Heavy Seas Small Craft Warning

Clipper City Brewery – Baltimore, Md.

Style: Imperial pilsner

Serving temperature: 46Ë?F

Alcohol content: 7.25% abv

            Labeled with cartoon pirates facing various calamities, Heavy Seas beers at first seem like a gimmick that be more at home on a breakfast cereal box. But a full taste of each variety reveals a serious, well-crafted robust version of a classic style that, in the words of brewery, is “extrAARGHdinary.” All are bottle-conditioned and strong, ranging from 7 percent to 10 percent alcohol by volume.

            Small Craft Warning, available all year, is a self-described “uber pils,” one of the so-called imperial pilsners that first emerged around 1999. At first, the style seems a contradiction of terms; a classic pilsner, after all, is delicate – the opposite of “uber.”

But this unique hybrid somehow goes both light and heavy at once: It is clear and golden with a surprisingly tidy body, and, yet, its ample sweet German malt and bitter Saaz hops suggest a far weightier presence with considerable depth and complexity.

A classic bubbly golden pilsner body radiates the sweet aroma of malt and spicy hops. Bready malt on the first sip evolves into a huge candy-like flavor that is surprisingly well-balanced by lightly spiced hops. The finish is sweet, chewy, yet clean.

-Joe Sixpack