Beer Review: Samuel Smith's Organic Lager

Back in my college days I admit I indulged in a few tasty and not-so-tasty beverages. I wasn't in a fraternity nor was I an alcoholic, but there were certain weekends where I was wide-eyed and would binge drink with my friends with anything that was barely labeled "beer". When I joined the Air Force, I still had a few beers but I got a little choosier. I decided to forgo the "I'll drink anything if it's free" attitude and started only having Killian's Red or Shiner Bock.

After I had kids and spent some time in Europe, I drank a whole lot less and rarely ventured into anything that wasn't dark or at least had some flavor and character besides "great taste/less filling." I rarely have anything alcoholic because I'm trying to stay in shape. If I was going to have a beverage, it was going to be a meaningful one and drank with care and for taste and didn't give me horrible gas in the mornings.

And now that I'm in California, I've found such a beverage, and it's an enviro-friendly one at that: Samuel Smith's Organic Lager.

Samuel Smith's Organic Lager comes from an English, independent brewer of the same name. The original brewery in Yorkshire, England, is one of the few indie beer makers left in the country. In their beer line, the Samuel Smith Company uses water from a well that was dug over 200 years ago; they also use hand-weighed hops and an ancient strain of yeast that dates back to when the brewery first opened.

Samuel Smith's Organic Lager is one of their many beers that have been awarded numerous times over the years, especially after the company gained wide distribution from Merchant du Vin in 1978. And green people love them. 10 of their beers are actually registered and favored by the Vegan Society.

So what exactly makes Samuel Smith's Organic Lager organic? For one, no added chemicals were used to process the beer. In other words, no pesticides or special chemical treatment was added to the hops or process. The end result for the Organic Lager is, in my taste buds, a masterpiece.

The first thing you notice is the smell. You can smell the alcohol, but it easily is in the background of that nutty aroma. With normal beers like Coors or Bud Light you can open a can or bottle and get immediately hit with that tainted water scent. Samuel Smiths' Lager does not have that scent. It's almost like sniffing a good, homemade loaf of bread.

Next comes that ever-smooth taste. The lager to me seemed barely carbonated but not flat, giving it even more substance. I never had the urge to belch and really enjoyed the richness of each sip. It took me an hour to drink a pint because I didn't want to waste the flavor.

Finally, the aftermath. Samuel Smith's Organic Lager has no aftertaste at all and in the morning I didn't have that extra-gassy feeling of beer indulgence. Nor did I feel like the lager had much of an alcoholic effect beyond that of a glass of red wine.

I would happily recommend Samuel Smith's Organic Lager with some pork chops or some grilled fish. It's also a great, relaxing beverage to have on a Saturday night when the kids are in bed and you want to spend some movie time with the wife. Maybe I've lived here in California too long, but organic beer may now be the only beer I ever drink.