Brewers Pilsener Lager (4.9%)

I am getting again a deep caramel background to this beer in smell which intrigues me for a pilsner. quite a nice head on pour and cloudy orange colour. very similar in body and base flavour with the caramel tasted in Moonlight, but a fairly faint and well blended hop taste from mid palate. still, the base of the malt in this beer does resound, and is interesting to have this for what should be a very easy and refreshing beer. For myself i would rate this as being more deeply flavoured than what i would expect for a lager style beer, let alone the rest of australia who would probably think it a brown ale on taste, compared to the watery/thin lagers we are use to.

letting it warm a bit i can get back to the raspberry stout. upon tasting it had quite a fine and frothy head, which for me i am thinking of contributing it to the caster sugar used in the raspberry sauce. i more refined sugar being evident in the second state fermentation might create a finer carbonation in the beer. this actually made it much more enjoyable to drink, along with a great smooth body that resembled a Guinness in many way (not a Guinness fresh from the keg though). the texture was as good as i have had in one of our beers, and the initial flavour of raspberry seemed to work well with it. disappointment stated mid palate, when the cooper's stout took over creating a dusty flavour common with that stout, leaving the mouth with almost a dry hop taste which stayed on the tastebuds for a while after swallowing. I look forward to laughing at the opening of more of these bottles, and the tasting. I see we maybe should have had less caster sugar, or longer first stage fermentation to remove the sugar from the wort when it went into second stage fermentation, and blend the raspberry better with it. using a tooheys old base beer may also help if the caster sugar creates some body itself...

warmth isn't doing much more for this beer, so i guess in that sense it is a classic lager that is meant to be drunk cold. it is enjoyable for what it is, but can't help feel there is a blending of styles trying to be done through this beer. the hops are not harsh, but i guess being a malt-head it just seems strange to get this flavour. I guess it reminds me a bit of our own 'malt beer' which isn't really a malt beer in my regard, but does have a caramel malt-like hit in it. it is easy drinking enough (again for someone like myself), but there is something not quite consistent.

well, that is enough from me.

-Beefy

PS: if anyone has any recommendations for European beer for me to try, please comment them so i can have a look myself. Cheers.