Somewhere along the line I acquired a bottle Eastside Dark, a lager from Lakefront Brewery in Wisconsin. I’m not exactly sure where it came from, as I found it near the back of the pantry in a six-pack container with some of my homebrew… No matter, found beer is found beer, so here’s my review.

Appearance: Brown, and murky. Nice (though short) tan, creamy, foamy head.

Smell: Malty, bready. Very understated, and clean. Darkish—tough to quantify, I know; perhaps a little roasted grain and chocolate.

Taste: Dark malt, a bit astringent but light. I think the astringency comes from roasted malts (like coffee). No real hops. Maltiness is there but it has that astringent off-bite… not bad, but not a preferred profile for me.

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied but a little prickly, or puckery.

On BeerAdvocate it has netted a decent score of 84, with 93% of Advocates in approval. On RateBeer, it scored 3.39 out of 5, putting it into their 75th percentile.

Overall, it didn’t impress me terribly, but it wasn’t the worst beer I’ve had, either. And I can’t speak for the quality of this particular bottle, since it may have been lost in my pantry for awhile…