Many breweries like to obsess over their most complex and esoteric beers. Think smoked Polish Grätzes, Flanders red ales, malty Belgian Oud Bruins — stuff like that. But the truth is “yellow beers” — lagers — are the top sellers at just about every bar in America. Modelo, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Corona and Coors Light occupy the top five spots on the list of bestselling beers in America.
Surprisingly, lagers are a little more difficult to produce. The namesake lagering process requires leaving them in repose at cold temperature for weeks to clarify the beer, concentrate flavors and extend shelf life. That extra time takes up valuable space in the tanks of a brewery, meaning there is less capacity to brew other products to sell.
Still, you have to give the people what they want, and TaliGate Brewery founder and boss Wesley Keegan definitely listens to the vox populi. But rather than just pump out another pale-yellow light lager, Keegan has designed an entire program around traditional German-style beers under his Lager Projekt line. Holding true to the historic German Reinheitsgebot laws of beer purity, these beers are made using only four ingredients: water, hops, barley and yeast.
Considering that TailGate has produced beers like Peanut Butter Milk Stout, Orange Wheat, Fruit Pizza Sour SHNACK and Watermelon Margarita Gose, you can see that this is an entirely new lane for TailGate.
It’s also more than just a new beer. TailGate is committing to replicating the traditional Czech style of pouring their new Lager Projekt through a special side-pull handle, a specialized tap that allows the bartender to regulate the flow of the beer through a faucet that is submerged in the pint glass to intentionally create a creamy head that shows off the subtleties of the beer. In their own taprooms and at other bars that choose to carry Lager Projekt, TailGate will provide these special draft systems along with custom glassware that is tall and narrow with an embossed logo on the bottom of the glass to serve as a cavitation site for even more bubbles to rise up through the beer. TailGate also plans to offer training to anyone who puts Lager Projekt on tap to ensure proper pours all over town.
Even though Keegan knows it will be an expensive proposition to outfit various locations with Lager Projekt accoutrements — in addition to intentionally slowing down his production while waiting for the lagers to rest — he is committed to making his company stand out in the crowded brewery scene. He tells me: “We’re not racing to the bottom. We believe that this will be a high-service, high-touchpoint, high-tech, high-quality-differentiating product!”
Most importantly, he believes customers will love this beer and hopefully choose it over a light lager from a mega-brewery so they can drink locally instead. The 4.8 percent ABV Czech-style Helles is definitely crushable, crisp and malt-forward with gentle floral hops. The combination of sweet and bitter is amplified by the effervescence of the beer, adding complexity to the equation. Available on draft or in cans, Keegan points out that home drinkers can replicate the side-pull experience by intentionally pouring the beer a little bit at a time from a height to create more foam in the glass.
Or just drink it, he doesn’t care — even though he has actually modified his water system at the brewery to mimic the chemistry of Bavarian streams especially for this one beer. He’ll be just fine if you buy it by the case and make it your Saturday football beer!
