Glacier Brewing Co.
Polson, MT
Available: MT
This beer was made in honor of the mighty bears of Glacier National Park. The brewery is located on the Flathead Reservation in the town of Polson, MT, on the southern shores of Flathead Lake.
ABV: 5.6
ABW: 4.5
Color: 5.9
Bitterness: 20
Original gravity: 1053
This Grizzly is really a teddy bear. Soft notes of bread and cereal greet the nose along with hints of apple and a slight mineral base. Spiced apple mingles with a bready backbone and slightly grassy, lemony flourishes. Glacier calls this beer a kölsch, but it “bears” only a slight resemblance—despite drinkability—to the Cologne originals, from its darker hue to its slightly heavier malt profile. Still, it’s a nice, thirst-quenching beer that one could enjoy a few of in a sitting and would go well with a host of different foods.
The hallmark of a good kölsch is restraint. It will welcome you with a pleasant sparkle, tease you with fruit and flower notes and leave you refreshed but not overwhelmed by big flavors. Glacier’s take on the style hits the spot in many ways but has a more pronounced malt profile than most examples. Smooth, mellow, caramel notes provide the main feature, with the gentle hops and their distant citrus flavors just freshening things up. There’s more caramel and a firmer hold from the hops in the dry finish. A nice beer, if you like things in moderation.
Lisa Morrison, aka The Beer Goddess, writes about beer whenever she can and also gets to talk about it on a weekly radio show in her hometown of Portland, OR.
Author of the Good Bottled Beer Guide and The Book of Beer Knowledge, Jeff Evans is an eight-time editor of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and one of Britain's best-known beer writers.
