22 December 2018

Yellow Snow Lager (Direct Beers via a Christmas Market) @SpectreUK

Yellow Snow Lager from Direct Beers

You can probably tell what your girlfriend thinks of your drinking habits when she jokingly brings you back a lager beer called Yellow Snow from a shopping trip. Cinabar has often commented that my stronger pale ales and some of my lagers in the past don't smell all that pleasant, however, I usually take no notice. This 4.2% Yellow Snow was produced by Direct Beers, in Derby. It mentions on the bottle that it was produced by a snowman that lives at the North Pole, or possibly by Santa's dog!

Yellow Snow is a pale golden Bavarian style lager beer, and was brewed using a secret blend of Continental hop varieties. It seems a shame to open and drink this lager now, due to the fact that residual yeast has been left in the bottle to preserve and mature the lager, otherwise known as Bottle Conditioning. I have a habit of keeping hold of beers like this right up until the Best Before Date for the fullest most mature flavour, which in this case was November 2020. However, Cinabar has only found two Christmas beers for me to blog about this year. Well, three Christmas beers if you count the wheat beer I drank by "mistake" last week.

On opening this Yellow Snow admittedly it didn't smell all that great! I had to give it a good sniff too, as the hops and barley malt in the brew didn't exactly jump out of the bottle and give off their usual mixture of heavy scents. I immediately regretted opening the bottle and wished I'd left it for a year or so. The last beer of this kind I drank I left right up until the end date. That smelt and tasted terrific. This beer could be a little young, like when they deliver a bunch of green bananas on the supermarket delivery van… Gosh that frustrates me!

There was a joyous fizziness to this golden beer on pouring a little Yellow Snow into my waiting beer glass. I resorted to proper beer sniffing by pouring almost half a pint and giving it a good hard whiff. There was indeed fruity hops here followed by sweet barley malt. I began to feel better. On taste this is a complex lager. There is a bitter start to this beer with battling herbaceous and fruity hops followed by sweet barley malt, and a touch of yeastiness into the aftertaste. For a young bottle-fermenting lager this Yellow Snow packs a punch, but I think they should call it something serious and order drinkers to keep hold of it for the duration. Wow, November 2020 would be a grand month to drink in! There is a lesson here as well, you shouldn't always avoid Yellow Snow!

Merry Christmas One and All!

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