Lucky Bucket - Pre-Prohibition Style Lager

Tonight I'm going to sit down for a session brew from Lucky Bucket Brewing, based in La Vista, Nebraska.  You may remember my recent post of their Lucky Bucket IPA, which was our first foray into this brewery's arsenal, and a very nice brew.  The Pre-Prohibition Style Lager is Lucky Bucket's flagship brew - the goal is to bring back the tasty, flavorful lagers that were available before that foul prohibition period.  This beer is built for the session...a light, flavorful, lower alcohol beer that you can sit down and drink 1 or 2 (or 4), and not fall over when you're walking out of the bar.  This lager is 4.5% alcohol, and dry-hopped with West Coast hops, bringing it to 20 IBUs.

The brew comes in a short 12oz bottle with a screw cap...this always worries me a little bit, you tend to see more skunked bottles of beer when screw caps are involved.  The beer is a clear, golden yellow color with a slim layer of of white foam.  The aroma is malty, bready, maybe a little bit of lemon pine-sol.  Not a whole lot beyond that.  The taste starts off sweet and malty with corn and cereal.  A touch of dry hops come through to help balance out the malts, doesn't add much flavor, but brings a little bitterness into the picture.  The finish, well, there's some adjunct in there.  Definitely some budweiser corn-rice flavors that are a little off-putting.  The mouthfeel is light, with a hefty amount of crisp carbonation.

Overall Rating:  I appreciate the intention of Lucky Bucket with this brew - unfortunately I don't think they achieved their goal of making a really good session brew.  This was an average lager, easy drinking, refreshing, but still exhibiting some of those adjunct off-flavors that you find in the big corporate rice-waters.  C+