Dynamo Cream Lager

Brewery: Furnace Room Brewery

Type: Cream Lager

ABV: 5.1%

IBU: 10

SRM: 5 This value is the amount of light lost, multiplied by 12.5

Ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Hops, Wheat, Yeast

Thoughts: This one poured nicely and gave off a distinct copper odour. Well, I mean, it wasn’t off-putting but it was also not expected. The head was beautiful however I looked away for 2 seconds to see if the picture I took was ok and it was completely gone! More than that, the glass had no lacing at all. There was barely any indication that the foam was above the lip of the glass at one point. In fact, you can see what I mean in the picture… it’s already below the lip by the time I got my camera set up, and the space between the head and the top of the glass looks very clean. Honestly, I have no idea if that’s bad. I did hear a while back that a good beer leaves nice lacing on the sides of the glass as it recedes. I’ll have to look up why that’s desirable…

As far as the colour goes, well, it’s not the best. I’m looking at and smelling this thing and am a bit confused about how a cream lager produced what I’m observing. It looks like this was literally brewed inside a rusty furnace. In addition to the copper smell, I’m not overly certain that this wasn’t the case. Especially considering that the brewery’s name is “Furnace Room”. Suspicious indeed.

If someone would have handed this beer to me in a glass and didn’t tell me what it was, I’d swear to you that it was a Scotch or English Ale. It’s soft and velvety with a lovely toasted malt grain base supported by dark cherry and raisin notes. ( [ ] Cream Lager [ ✓ ] Scotch Ale ) Maybe the smallest hint of rusty metal (Furnace Room, remember). But it’s a tasty beer! But is it a Cream Lager? I mean, I’ve only ever had Cream Ales but I can’t imagine the difference would be this significant. I also want to mention that I found wheat in the list of ingredients. Another point of confusion for me as, given my experience, wheat always seems to add this lighter, tangier, even spicier (cloves, orange zest, acidity) element to beer that’s unmistakable. But here, I can’t sense it even the slightest amount. I guess I’m just surprised as I didn’t think wheat was a common ingredient in Cream style beers.

Anyway! Overall, above average. Perhaps a couple points docked for suspicious metal characteristics and identity confusion.