Gold Lion Beer Discovered in Poland

On Monday 27 June 2016 UK Craft Beer was in Poland desperately looking for some good beer. First stop was the locally mass-produced Zywiec, which was terrible but more about that later.  

I did find a gem of a pale lager in Gdansk, Poland and who said all lagers are boring? This one is a work of art. Złote Lwy (Gold Lion) is a remarkable beer made by the family owned Browar Amber, in what they describe as a small to medium sized brewery. 

This beer is golden honey in colour (a bit darker than expected for a 'pale' lager), slightly sweet and with a rich texture and mouth feel. It roars with character and sports a stable head (while others in Europe may appear to be losing theirs). The producer claims a traditional brewing method - we'd like to know more about what this means. It was tempting to think the brewer used wheat (judging by the mane of foam) but the producer claims it is made "solely from barley malt, hop, and Oligocene water." Bold reference to geographically ancient water reserves.

The Polish mass-produced Zywiec was tasted to establish a baseline rather than expecting anything crafty. This mainstream pale lager is produced by a mega producer (one of the Big Four) in massive volumes and it is not interesting at all. It has a bit of a yeasty smell and taste and practically nothing on the hops side to finish it off. Its bland and nothing like a craft beer.