Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week": Great Lakes Nosferatu

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Oct 25, 2006 4:00PM

Continuing on our Halloween theme for "BotW", we turn our eyes east to the Cleveland-based Great Lakes Brewing Company. The folks at Great Lakes take great pride in being from Cleveland and knowing the history of Northeast Ohio, having named their beers after shipwrecks immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot, Prohibition-era G-men, and rivers so polluted they catch fire. Either that, or they have a very self-deprecating sense of humor, which we imagine one needs if he's calling Cleveland home. So far, they've resisted the urge to name a beer after Drew Carey, which also shows they have good taste.

Someone at Great Lakes must have a love of German expressionist cinema (yay), vampires (yay!), Halloween (YAY!!), or all three (HOT DOG!!). What other reason to name a beer "Nosferatu?" If you're going to name a beer after an iconic vampire, you better make sure it's a red ale. Judging from the picture, Nosferatu delivers the goods on that front. This is a hoppy beer that leaves a bitterness in the back of your mouth long after you're done drinking it, like fading memories of the life one lived before he became one of the undead. For such a hoppy beer, Nosferatu has a nice balance with malts. It's a sweet beer, with caramel and citrus prominent on the palate. As the beer warms to ambient temperature, you start to pick up some pleasant bread flavors from the yeast.

Nosferatu is available in both bottle and draft. Draft is the way to go with this, especially if it's slow-poured. Pouring it with a little bit of foam and leaving it to settle really opens up this beer's aromas to your nose. The folks at Hackney's Printers' Row (where the picture was taken) pour a great pint of Nosferatu. We could sit at their dark, polished bar for hours, sampling their drafts. Great Lakes Nosferatu is a good beer to start with, and that's why it's Chicagoist's "beer of the week."