The Year in Beer

Name: Polestar Pilsner

Brewer: Left Hand Brewing Company, Longmont, Colo.

By the numbers: About 165 calories per 12 oz.; 5.5 percent alcohol by volume

Notes: I reviewed Left Hand’s Good JuJu to start the month, and found it to be a nice surprise and something different. Polestar Pilsner is the opposite. It’s not at all different. I’d had some good pilsners and some great ones - Coney Island’s Mermaid and Heavy Seas Small Craft Warning stand out - but this wasn’t one of them. It was terribly average tasting for a brewery that puts flavor in everything. It poured the right golden color but had very little aroma. The body was light and bubbly but the taste was weak. I think the choice of hops - Magnum, Mt. Hood and Sterling - were lacking the taste and aroma of the European hops you usually find in pilsners.

Try it with: A hankering for darker beers. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, I’ll probably be seeing a ton of dark beers - stouts, porters and the like. I’m ready for them. Samuel Adams even has a new one in the Winter Classics case - a coffee stout. More to come on that.

    — Posted by Mike Freimann