Poured at 6°C from a 355ml can into a Teku. Brilliantly clear pale gold, carbonation fine enough to be almost invisible.
The pils / vienna bill carries the structure and Tettnang does the seasoning. At 4.6% and 20 IBU it sits where the style should, and Henderson Brewing have resisted the urge to push it anywhere else.
Handsome in the glass, unremarkable on the tongue. There is no flaw to point at, just an absence of anything that would make you order a second.
The whole point of a beer at 4.6% is the second and third glass, and this survives both. There is no cloying edge, no fatigue in the finish, and the hop character stays legible right through. That is harder to achieve than a big beer, and it gets a fraction of the credit.
Getting flavour into a beer this light is the hardest trick in brewing, and there is nowhere to hide when it fails. This does not fail.
This is a perfectly competent beer with nothing much to say for itself, and there is no shame in that. At $4.00 / 473ml it is a reasonable trade. Whether you would choose it over the two better things beside it on the shelf is a different question.
Bought at Henderson Taproom (in stock at the time of writing). Buy the four-pack. One is never the answer with helles.
Not a beer to seek out, but not one to send back either.
