Breakfast Lager - Gordon Biersch

Gordon Biersch Brewing Co.

do you remember in the last review when I said it was Do the Right Thing hot? well, that was a couple of days ago. now, it's Backdraft hot. my office doesn't have air conditioning, as it was built to LEED standards, so we've hooked an elaborate combination of fans and duct work to circulate the air. the set-up is working, but with 20 plus computers in a small space, we're still running at 5C hotter than the outside world. with my job, I have to resist the day-drinking urge all the time as I finish the workday at 1pm. but, today the heat is forcing me to drink beer (...at 9am no less). the morning beer is something I usually attribute to camping, which normally consists of warm cans of whatever is leftover. today I magically found a Gordon Biersch Marzen Auburn Lager hiding in the back of the fridge. I think this appeared from a co-worker's recent move.

this Marzen has a very sweet nose from the malt and yeast, that give it a distinct aroma - a mix of honey and Marmite. it is WELL-hopped for a lager, with the bitterness balanced out well by the luscious malt. being stored in the back of fridge, the bottle is probably a few degrees colder than it should be, but it's the exact temperature I need right now. "as clean a lager as I have ever tasted", is how I described Krusovice Imperial Lager. if the Kruovice was clean, this Marzen sits on the other end of the lager spectrum, as the roasted malt finish and hops last and last. maybe not the session beer that the Krusovice is, but delicious nonetheless.

JT friend, Brewer Ben, introduced this beer to me a while back and told me that the brewer, Dan Gordon, was the first American graduate of a famous beer engineering program in Germany. a further look at the Gordon Biersch wikipedia entry, shows that Gordon Biersch also brews under contract for Costco and Trader Joe's. from a recent trip to Seattle, I can tell you that the Trader Joe's beer is ridiculously cheap. now that I know it's made by someone reputable, I'll be guzzling it by the six on my next visit.

B+