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Beer Reviews

Corolla

America’s Brewing Company
Aurora, IL
USA
http://www.walterpaytonsroundhouse.com/content/5.html

Style: Lager
ABV: 5.9%

Jill’s Rating:
one beerone beerone beerone beerone beer   (Drinkable, but flawed)


Comments:
America’s Brewing Company describes their Corolla beer as “A Fine Handcrafted Mexican Style Lager.” That’s all fine and good, but their web site says this beer should remind you of Corona, a beer I consider neither fine, nor handcrafted.

However, this is not a Corona-style beer. This is more of a Vienna lager-style that’s apparently become popular in Mexico. I could tell on the pour alone, because it didn’t pour out as a piss yellow; it was a dark amber with reddish tones. It was cloudy, not watery, and the small head left a lot of lacing on the glass.

The nose was pretty strong, a heady scent of hops and malt. On the taste I got a zesty, slightly bitter feel in the front of my mouth that was also slightly watery and had a touch of lousy to it. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. On one hand, I liked the zestiness that hit the upper palate at the first sip, and then again at the back of the mouth as it slid into my throat. I definitely wouldn’t add a lime, as recommended (though if you heard Eddie Glick rant about adding garnishes to beer, you’d never even mention that in the first place), and I really wondered if you needed food to enhance the flavor of the beer.

Overall though, the zest is what makes this beer just slightly above a one mug rating. That flavor adds some character to the beer and makes it drinkable.

Reviewed by Jill Jaracz on October 1, 2008.
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