ASTORIA, Ore. — Buoy Beer Company continues their rotating 12 oz. can series with 6-packs of Dunkel Lager, the final feature in the 2019 line-up. Dunkel Lager is an original recipe from Buoy Beer’s founding brewer, Dan Hamilton. It has become a core beer for the company and is available in draft year-round. A version of Buoy’s Dunkel Lager has been brewed since 1981, when Dan was an amateur brewer and experimental beer drinker.
“It was the ’80s,” Dan says. “We had parties where all the attendees had to wear some sort of special hat and bring a 6-pack of ‘interesting’ beer to be served from an ice block-filled kiddie pool. We tried all kinds of beers and the ones that stuck with us were really clean, tight, balanced, and perfectly conditioned. Wowzers I thought, gimme more of that.”
Buoy Beer’s head brewer Kevin Shaw and his staff took Dan’s popular homebrew recipe and professionally adapted it. It became a high-quality production beer brewed with German malts and finished with traditional cellaring & conditioning practices which include stacked horizontal lagering tanks. Inspired by the original beer style of Bavarian villages, the Dunkel Lager yields flavors of chocolate, toffee, caramel, and freshly baked bread that are perfect for sipping from a cozy pint in our own riverside village. A gentle kiss of hops brings a nice, crisp finish to this smooth, complex lager with a 5.5% ABV. Awards for the Dunkel Lager include Best of Show in the 1992 Big Fresno Fair Home Brew Festival and Buoy Beer’s first GABF award, a silver medal in 2014.
“Dunkel is an anytime beer for most of the people I talk to,” says Jessyka Dart-Mclean, Buoy’s Marketing Manager. “It’s light, crisp, and clean, so it’s suitable for sunny backyard hang-outs. But it’s ideal for PNW fall days when you notice the sun setting a little earlier than yesterday and you’re sitting in your backyard filled with multicolored leaves, wearing your winter flannel.” Dunkel Lager will be available in 6-packs of 12 oz. cans distributed in Oregon and SW Washington. Look for the cans everywhere you bought Buoy Helles Lager and Hoppy Blonde during this year’s can series.
About Buoy Beer Company
Astoria, OR overlooks the meeting of one of the West’s most relentless rivers and the wilderness of an entire ocean – and it’s here that Buoy Beer Company brews its beer. With balance always a priority, we focus on traditional lagers and NW ales to savor after a hard day’s work and to share with friends.