Old “Brewery Dogs” with New Tricks…
March 14th, 2010 by rich irelandSome Credit is due to any brewery that survived prohibition and then period of the great decline of “the local brewery” to make way for Macro-Brew consolidation. This describes both of the “old dog” breweries that are the subject of this article.
Recently, the Beers to You tasting panel sat down to evaluate a few new beers from the venerable Yuengling and Spoetzel breweries; both of which have been brewing continuously for over a century with Yuengling being the oldest operating brewery in the US. Yuengling hails from Pennsylvania but now operates an additional brewery in Florida. Spoetzel is based in Shiner Texas. The BTY tasting panel wanted to see if these “new” releases where a refreshing departure from each of the brewery’s standard but unremarkable flagship beers.
Yuengling has recently released a beer simply called Yuengling Bock. Spoetzel brewing is best known for the Shiner brand beers, namely Shiner Bock, but today we will try two new beers from Shiner. Fröst is Shiner’s winter release based on the German Dortmunder style lager, the second beer is called Shiner Bohemian Black Lager, a beer based on German Schwarzbier, a clean, dark and roasty lager beer.
Enter Yuengling Bock. This is a new beer for Yuengling but the graphics on the label is designed to make you think this beer has been in the lineup for many years with the use of almost art-deco lettering. The beer poured with an amber color with slight reddish hues. The beer’s aroma was understated, with a little bit of bready and caramel aroma. Tim Lepley commented that he smelled gunpowder in the nose, but we think “Mountain-Man” Tim always smells gunpowder… The beer was certainly understated when compared to true German Bock beer but held its own as a rich malty lager. All in all, the entire panel liked the beer; it’s far better and more complex than the wildly popular Yuengling lager.
Fröst is a seasonal beer; a Dortmunder from Shiner. The typical “Dort” should be reflect a balance between malt and hops, with the bitterness being a bit more assertive than a typical Bavarian Helles lager (e.g. Ayinger Jahrhundert Bier). This beer gave off a lemony aroma with some slight mint thrown in. The beer felt slick on the tongue and finished pretty clean, even after a sweet malty middle. Rob Absten called the beer “Inoffensive” and Alan Gore commented that it was nothing special. We all deemed this beer a “Transitional beer” that you could give to one of your light-lager buddies, not the truly substantial “Working Man’s beer” that is a true Dortmunder…
The star of the show was definitely Shiner’s Bohemian Black Lager. Everyone on the panel has had “familiar relations” with this beer when it was known as Shiner “97”, released four years ago as the brewery’s annual special release. We liked it then and we like it now. We are glad they decided to brew the beer as part of the permanent line-up. This beer pours nearly opaque with a thin viscosity and wispy tan head. Green apple is slight in the aroma along with subdued roasty aromas. The beer is smooth and roasty but not burnt. The beer’s light to medium body is supported by bright carbonation and then finishes dry and clean.
We all felt as if we finally completed our due diligence as beer critics; it was about time we sat down with a few beers from two generally underwhelming breweries (underhwhelm-ling in the case of Yuengling). The results of the tasting proves though that you can teach an old dog some new tricks - if they want to learn…









