Saranac Adirondack Lager
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The Matt Brewing Company produces Saranac Adirondack Lager. According to its website, the Saranac “classic German lager has a perfect balance of caramel malt sweetness. Look for a rich, amber color and medium body.”
While not a bad beer, it definitely has much more of a robust aroma than the taste can live up to. If this is perfect balance, I’m an Olympic gymnast.
I poured my bottle into one of those new-fangled, curvy Sam Adams glasses and the result was a big, frothy pillow of foam atop an amber beer. The lager is bottle conditioned and my glass was just noticeably cloudy with sediment, drifting through the turbulent bubbles like smoke in the wind.
Floral and malty, the aroma had me interested. But the taste left much to be desired. There’s a fair amount of bitterness, but the malt — so present on the nose — doesn’t seem to complement the hops. When one zigs, the other zags, and they dance around each other like two boxers paid to throw the fight. Clearly, this battle isn’t the brewing equivalent of Global Thermonuclear War, but the lack of balance left my taste buds feeling forgotten.
If you pick over the wreckage, there’s plenty worth looting. There’s a decent, lightly toasted caramel quality to the lager, and the beer really has a great looking body and a genuinely inviting aroma.
The flavor could play a supporting role with hearty food, and with a 5.5% ABV you could go through a few with your meal and never regret it.
The Adirondack Lager was originally called the Adirondack Amber. I’m glad they changed the name, because I’d expect more complexity and balance in an amber. For a beer marketed simply as a lager, this is a pretty good, medium bodied lager — unless you’re trying to judge it on complexity or fullness of taste.
Perhaps I’m not giving this beer a fair shake — afterall, wasn’t my palate promised “ruination” on Monday? If you’ve tried this beer, weigh in through the comments!
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