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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> Devils Backbone Vienna Lager review

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testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


12oz bottle poured into a 20oz glass with a good amount of vigor, but not straight down the center. Bottled 4-29-15.


Appearance: Medium Amber, brilliantly clear, 1.5 fingers of dense head with a mix of lager bubbles too. Head has medium to high persistence, goes from 1.5 fingers of head to .5 pretty quickly, but the rest lasts through about half the glass.


Aroma: Huge maltiness. Munich malt, melanoidins, toastiness, hint of a light unidentifiable fruit ester, no hops. absolutely as malty as I can imagine a beer this color to be. Doesn't smell sweet, just big burly malt and toasted bread. Somewhat reminiscent of the dark bread they give you are longhorn restaurant. Maybe a touch of grapes or raisins


Flavor: Again, huge maltiness, with a rich depth. Rich munich malt, more rich melanoidin, a touch of grapes and that light fruitiness from the yeast. The fruit is extremely light, and is not distracting at all. The malt is what shines here, the sweetness is quite low and does not detract from the drinking experience. Aftertaste is clean maltiness from vienna or munich malt. bitterness is low, almost unnoticeable. Just enough to balance the light lingering sweetness. Finish is medium to medium sweet, but there is no lingering sweetness.


Mouthfeel: medium light body, with a soft, but mouthfilling carbonation. medium low carbonation.  no astringency, not creamy, but kind of right in the middle of the road for nice drinkability. Very smooth.


Overall: This is a dang good beer. I could drink this all day. It's super malty, but not sweet at all, and it's not bitter either. It's just a wonderful drinking beer with enough malt complexity to be interesting. It's kind of amazing that they get this much maltiness into a beer of this color. The toastiness is a nice touch, but possibly could be increased by a very small amount. Possibly just a few more IBU might make this a touch more balanced, but this beer is so good, if it were mine, I'd have a hard time tweaking it. It's pretty obvious why this is one of the few examples included in the 2015 guidelines, and why this beer has won so many medals at GABF and World Beer Cup.


45/50


This is kind of my holy grail Vienna lager. Devil's Backbone provided the recipe at NHC 2014 and I based my first vienna off their recipe, but i added melanoidin and it threw the balance off to sweet and fruity. I also had a hard time translating their step mash regime into a single infusion temp, so it finished a little sweeter than I had intended. They use the Augustiner yeast strain which isn't really available to homebrewers, but possibly WLP860 is the augustiner strain, but that's a platinum strain that hasn't been around in a while, so i guess I'll be hunting a strain with similar character. Next time I'm just going to go with their recipe straight up minus the yeast. If you are an AHA member check out the talk from NHC 2014, especially if you are in to Vienna Lager.






Posted 34 days ago.

KidMoxie
Charter Member
San Elijo Hills, CA
405 Posts


Making me thirsty! Shame the style is on the watch list to get the boot to "historical styles."




Posted 34 days ago.

brulosopher
Charter Member
Fresno, CA
167 Posts


Man, that description sounds super similar to my Vienna!
image1.JPG



On Jul 10, 2015, at 8:13 PM, KidMoxie <[email protected]> wrote:

Making me thirsty! Shame the style is on the watch list to get the boot to "historical styles."







Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


I know! You, Marshall, and myself just need to open up an all-vienna lager brewery and keep it hanging around!


In all seriousness though, if more breweries were making Vienna like this, it would be a popular style. It's malty, it could be hoppy, and it's super easy drinking. I'm a hophead at heart, but this is a beer that I see as very approachable and you can kill a bunch of them. Seriously, this is one of my all time favorites. I had always read the description of vienna and thought a good one would be up my alley, but this is the one that finally turned me from "eh, maybe I'll brew one" to "holy crap, I have to brew one of these."






Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


So... how do I get my hands on some?




Posted 34 days ago.

KidMoxie
Charter Member
San Elijo Hills, CA
405 Posts


That's weird Brulo, I don't see "like poop from a butt in the description."






Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


It's a VA beer. I'm not sure that they ship outside VA.


My buddy is from there, so I had him pick me up a bottle.


It's a year round beer, I'm sure you could trade for some super easy. Sixer of locals (Good People probably) for a sixer of fresh DB Vienna would be a solid trade IMO. Might be able to get some in Baltimore at NHC next year.


I went to their brewpub on the way back from PA when I went to pick up my Miata. All of their lagers I had are solid.






Posted 34 days ago.

rayfound
Charter Member
Riverside, CA
313 Posts


Gonna share that recipe from nhc?






Posted 34 days ago.

ingoogni
nl
314 Posts


www.homebrewersassociation.org/attach...

Strange recipe for a Vienna, very strange. Looks more like a "Oberbayerisches bernsteinfarbenes Klosterbier" or a "Baden Wuerttembergisches Landbier" with some fantasy.




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by ingoogni

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/214291/vienna


That's basically it, but leave out the melanoidin and they use perle and saaz instead of crystal, but I think it's similar, 18-20 IBU. They also use Augustiner lager yeast from BSI. They do a step mash too. They can heat their mash directly. I cannot.


I think 150F or possibly lower would get it in the right FG range. As is, it didn't finish dry enough and the melanoidin did not improve the beer.


I'm basically going to try this recipe again, but use no pils malt and no melanoidin and all saaz hops. I'll split it between two lager strains trying to dial in a strain that's of my liking. I think I want to try WLP800 and WLP940. Wish i could find Augustiner or WLP860 which is potentially equivalent.






Posted 34 days ago.

vinpaysdoc
Charter Member
High Point, NC
321 Posts


That's just outside of Charlottesville, VA off of Hwy 29. Saw the signs for it when we went up to visit a son in NJ recently. We'll stop in the next time we head that way.


Ha! They'll be at the Summertime Brews Festival next weekend that I just signed up to volunteer at. Olan, you may be in luck!




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by vinpaysdoc

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