New Belgium Brewing one of our favorite brewers just brought out their summer seasonal Summer Helles. Now normally at Weblogbeers we wouldn’t get all excited about a seasonal especially a summer seasonal which in our opinion have been sketchy at best for a few years now but this one is worth a try. It was originally created to celebrate the 40th anniversary of both Telluride’s famed Bluegrass Festival and Rockygrass Festival. It was a hit, so New Belgium decided to give us all a shot at Summer Helles and made it their latest seasonal.
It’s also worth noting that it is a unique style of beer, Helles, first brewed in the 1890’s in a Munich brewery means “light” or “bright” in German. Now before we go any further let’s be clear light beers and I don’t mean less calories, rarely get our attention. Not because they aren’t good or worth drinking but because they have recently seemed a bit unremarkable as far as brewing and drinking.
New Belgium broke through our bad golden beer funk with a traditional German Summer Helles, lager (yes lager) while the rest of the industry seems to be happy brewing IPAs and ales.
Although it’s light golden in color it still has a substantial body, with a corn/honey hint (think breakfast cereal) and spicy hops rounding it out. Added lager yeast creates and easy summer finish to the taste.
New Belgium Brewing Company
A little shout out to New Belgium Brewing in Colorado, makers of a host of Belgian-inspired beers. The 100% employee-owned brewery has ten year-round beers; Ranger IPA, Rampant Imperial IPA, Shift Pale Lager, Snapshot Wheat, Sunshine Wheat, 1554 Black Lager, Blue Paddle Pilsener, Abbey Belgian Ale, Trippel and of course Fat Tire. Visit www.newbelgium.com.
Look it’s a summer seasonal lager 3.8 is the best we can bring ourselves to give. We still like it, really.