Nirvana Bavarian Helles Lager

If you like a lager that tends more towards the malt than the hop, Nirvana’s Bavarian Helles  lager might well be for you. We thought it didn’t quite nail its “helles” promise – the colour a shade too gold, the roasted barley malt too dominant, making this neither light nor bright but instead quite a heavy, rounded lager in the mouth, with the hop very much a secondary flavour struggling to get its sharpness through the overall sweetness. For the determined, a good swish around the gums does release some nice tropical flavours but, even then, the malt still dominated. If that’s your thing, then great – after all, it did bag a bronze at the World Beer Awards. But for us, while it is a pleasant enough beer, this one misses the target.