Beer – #629 – Garage Project – California Über Alles

California Über Alles. A California Common. Which then gives me familiar beers, familiar musics, familiar numbers and familiar faces.

“If you don’t get the name then you probably didn’t spend the eighties trying to push safety pins through soft parts of your anatomy”

From the FYO station this is beer that is 5.5% ABV , 165 calories a serve size, the bottle contains 4.38 standard drink units.

Brewed by Garage Project in the style that is  California Common and that happens in Wellington, New Zealand

Brewed with US Northern Brewer hops, Pale, Vienna, Crystal and Caramel malts and California Lager yeast, California Über Alles is the Garage take on the California Common style made famous by Anchor Steam beer. 

This selfie lark is getting hard

We should point out that anyone looking for a replica of Anchor’s classic brew won’t find it here – like all Garage brews Über Alles takes the style as a starting point rather than trying to produce a clone of an existing brew. 

If you don’t get the name then you probably didn’t spend the eighties trying to push safety pins through soft parts of your anatomy. If this is the case don’t feel bad, but remember it’s never too late to start.

So, what could go wrong? Well I have my doubts about a ‘standard’ beer, which in my opinion is something that Garage Project don’t do so well, they’re much better at the edgy and off-beat stuff that they generally by-and-large do really well.

The aroma on swimming the top open is more of a malt based beer, and little carbonation. The bottle is very very full though, not a lot of wriggle room. Still nothing to write home about on the initial impressions.

Pour is as it looks in the glass ,a chestnut coloured beer, and it pours with a lovely steady head that looks a bit substantial. The aroma though, a bit peculiar and unknown, well no it isn’t it’s just plain old malt and hop acrid.

As to the taste,  I thought that it was muddled, then it straightened out and then it went wonky again, that malt/caramel doing it’s darnedest to assert itself as a flavour leader. It kind of washed in and out again.

Though it isn’t as bad as it could be, this does have a bit of robustness about it, the underlying carry is fairly thick and there is a sharp bite ate the finish that reminds you of what you’re drinking.

Difficulty is that this is an uncommon beer, and a style that is confused with others, and because it is unusual there is no way of knowing if this is good, bad or indifferent in that style, so you have to go with what you taste.

Then you get to the question of is it a taste that I like?, and what of my memory do I compare it to, just because that is what you do.  I might have said robust caramels but then this also presents a thinness briefly in drinking all the flavour and linger is exactly that, the linger.  Part of me wants to think that this is like what an English beer used to taste like, and I might be on the right lines. It is a beer taste that invokes memories.

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 7 of its things from the thing. Mostly because I have no idea. It is like quaffing beer, everyman beer, and then there is a twist in the profile that just hints that it isn’t quite a normal beer. But it’s hard work to enjoy the profile presented is all a bit harsh note and edges.  That thing about Garage Project being better at the edgy beer and not the mainstream, this might be another example. But then I’m sure there are complete and total fans of this who can’t get enough.

The double dip review

Am I enjoying it? I don’t think I am, but that isn’t to say that I’m not enjoying it.
Would I have another? No.
Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? Um, I don’t know that this is a share and impress beer. It’s not party enough.

What else to go with this other than the ‘ Dead Kennedys ‘   an American hardcore punk band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978.  If it’s your thing you can listen to a track list here on spotify This though is California Über Alles

CALIFORNIA COMMON

Style originating in 18th century California, where brewers without access to refrigeration produced beers using lager yeasts and warm temperatures. These still retain some of the rounded character inherent in all lagers, but with a dose of ale fruitiness.