Buoy Beer Adds Dunkel Lager to its Rotating 12oz Can Series

Buoy Beer continues with its rotating 12oz can series with new 6-packs of Dunkel Lager. This will be the final beer released in the brewery’s 2019 rotating series as it continues to be a popular beer that’s available on draft year-round.

Prior to opening Buoy Beer, Dan Hamilton, Buoy’s original brewmaster, had brewed this recipe of Dunkel Lager since 1981, when he was an amateur brewer and experimental beer drinker.

“It was the ’80s,” Dan said in a statement. “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.”

Since this time, Buoy Beer’s head brewer Kevin Shaw and his staff has taken Dan’s popular homebrew recipe and professionally adapted it to scale. It became a high-quality production beer brewed with German malts and finished with traditional cellaring and conditioning practices which include stacked horizontal lagering tanks.

Dan was inspired to brew this Dunkel Lager from the original beer style of Bavarian villages. The result is a dark lager that is full of flavors of chocolate, toffee, caramel, and freshly baked bread that are perfect for sipping from a cozy pint. 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, in a statement. “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.”

Buoy’s Dunkel Lager will be available in 6-pack, 12oz cans distributed in Oregon and Southwest Washington.