There has been a trend over recent years to turn the descriptions “sessionable” and “refreshing” into a dog whistle call to those after bland and characterless beers designed simply to be drunk thoughtlessly and in great quantity. Whether that’s a bad thing really depends on how you view beer – that is whether you consider flavour or alcohol content to be beer's finest quality.
With summer around the corner this trend has continued with a wave of beers crashing down upon us that has left us awash in dross. So far we have had the nothingness that is XXXX Summer Bright Lager, the wretched VB Raw and the disappointingly plain Coopers 62 not-quite-Pilsner. So it was with great trepidation that I ventured along to the launch of Matilda Bay’s new offering, a dry Munich-style lager. “Dry” can be another of those euphemisms for blandness but with Matilda Bay’s pedigree in bringing out interesting beers across a wide range of styles I was hopeful. And I wasn’t disappointed.
With much Oktoberfest fanfare at the Matilda Bay Garage, Big Helga was unveiled. While easy-drinking and approachable are two adjectives that can be used to describe her, so are flavoursome, complex and generous. It is a light lager and not with the biscuity malt character of some Oktoberfest lagers, but she comes with sweet malt profile with the "dry" coming from a balanced hop character that spreads across the palate leaving a dry mouthfeel. While this sounds like the claims made by many of the new beers on offer, at 20 IBUs Helga is almost three times as bitter as the offering from XXXX. However the bitterness isn’t overt, nor the sweetness cloying.
Helga is deceptively complex for a lightish lager and I agree with brewer Scott Vincent that it’s a beer that won’t overwhelm or frighten the average lager drinker but can still reward the genuine beer lover. It’s a rare occasion that I spend a day happily drinking the same beer - or at least the same style of beer - but having done that yesterday I can say that Helga keeps on giving. There's plenty there to keep you going one with and that seemed to be the view of most there. It’s not a great beer or an earth shaker, but it is a clever beer. In a perfect world, this is the type of beer that would be considered “sessional” and “refreshing”.
It will be very interesting to see whether it finds a market – it deserves to. At the moment Helga is on tap at select venues and will be available in bottles by February.
Disclaimer – In the interests of full disclosure, I was a guest of Matilda Bay in Melbourne and they are very generous hosts ensuring that we all enjoyed a thoroughly entertaining day of free food and entertainment – not to mention beer and the company of a statuesque 6’ 2” blonde beer maiden named Helga...all of which tends to flavour one’s perception of a beer. Feel free to take that into account when you consider the above review.