As I noted in my review of Lazy Monk's coffee dark lager, I was up in Eau Claire recently. Despite being quite a bit farther north than usual, it was still hotter than a June bride in a featherbed. I limited my outdoor activities to the morning and night to avoid the temperatures that were in the 90s.
"But," I reasoned, "a lot of neat things happen indoors. Babies are born indoors at hospitals and people make babies while on comfy beds in places like hotel rooms. Movies are shown in big, air-conditioned rooms. Another thing is beer. It is commonly brewed inside."
Our hotel was out by Oakwood Mall and I think I saw tumbleweeds blowing around the parking lot. That place is dead! But just a short drive west was K Point Brewing. Having been gifted a 4-pack of their tasty Rauchbier earlier this year, I decided to head over there and check out the place. Not only would there be beer on offer, but another tasty beverage as well, coffee.
K Point is what I'd guess you'd call a nanobrewery and it's a block off Highway 93 on Eau Claire's south side. It was rather odd to see how much stuff has sprung up along 93 between the interstate and Hamilton Avenue over the years since I lived in the area. The brewery is in a joint called The Coffee Grounds and, upon pulling into their parking lot, I saw no mention of K Point.
Walking in, I saw a café to the left, a seating area and beer coolers back and to the right, and a middle that looked like what I envision a Williams Sonoma store to look like: filled with kitchenware, local jams, and artisanal foods like craft baking mixes that you can mix in one of the fancy mixing bowls and bake in one of the moderately expensive loaf pans on offer.
I eventually made my way to the coolers and found the beer. There was a variety of brands on offer besides K Point (including, oddly enough, Madison's Working Draft Beer) but I stuck with the house brews. I noticed that there were 4-packs missing a can or 2 and was pleased to discover that people weren't stuffing the odd can into their pocket or purse but rather the K Point folks are happy to have you mix and match their beers as you like. Want a sampler pack of 4 different beers? Go for it.
K Point doesn't have a tasting room, per se. There was a sign saying that, if you need a brew to quench your thirst, just flag down someone and they'll pour it for you. This low profile reminded me of some comments by brewmaster Tom Breneman that he made in an email to me regarding his approach to brewing. It dawned on me that K Point is a labor of love, not an attempt to set the craft beer world on fire. They're not out to cater to trends and be the next The Brewing Projekt but rather to brew beers Tom and whomever else has a say in the matter likes and to be content with a small audience.
This is an ethos I can get behind and I did. I got a mix pack with some of their Red Lager as well as some Vienna Lager.
I kinda sorta know a teensy bit about what a Vienna lager should look, smell, and taste like but a red lager? Not sure about that one. Wisconsin loves amber lagers so I wondered if, perhaps, it was simply a different name for the same kind of beer as Capital's Wisconsin Amber, Lakefront's Riverwest Stein, or Lake Louie's Badger Club. Or maybe it was some kind of Irish thing. I tend to think of Irish ales as also being called red ales so why not an Irish lager being a red lager?
In the end, I just assumed this stuff would be like the amber lagers that are found from the Lake Superior shore to the Illinois border. You know, amber-ish in color, medium-bodied, lots of caramel aroma and flavor, moderate hops, and fairly sweet, malty taste.
I started with the Vienna lager. Because...because...well, the style is more appealing, I guess.
It was amber, clear, and poured with a nice head. Plus there were some bubbles inside. After I had poured myself a glass and was furiously writing down notes on how it looked, I noticed that I could smell the beer even though it was a foot away from my nose and I was smelling caramel. I like those scents at a distance. It builds anticipation, makes it seem like you've got a real fresh beer on your hands. When I put my nose to it, there was also bread and grass to be had.
A nice fizz greeted my tongue along with a greatly desired but somewhat unexpected Maillardy bread taste. That caramel was present but was tempered and not particularly sweet. I found it medium-bodied but it leaned towards the lighter end of the scale, probably because of the good fizz as well as the relative paucity of malt sweetness.
Just a bit of that caramel lingered on the finish before a lovely, firm dose of hop bitterness washed over my tongue. This made for some really nice spiciness and a rather dry finish.
The red lager looked a lot like its Vienna counterpart, although it was decidedly darker. Like a deep, ruby-laced amber. And, since rubies are red, it seems that "red lager" was an appropriate moniker. A big, frothy head was tan whereas the Vienna's was lighter, more like barely off-white. The aroma was similar too with caramel and grass coming through.
My first sip revealed a good fizz adding a bit of zip in a smooth, medium-bodied beer that did not lean towards the lighter side. The caramel sweetness was much more pronounced here and accompanied by faint stone fruit and a weird astringency. It was a bit like drinking a stronger Belgian ale, though the can said 5.7% A.B.V.
On the finish, the caramel sweetness lingered before some muscular peppery hops kicked in offering a nice dryness to contrast with the caramel and a goodly amount of bitterness.
The Red Lager was definitely along the lines of the American amber lager as I had hypothesized. It would have been fine except for that astringency. It really tasted like it had twice the alcohol in it than was claimed on the can.
And so the Vienna Lager was the clear winner here. In my correspondence with K Point's brewer Tom Breneman, he said that was into more traditional styles - "if you know what a dunkel or Vienna lager is supposed to taste like, that's what I'm shooting for," he remarked.
I think he hit the nail on the head here. Simply as a lager, he did a really nice job considering that he brews just a few barrels at a time and surely has a fairly basic brewhouse. (Or maybe not.) Both of these beers had the expected clarity and tasted "clean", i.e. - none of the fruity yeast flavors. But he coaxed some great toasty bread flavors out of the malt for the Vienna lager and kept the sweetness minimal for just a wonderful brew. I also enjoyed the hop levels in each beer. They balanced the malt flavors very well and made for a brisk, refreshing finish.
Junk food pairing: Pair your K Point amber/red lagers with some tortilla chips and a fine salsa from Eau Claire's Chip Magnet. The Wildly Delicious variety has a bit of heat but won't prevent your tongue from appreciating the fine beer.
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