Baderbräu Brewing Company - Lawnmower Lager

IPLs have become quite popular in recent years – a good trend, we think, as it draws more people to craft lagers which for a long time have languished in the shadow of more common and sometimes flashier ales. Baderbräu’s IPL is certainly no wallflower. Pouring clear golden with fluffy white foam, Lawnmower Lager offers up quite the array of hop aromas. Brewed with Glacier as well as Falconer’s Flight, a unique blend of several Pacific NW hop varietals including Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Citra, and several more (including experimental strains), this IPL delivers a little bit of everything in the hop profile: citrus, floral, and tropical notes with herbal, grassy, woody, and spicy overtones. This all comes through in the flavor as well, which is supported by a very clean core of pale German malt. Bitterness hits upfront with the additional bold hop flavors expanding quickly across the palate. Look for grapefruit & lemon zest, and grassy, herbal notes to come through in a big way. Finishing with lager crispness and a long-lasting bitter hop bite, this IPL makes a great accompaniment to pizza, burgers, and summertime grilling. Cheers!

The Baderbräu brand began life in 1988 as a Bohemian-style pilsner created by Illinois’s Pavichevich Brewing Company. After Pavichevich went under in 1997, production of Baderbräu was taken over by Goose Island. Unfortunately for fans of the beer, Goose Island stopped making it in 2002.

Having been a big fan of Baderbräu during his homebrewing college days in Chicago, Rob Sama took an interest in the defunct brand around 2010, initially aiming just to put up a fan page on the internet. But, after discovering the trademark had recently lapsed, he snatched it up and then one thing led to another – ultimately culminating in him re-launching the beer under the new Baderbräu Brewing Company name in 2012, with a phoenix as a highly appropriate logo. And this was not just some new recipe that bore the original name; the beer was faithfully recreated with the help of the original brewmaster, Douglas Babcook (a former SVP of Brewing at Stroh’s), who provided the original recipe as well as the nearly extinct original yeast strain.

Baderbräu now brews several year-round and seasonal beers. Their focus is the production of traditional lagers and wheat beers, going as far as utilizing the more laborious, but authentically German, decoction mashing technique. For more information about the brewery, their taproom and tours, call 312-890-2728 or visit www.baderbrau.com.