Bucking Bock by Rahr and Sons

Hello fellow craft beer drinkers, I hope life has been treating you well this early Spring.

With Spring, Texans have the coming of blue bonnets, the state flower, Texas Rangers and Houston Astros baseball to cover for the lack of post season hockey from the Dallas Stars, and thanks to the continuing tradition from the German settlers that populated the Republic of Texas in this nations infancy, seasonal bock beer offerings are hitting the store shelves. Already on Intoxico I have reviewed the Saint Arnold Brewery’s offering, and today I have the offering from Fort Worth’s own Rahr and Sons in their Bucking Bock.

Tipping a bottle of the brew into one of the many pint glasses I’ve collected going to their brewery tours, the lager shows its light golden hue, which while in the acceptable range for modern bocks, is lighter than traditional interpretation.  Fully poured, the beverage exhibits a decent half finger of head, clear body, and moderate carbonation.

There are not any other breweries that I can recognize by the nose of their brews, but the boys and girls must do something to every batch of their regular production line that gives the beer a “Rahr smell.” This “Rahr smell” is full of bread and yeast notes that, in this beer underscore a malty, light caramel forward nose, with almost no detectible hop presence.

A deluge of very sweet, light caramel syrup flavor opens on the palate on the initial quaff, with a nice bitter backend that subsides to nil by the third sip. Once the tongue acclimates to an almost cloying beginning, the beer’s sugariness pulls back, and acts as a compliment to a very unique “grain” like flavor profile.

Along with a slight sourness that helps quiet the malt forwardness of the beer, a nice grassy aftertaste adds a dry and refreshing complexity to Bucking Bock.

Not being the biggest maltose head, this beer took me about four servings (not all at once) to really develop an enjoyment of the beverage’s offerings. As long as you can hold on to the reigns without being thrown off, any drinker should be able to tame this malt bomb.

Prosit!

Spring Bock by Saint Arnold Brewing

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day, a day that a lot of Americans will use as an excuse to drink adjunct lagers that have been dyed green (just like they do in Ireland?) If you must celebrate a holiday that properly celebrates merriment and the consumption of alcohol, please follow the German tradition. Don’t add fake color to beer, brew beer specific to the holiday, and make it last a couple of weeks.

If I had to celebrate a saint, make it Saint Arnold, the patron saint of brewers, and namesake to Houston’s own craft brewery. Today, in my favorite saint's celebration,  I have decided to crack open a couple of bottles of Saint Arnold’s Spring Bock.

As the beer decants from a bottle with a label adorned with Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes, flowers that mark the coming of spring in the Texas landscape, the beverage exhibits a pretty, amber hue with amazing clarity. A slight off-white head forms with the width of a dime as the CO2 action from the pour dies down.

With a bready, malt forward nose, intertwined with the aroma of light, floral hops, I take an aggressive first gulp.  My palate is rewarded with a wet, full bodied, full flavored, malt experience.  With its nice, rounded, caramel body, there is a very subtle floral backend that is just enough to keep the sweetness from being cloying, keeping the beverage very drinkable throughout the three bottles I enjoyed this afternoon.

In Texas, you can’t really drink and talk about a bock style beer without mentioning the 300-pound armadillo in the room, Shiner Bock. 

Since I was of drinking age, my older brother always lamented on how Shiner was not as good as it was after they became part of the Gambrinus Company. (A quick side note, Gambrinus is referenced as the name of an “unofficial” saint of beer and beer brewing while Saint Arnold is the patron saint of Hop Pickers and Belgian brewers.)

           

My brother, who gets my respect as a malt head, tells me this is what Shiner “used to be like,” and will do just about anything short of papalcide (the murder of the Pope) to get his lips on this beer.

While I lean more towards being hop obsessed, I can see how this well-balanced, refreshing bock can generate excitement in its fans.