One New York Life

Toasted Lager
Brewed By: Blue Point Brewing
Brewed In: Patchogue, NY (Long Island)
ABV: 5.3%
Awards: 2006 World Beer Cup – American-Style Amber Lager

What They Say: Blue Point Brewing’s award-winning Toasted Lager is our flagship product. Copper in color this brew is made from six different malts including: English Pale, Crystal, Munich, Carapils, Wheat and Belgian Caravienna. Toasted Lager displays a balanced flavor of malt and hop which makes for easy drinking. Special lager yeast is used to produce that long lasting, smooth finish. The “toasted” part of the name refers to our direct-fire brew kettle’s hot flames that impart a toasted flavor to our most popular microbrew.

Website: As mentioned here, it’s pretty awful. With the added bonus now of having their entire index page being a huge billboard talking about a festival you can’t go to with a little tiny link going to their actual website.

Why I Picked It: I don’t remember, exactly. I believe a friend of mine recommended it at a happy hour and I tried it. It was quite some time ago now.

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Presentation (5): One good thing about the Blue Point website, I can just give you full-on picture of their presentation. I’ll admit to being a whore for the Blue Point “shield” logo with the lighthouse in the background. You can’t really see it in the picture, but the lighthouse is also on the cap. They lose a point for the very simple label design on the bottle because, well, I have to be fair. It’s not as cool or fun as the Oktoberfest logo.4

Originality (5): American ales are pretty simple. They generally get undeserved negativity because the current crop of beer snobs like complex things that taste like anything else other than beer. Blue Point gets around this by adding a bunch of extra malts and toasting them to make a beer that seems more complex than it is. Full points for that.5

Taste (10): The twist on this basic American amber is that the malts are kettle-toasted. The difference is noticeable. The toasting gives the basic American amber a richer, heartier flavor that’s balanced with whatever they use for sweetness. Just that touch of sweetness keeps this beer from being too bitter. It also throws a whole new twist on American ale and really makes Blue Point’s unique. 10

Body (10): It pours a dark amber with a small white head. The beer is tremendously smooth with a mild finish. The carbonation is perfect for the flavor — heavy enough to fit the American ale style but no so much that it blows away the complexity of the extra malts. It just has a healthy look and feel that I haven’t seen duplicated in any other American ale anywhere. It’s perfect for the style and the flavors. 10

Efficiency (10): I’m hamstrung by my own rules here. I’d like to give this beer full points for efficiency. Toasted Lager is Blue Point’s standard offering, so it’s priced on the entry level of microbrews. Combined with a 5.3 ABV, it’s a great balance of price and ABV. It’s also stronger than your standard American and has a great flavor that isn’t heavy enough to fill you up. To borrow a popular term, it just has a great drinkability with a relatively high ABV. But, since it’s not an Ice beer and 5.5 or better, I can’t do it. I can however, introduce fractions. 9.5

Versatility (10): It’s a good bar beer because three drafts would make you quite happy over a three hour period and a good home beer because six would be enough to enjoy. It’s good in almost any situation. However, the flavor and body are heavy enough that six would absolutely be enough in any situation, though, thus hurting its versatility. 8

Final Grade: 46.5 (of 50) – Awesome beer.

Related posts:

• Friday Beer Snob: Blue Point Winter Ale
• Friday Beer Snob: Saranac Adirondack Trail Mix Series – Adirondack Lager
• Friday Beer Snob: Tom’s Top Ten Series — Blue Point Blueberry Ale
• Friday Beer Snob – 12 Beers Of Winter 2008 Series: Saranac Season’s Best Nut Brown Lager
• Friday Beer Snob: Blue Point – Oktoberfest