I can certainly imagine this beer would be a fine companion down at the Biergarten. The fizz seems to be non-traditional feature here but with the great bready flavor, it is but a minor glitch.

Junk food pairing: The packaging says Anthony loves to cook BBQ so sit out on your porch or deck for that faux-Biergarten feel and serve Jay’s Barbecue potato chips with his Kellerbier.