Sluuuuuuurp

I'm trying my latest lager.

When I created this recipe, I was aiming for a really light-colored lager with serious bitterness on top of a sweet grain bill. I can't say I got what I wanted.

This baby starts with 9.5 pounds of undermodified Pilsner malt, and I added a pound and a half of crystal malt for sweetness and body. Then I bittered the crap out of it with Nugget hops.

It's excellent; no getting around that. But it tastes like honey. And the bitterness is so smooth, it almost seems inadequate. I think I could go up another 10 IBU without hurting it at all.

I went all-Nugget because I wanted to see what these hops taste like by themselves. It's hard to get a grip on the flavor, because it's so smooth and subtle.

Like most of my beers, this stuff goes down like sweet tea. There's none of that brief gagging sensation you get with beers like Bud that are soapy-tasting or too sweet and insipid.

INGREDIENTS:
9.5 lbs. undermodified Pilsner malt
1.5 lbs. 10L crystal malt
0.5 oz. Nugget hops (13% AAU) 60 min.
1.0 oz. Nugget hops 30 min.
1.0 oz. Nugget hops (dry hop)
Budejovice lager yeast

The only beer I've ever had that reminds me of this is Gosser, from Austria. Smooth as silk, but not as heavy as this stuff, if memory serves.