KC Bier Company - Helles Lager

Helles (meaning “bright” or “pale”) lagers are among the most important and popular in the pantheon of German lager styles. A bit fuller and rounder on the palate than most German pilsners, with a bit more of a restrained hop presence, they deliver artful and flavorful balance in a clean and crisp package. KC Bier’s Helles presents a radiant golden hue with good clarity and a prominent head of bright foam. On the nose, we get exactly the kind of aforementioned balance we’re looking for in this style. We picked up earthy and spicy-herbal noble hop notes overlaid upon a bed of biscuit-like malty tones. Look for that maltiness to form a robust and super tasty core in the flavor too, with lots of lightly toasted bready notes accompanied by a hint of honey that adds an impression of roundness without being particularly sweet. The hops jump out prominently too, delivering a quenching herbal dryness that runs through to the finish and leaves us refreshed and ready for our next sip. Awarded a 94 rating and a spot among Beer Connoisseur’s Top 100 Beers of 2018, this helles lager is a delight all on its own on a warm day, but also makes an excellent pairing with a wide array of foods. Bready and breaded dishes like turkey pie, tempura, schnitzel, pizza, and fried chicken sound great to us, as does almost anything off the grill, like burgers, pork chops, or shrimp skewers. Cheers!

In the 1800s, German immigrants brought their brewing traditions to America, and pale lagers soon became dominant in the U.S., much as in Europe at that time, as well. Sadly, industrialized “macro-brewing” led to the cheapening of those styles, turning those lagers into a shadow of what real German beer is actually like. When the American craft beer renaissance began in earnest in the 1980s, brewers focused on styles less familiar to American audiences, typically British and Belgian ale styles, while authentic German beers, typically lagers, were often ignored.

KC Bier’s founder, Steve Holle, set out to change that. The great-grandson of German immigrants, he developed an appreciation for German beer from his father and from time spent studying in Hamburg. He became a highly experienced homebrewer, a beer writer with numerous articles and books to his name, and a GABF beer judge. His brewing education includes studies at Munich’s Doemens Brewing Academy.

In 2014, Holle opened KC Bier with his friend and Bavarian native, Jürgen Hager, as well as Karlton Graham, a German-trained Kansas City homebrewer whose education includes Chicago’s famed Siebel Institute and a stint at Doemens. KC Bier’s motto is “We put the i back in bier,” and their focus on and success with traditional German-style “bier” certainly attests to this. The brewery crafts an array of German specialties using malts from a 160-year-old family-owned company in Bavaria; yeast from the famed Andechs monastery & brewery in Bavaria, which has been brewing for over 500 years; and hops grown on a 600-year-old farm in Bavaria’s Hallertau Valley. For more info about the brewery and their Bierhalle and Biergarten, visit kcbier.com.